In Defense of the Blond Beauty Queen
Miss Teen South Carolina, Lauren Caitlin Upton, seems to be the internet joke of the week for her rambling, incoherent response to the token political question lobbed at contestants in this weekend’s beauty pageant. The blond beauty queen was asked to account for why, according to “recent polls,” one-fifth of Americans can’t locate their country on a world map.
For the sake of posterity, here is the transcript of her response, which I had already read on two websites and the video of which was forwarded to me by five different people before I finished my morning cup of Irish Breakfast tea:
“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some… people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our, ah, education like such as in South Africa, and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uh, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., or should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.”
Now, if the statistic is correct (and I would like that verified, comrades) then the odds are that at least nine of the other contestants would have fared just as poorly as Miss Teen South Carolina in naming a bunch of countries other than the U.S., which is to say nothing of the audience. Call me elitist, but I wager the kind of people who would spend their Friday night watching a sexless teenage beauty contest aren’t exactly our best and brightest. Could they find the U.S.A., or Iraq, South Africa or even one Asian country on a world map? And yet a question meant to highlight the collective stupidity of our nation was twisted into an easy “dumb blond joke.”
In Miss Teen South Carolina’s defense, what the hell would have been an appropriate response to this question? I mean, what would have been an appropriate response in the “I would wish for world peace, I believe the children are our future” world of beauty contests? Was she supposed to decry a property tax system of funding local school districts that produces woeful inequality between cities and suburbs? Denounce the high cost of tuition that leaves college out of reach for too many? Or was she supposed to crinkle up her nose, look slightly distressed and coo something about inspirational teachers?
I like to imagine an alternative scenario in which Ms. Upton really took the issue head-on:
I personally believe that Americans (or, I should say, U.S. Americans because our fellow North Americans in Canada are a bit more globally savvy) are unable to find our nation on a world map because of a conspiracy between our media and our government to keep us blissfully unaware of the world outside of our big screen high definition TVs, sport utility vehicles and McMansions, except when there’s a country that’s a “problem” that we have to “fix” or “help,” like such as Iraq or some of the Asian countries. If we knew, for example, that half the world’s population–three billion people!–live on less than two dollars a day while the 20% of us in the developed nations consume 86% of the world’s goods, well, we might not be so silent or complicit in the imperialist agenda of our government which supports our unsustainable lifestyle.
Something tells me if the blond beauty queen gave a response like that it would still be fodder for morning chat and gossip, albeit with a far different spin.
It’s the Hair, Not the Ho
Not to belabor the point, but Barbara Ehrenreich doesn’t get it. Writing in the Nation (online edition), she declares, “Of course it’s the ho, not the hair, part of Imus’s comment that hurts.” Actually, it is the hair that hurts.
Once again, Barbara can’t see past her white, middle class nose to define an issue for what it is. In this case, it’s a blatant case of racism as Imus was contrasting the looks of the Rutgers players with the cute, blonde Lady Volunteers. You don’t have to be black to know how culturally sensitive hair is. Just look at the beauty products that are advertised to black women – the hair relaxers, the weaves, the weird blonde dye – all designed to satisfy white standards of beauty. Look at the handful of books and poems by black artists that we are assigned in high school (out of some token notion of diversity, so that we can look past our white noses). There’s Langston Hughes’ “high yaller” girl. There’s Lorraine Hansberry’s Beneatha Younger, whose brother scorns the afro that she grows. There’s Toni Morrison’s Soaphead Church, who prizes his mixed blood and “good hair” and takes pity on an “ugly” (and delusional) black girl who wants to look more white.
Hell, just take that term “good hair.” Google it and you will see the tortured relationship that black women have with their natural kinky hair. You’ll find salons and hair products to get rid of the nappiness. You’ll find African-American chick-lit about “moving on up.” You’ll find websites dedicated to empowering black women. Somewhere along the way, you’ll find a far more articulate essay on this subject by Malena Amusa on hair weaves and black women’s self image.
The fact that Imus could be so casually derogatory about something so sensitive to black people is what makes his remarks so offensive. It’s the racism that gave this controversy legs.
Pride of the Nappy-Headed Hoes
There was an enormous protest today on the traditional women’s college campus of Rutgers University over Don Imus. Imus, of course, disparaged the University’s second place NCAA women’s basketball team in crudely racist and demeaning terms about two weeks ago. The controversy, which has raged across the country and which threatens Imus’ career, started out with very little notice here: a “dart” to Imus in the Daily Targum newspaper’s traditional “Darts and Laurels” Friday editorial. Today’s rally, however, seemed to attract the majority of the student body of Cook and Douglas Colleges, and cleared out the staff from most of the offices.
The women’s basketball team’s success in the Final Four tournament united the women and the bleeding hearts of Rutgers University in a way that the comparable success of the school’s football team – which came at the expense of budget cuts to academic programs and less popular sports – never could. Such feminist support was underscored by the signs that protesters carried, which read “Rutgers Women R Strong Women” (Imus described the team as “rough-looking” tattooed women and “nappy-headed hoes” and expressed a preference for the “cute” Lady Volunteers of Tennessee). But Imus’ racism – no matter how much he insists he is a “good person” – is clear and unmistakable. Kinky hair and eurocentric standards of beauty are enormously sensitive topics and the rooting for “white” over “black” is the very definition of racism. And yet, this racism bubbled up and spilled forth so effortlessly, coming from the same dark pit (more like a shallow ditch) as Michael “Kramer” Richards’ “joke” about lynching niggers who dare to talk through his set, or as your crazy uncle’s “jokes” about black moms and velcro.
I’m inclined to agree with the protesters (most famously Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson) who complain that Imus’ apology rings hollow, and call for his termination. Our media and politics have coarsened to such a point that a great number of shock jocks and pundits profit by saying outrageously insulting and offensive things, and if any of them result in a controversy that proves dangerous to their careers, they quickly apologize and claim it was a joke. But what was the joke here? That Don Imus doesn’t really think the Lady Volunteers were cute? That the Rutgers Scarlet Knights are actually blonde, light-skinned and unmarked by tattoos?
There was no joke. Just mean-spirited taunting, the kind that is casually tossed around in talk media. Examples should be made. Don Imus made the poor choice to elect himself to serve as that example.
The Land Where It’s Never Christmas
The Guardian of London has a heart-warming seasonal story about a small town called North Pole in Alaska, where it’s Christmas 365 days a year and all the town’s residents (including the school children) answer “letters to Santa” that come in from around the world. Last spring, a group of about a dozen of North Pole’s sixth graders were caught “making a list and checking it twice.” Their Columbine-style massacre plot was narrowly thwarted. Perhaps the incessant holiday “cheer” drove them to it, writer Jon Ronson wonders?
I was thinking about North Pole while doing some grocery shopping this morning in Kew Gardens, the Land Where It’s Never Christmas. All the shops are open as normal. Perhaps they’ll close an hour early for the big day in deference to the rest of society. There are no Santas around, the streetlights are plain and unadorned and almost no houses are decorated. It’s bliss. This is a less-advertised perk of living in a majority Jewish neighborhood (and, being Queens, those who aren’t Jewish are Hindu, Sikh, Taoist, Buddhist and Stewardess). Sure, it’s hell to find parking on a Friday night, but you won’t be driven bonkers by the whole “X-Mas Atmos.”
Serving on my co-op’s board, it has come to my attention that my apartment has probably doubled in value in the last three years. If we promote this whole “No Christmas” thing the way that North Pole promotes its “Year-round Christmas” thing, we could probably redouble our home values with all the Scrooges beating a path to our doors. But if I ever do sell, someone please remind me of this post. Just start singing “Jingle Bells,” and my Pavlovian response will kick in: “Never leave Kew Gardens.”