Diversity of another kind

I see on the "news" this morning that an American of Indian descent won "Miss America" last night. When I was young, my family used to gather in front of the TV for the Miss America pageant; it was quite a deal in our house (and I suspect in many homes of the day). I think we all wanted for Miss New Mexico to win (which she never did). Then I went off to Viet Nam and the relevance and importance of such a contest went away forever. I think the last time I watched such a pageant was 1965.

But the big news about the pageant this morning (at least in the eyes of CNN) is that a bunch of racists immediately started whining about how a white girl could never win these days - and a white girl would be the only legitimate "Miss America"! Wow - white folks are the only legitimate Americans?! And some of the comments below the CNN story seemed to reinforce this point of view. If I needed further evidence of just how stupid some people are ...

History (both anthropological and biological) tells quite a different story. At the outside, humans of any ethnic origin came to the Americas in the last 15,000 years (some say as "long" ago as 30,000 years). White folks didn't get here until the late 1400's. Our country was nominally founded on the principle that all humans were created equal and the museum at the base of the Statue of Liberty has a plaque which bears the inscription "Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" - no mention of ethnicity. In fact, the poem by Emma Lazarus was deliberately composed by her to emphasize how important it was for the U.S. to accept immigrants (she was prompted to write the poem in a fund-raising effort for the statue by the difficulties she saw Jewish immigrants facing when they came to the U.S. to escape antisemitism in Europe).

Biologically, it's likely that all humans alive today share ancestors who lived 70,000 years ago - a mere eye-blink in evolutionary time. One of the problems I see with people refusing to accept the scientific validity of evolution is that some such people are clearly perpetuating the racism that has prompted these ignorant remarks on CNN and elsewhere.

Of course, not everyone who refuses to accept (scientifically) the theory of evolution is a racist or would support the clowns who think a "Miss America" of Indian descent is another slap at "white pride". But they're missing out on one of the most powerful arguments against racism - evolution.