Girls Will Be Girls

Ann Althouse catches Miss USA 2018 being "catty". Miss U.S.A. got a little catty about the way Miss Vietnam and Miss Cambodia don't speak English... and got trashed for "xenophobia" and had to apologize.

Here's the whole article at WaPo, "‘What normalized xenophobia looks like’: Miss USA apologizes for comments about other contestants' English."

The 24-year-old had just finished talking about how Miss Vietnam H’Hen Nie “pretends to know so much English,” capping her remarks with an imitation of her fellow Miss Universe contestant. Later, Summers touched on how “confusing” things must be for Miss Cambodia, Rern Sinat, because she doesn’t speak English and “not a single other person speaks her language." “Poor Cambodia,” Summers added.

The comments, which were streamed on the Instagram page of Miss Colombia, Valeria Morales, to her more than 300,000 followers earlier this week, have since gone viral, with many calling Summers a “bully” and condemning the remarks as “racist” and “bigoted.” Morales and Miss Australia, Francesca Hung, have also been criticized for their part in the video....

It does suck to be the only person around to speak the local language, though. Back in 1989 Georgia and I took a trip to Mexico with a Mexican grad student. Over the 2 weeks we were there it seemed like his English faded.

“Regina George, is that you?,” one post said, comparing Summers to the notoriously two-faced queen bee from the 2004 film “Mean Girls.” “This is basically what normalized xenophobia looks like,” the post went on to say. “If she’s trying to show empathy, the condescending, intolerant tone tells a different story. A reminder that you’re participating in a competition in a country/continent where English is NOT the primary language.”
Other critics said Summers’s behavior was representative of “Trump’s America.”...

Why not blame Trump?

On behalf of men everywhere, I beg for forgiveness for Miss Summers' insensitivity.

And as for the Miss Universe contest? The prize went to Miss Catriona Gray of the Philippines. At least they didn't pick a man, as many people were betting.

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