There She Is . . . Miss America!

For all the organizers protestations to the contrary, the Miss America pageant is still a beauty pageant.  Yes, I know, they conduct extensive interviews with the contestants.  Yes I know they have to have a talent they can demonstrate (though not archery we discovered this year.)  Yes, it's true, many if not most of the young women are actually very accomplished in a variety of ways, including academically.  This year's runner-up, for instance, already has both a Bachelor's and  Master's degree--from Stanford in fact.  But still, they march around in bikinis and evening gowns, and backstage talk about the importance of hairspray and, I couldn't believe it, butt glue.  I guess that holds the aforementioned bikinis in place. 

Obviously there are some valid feminist concerns about the pageant, for in some ways it does indeed seem to commodify women.  But the brouhaha about this year's winner, a bright, charming, talented and beautiful young woman of Indian descent, once again reminds us that many Americans are still bogged down in racist views. 

Nina Davulri, the new Miss America, is hoping to go to medical school.  She plans on using her $50,000 scholarship to help make that dream a reality.  I don't know enough about her academic history to know if she will be accepted into med school.  I do know that the admissions process for such schools is in many ways even more rigorous than the series of pageants one goes through on the way to being crowned Miss America. 

Here's what I hope.  I hope that she does make it into medical school.  I hope she gets licensed to practice.  I hope she becomes a super doctor and serves humanity in such a noble fashion.  That will ultimately show those who are trashing her because of  her ethnic background that America can be a place where, in Martin Luther King's words, people are "not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."