Racial Segregation in Beauty PageantsThe United States of America supposedly understands resilience and supports equality. Apparently, the United States of America is committed to progress on racial discrimination and understands, accepts and respects all races. But in reality we are not united with all races; therefore we constitute only America, not the United States of America. President Barack Obama states: “...there is no such thing as a black America and a white America, a Latin America and an Asian America, but there is the United States of America” (Obama). To evolve into the United States of America, rather than a disembodied one, we must act as the unfettered, free-willed, affirmative country we say we are. The history of beauty pageants, such as Miss America, is a testament to America's ignorance of other races in our country. Racial segregation in the Miss America pageant can be seen as early as 1945, when Bess Myerson was crowned. As a Russian Jew, Myerson's ethnicity provoked a painful backlash the year she won the pageant. Many insisted that Myerson transpose his name to one that didn't sound Jewish at all. Myerson adamantly refused to do so, which led to more negative comments regarding his victory. It wasn't until 1984 that America once again had a chance to resent its winners of pageantry. Vanessa Williams was crowned the first African-American Miss America. Unsurprisingly, American opinions have still made no progress four decades later and Williams has experienced controversy with death threats and hate mail. Now, in the 21st century, Indian-born Nina Davuluri, otherwise known as Miss America 2014, is treated no differently. To take home the crown in the Miss America pageant, a basic rule states that... paper...... believe in equality, but American citizens can still see with shame that we are not yet a modern country with beliefs modern. Miss America is a female corps that aims to represent the best American values ​​to project onto the nation's hopes and dreams. Throughout the pageant's history, the female body has typically been slim, attractive, and almost always white. We should feel humiliated and remorseful that our ideal Miss America is still a blonde, blue-eyed girl. We should feel embarrassed that we can't accept a beautiful, intelligent woman with inspiring goals who breaks barriers to teach us cultural competence. It's a blessing for America to have such a good girl representing it, even if we don't deserve it. If we cannot accept Nina as our next Miss America, then Nina deserves this platform to raise awareness about racial stereotypes.