On Sunday, Sept. 15, 24-year-old Nina Davuluri was crowned Miss America in Atlantic City, N.J. As she walked across the stage in tears, ready to begin the new and exciting chapter of her life, people were already making nasty and racist remarks.

Along with being called “the Arab,” and “Miss 7/11”, Davuluri has had to deal with comments on twitter such as:

“Congratulations Al-Qaeda. Our Miss America is one of you,” “And the Arab wins Miss America. Classic,” “So miss america is a terrorist” and “How the f*** does a foreigner win Miss America? She is an Arab!”

These horrible comments have been made just because Davuluri is the first woman of Indian descent to be crowned Miss America. She was, unlike some people have begun to believe, born in Syracuse, N.Y. where she lived until she was four, when her family decided to move to Oklahoma. She stayed there until she was 10, in which her family moved to Michigan; where she stayed for the rest of her school years, including college. Davuluri is an American citizen in every sense of the term.

According to nydailynews.com, Davuluri wasn’t surprised by these comments because she received a lot of them when she won Miss New York back in July. She knew that if she won Miss America, the comments would most likely get worse rather than better.

It makes me sad to see Americans act so poorly. America prides itself on being diverse and being accepting of other, but when a born and raised American wins Miss America, we all begin to make comments about her skin color. Are people really going to judge her just because she is of and Indian descent? It’s just sad.

By judging her, people are not even seeing who Davuluri really is or what she hopes to become. She hopes to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a physician. In fact, she used her $50,000 prize money to help pay off her bills for medical school. People aren’t seeing that she has goals for her life; that she is a person, just like the rest of us. Who cares if her skin is a different color? That doesn’t mean that she is below anyone else. If people could just begin to give humans of a different race a chance, America would be a much happier and better off place to call home.