Sep 16, 2013 1 min read

It’s been oft noted in recent years that the Miss America pageant no longer makes much of an impression on the American psyche.

The 92-year-old contest was banished to cable TV almost a decade ago, and it’s a good bet that if you approached 20 random strangers on the street, none of them would be able to name a single winner from the last 20 or 30 years.

Unfortunately, it seems that some of the dwindling “Miss America” audience were none too pleased Saturday that Nina Davuluri, a 24-year-old Indian-American from New York, ended up taking the crown. The website Buzzfeed reported that all too many of Davuluri’s fellow Americans tweeted an ugly assortment of racist or derogatory comments after her triumph.

One derided her as “Miss Al Qaeda,” while another remarked, “9/11 was four days ago and she gets to be Miss America?” One user said, unconvincingly, “I swear I’m not racist but this is America.”

Yes, this is America. And the folks who tweeted these observations certainly are not examples of this country at its finest.