This past Sunday evening, my husband and I caught the last hour of the yearly Miss America pageant. While I admit that I have always enjoyed watching the pretty girls present their beauty and talent on t.v., I am honestly not a huge fan of pageantry. My mother can witness this for me because when I was little, I pitched a fit in my first beauty pageant, simply because I did not like it. I did attempt a few additional beauty pageants in the years to follow that, but I mostly did it to enjoy getting dressed up with my friends that were doing them at that time period. Honestly speaking, if it had not been for a couple of the friends, I would not have even entered the pageants. Later on, I even have had the opportunity to assist a couple of my friends with some local pageants by serving as a judge for make-up and talent. I enjoyed being on that side of stage a lot more than being on the stage. Of course, that has been some years back. ;-) Now that I have a little girl of my own, we have chosen to not force her when it comes to pageantry. I chose not to run out there and put her in the baby beauty pageants and I did not put her in them when she was still in the toddler age, either - mainly, I am just not a big fan of the competitive beauty pageants and I have not wanted her to develop the mindset at an early age that beauty pageants are the only source of beauty within a person. To the parents that have chosen to go this route, please take no offense to this. Honestly, I love to see those precious little babies all dressed up and I respect any mama's decision that decides to pursue this path with their little girl. "To each his own." ;-)
As far as beauty pageants today and my daughter, we allow her to enroll in the pageant that is held yearly at her school. She looks forward to it each year and she absolutely loves getting dressed up and being with her friends. She calls it, "Her Day As A Princess" and that is how we look at it. Currently, the pageant that is held at her school has an awarding concept that we think is fitting for girls in the elementary grades. Every little girl leaves with a princess crown or some type of reward. Then, the judges award the girls in Top 10 and then Top 5. Those girls are given a special crown that looks very similar to the girls that received the princess crowns. All of these little girls leave with a type of crown and usually seem to feel like a fairy princess. They feel worthy, their self-esteem is lifted, and they get to make sweet memories with their peers from school that will last a life-time. We have no objection to our daughter participating in this type of pageant. As far as being in any other type of pageants, like I previously stated, our daughter has not participated in them. When our daughter gets older, if she wants to further pursue pageantry, we will consider it. But, for now, we are enjoying our little girl just as she is - a little girl. There will be plenty of days where she will be stressing about her looks as we are headed for those pre-teen and teen years. But, before we hit that state, I want my little girl to understand the meaning of true beauty being within a person and not what is on the outside. I want her to understand that everything and everyone God creates is beautiful in Him, first. For those mamas that do go all of the way with pageantry with their little ones, compete to the highest level, and travel, I respect your decision of staying committed to this. I honestly would not know which direction to turn in. ;-)
Back to our Miss America pageant from this past weekend- When we managed to catch the last hour, the judges were displaying the Top 15 - I think it was the Top 15, but I could be wrong. We saw that our home state's girl was up there, Miss Mississippi. Of course, we were rooting for her to go all of the way. She looked radiant and represented our state very gracefully. We continued watching the talent and beauty, even after she was removed for moving on towards the crowning. The winner was a gorgeous dark-haired, dark complected Indian-American and her origin country is India. She looked amazing! At that time, I decided to prepare to turn my phone off for the evening and checked my facebook real quick. I immediately saw the controversy over her winning that pageant. I over-looked the statuses, because I usually try not to pay much attention to those types of statuses on there and I instead focus on prayer requests, praise reports, pictures, etc. I have just tried my best stay away from any negativity on there and I looked at those statuses as negativity.
As a few days went by, the controversy over her race and her being given the title of Miss America was still being tapped into the media. I just want to yell out, "Ok, people! Let's move on to bigger things here!" I look at the remarks over her race as a pathetic distraction to what is really going on in our country. Here is why: Our country is considered as a mixed country, or another term used for it is, the melting pot. Pretty much, we see all races and cultures every where and it is becoming the norm. When we take a few steps back into history, we can see how and why all of the different races and cultures chose to come and be in America. With an exception to the African races, simply because their own kind originally sold them to Americans to be slaves. They would have probably rather stayed in Africa at the time, instead of coming into America as slaves. When they arrived here, they were treated terrible, unfair, inhumane, and severely mistreated and a lot of changes and progress have paved the way for them to have a better living in America. However, for today's time period, the ancestors of those slaves are probably much better off in America than if they would have been born in Africa. On a positive note, they reflect what this country was originally suppose to reflect and this has made a way for all cultures in this country to live and thrive today as they do.... So, why are we still rewinding and pointing a racist finger at this lady that was crowned to represent our country as Miss America?
Our country is in terrible shape financially. Our country is facing the chance that our military may be preparing for was in Syria. We have children that are abducted and sold into sexual slavery. We have elderly that are in desperate need of health care, but they can not afford it, even though they worked and paid into Social Security for a number of years. We have people that are barely making ends meet, struggling to pay their power bills, and trying to feed their children. Just this past weekend, a young woman that is well-known in my area lost her life due to bloodclot after giving birth to a new baby last week. Now, her husband will have to raise their baby boy without her. Seriously. Why is this racist finger being pointed at this young, pretty lady that won the Miss America pageant? If she were not qualified, than surely that would have been determined prior to her entering her state's pageant and being given the opportuntiy to move forward to compete in the national title. Does she have a criminal record? Is she over here illegally? Surely, these are things that were determined long before she entered any pageant. If she is in our country legally, is not a criminal, and is representing her state as she should, then good for that girl! Some have stated that she is not a real American. Well, neither were any of our ancestors when they arrived here a couple hundred of years ago, so what does that make us?
If any race, cultural background, religion, or political background thinks they are more deserving or more blessed by God than any other, they may need to sit down and do some soul searching and allow God to come into their hearts. Not 1 race out there is more deserving of anything at all, than any other. Not 1 race out there is more worhty of anything at all, than any other. Not 1 race should be considered more special, than any other. Not 1 race out there should have to pay any penalty for another race. Our Lord paid all of our penalties for us a long time ago on the cross and He is the only one that can judge us all. He created all of us in His image and painted us differently for a special purpose for His kingdom. God makes no junk and He makes no mistakes. What a magestic God we have when we see how He wants us to paint tribal picture within His kingdom! When you allow this side of our Lord into your heart and you study the tribes, you see His beauty in creating our different races. No where does it say that we are allowed to not accept them, discriminate, hate, mistreat, and enslave. But, His word commands us to LOVE. Does it say that we are to choose which race we are to show LOVE and be neighborly to? There is a reason for Him creating us all as He did. My skin is white, because that is what He wanted for me. An Indian has a brown colored skin, because that is what He wanted for them, just the same as with any other color of skin. How disgraceful of us to think that one skin color is better than the other or to think that a specific skin color is beneath the other. We are all God's and we all belong to Him. "For every beast of the forest is mine and the cattle upon a thousand hills." - Psalm 50:10.
So, as I think of that Miss America beauty pageant, I am honestly disappointed in how this pageant put this beautiful lady in this type of position. I surely hope that they took up for her and are offering her support in this situation. She should not have to explain herself and feel demeanored by participating in this pageant. Our country is facing so many challenges right now. Should we allow ourselves to put so much emphasis on any pageant, even if it is the Miss America pageant? We should all be hitting our knees, praying to God for mercy, direction, and to allow Him to be in all of our hearts every day. If our country is more worried about racial differences within this pageant that our imminent challenges we are facing, then we seriously need to look at ourselves in the mirror and go have a little talk with Jesus. God bless us all.
