Updated on Dec. 16, 2018, 3:50 p.m.
After receiving much backlash for her xenophobic remarks, Miss USA Sarah Rose Summers issued an apology on Instagram. “@MissUniverse is an opportunity for women from around the world to learn about each other’s cultures, life experiences, and views. We all come from different backgrounds and can grow alongside one another,” she wrote. She continued to say how she didn’t mean to offend Miss Cambodia Rern Sinat and Miss Vietnam H’Hen Niê with her remarks on their English-speaking skills.
Sarah also shared that she was able to speak to the two women about what happened. Likewise, she posted a photo where she and Miss Australia Francesa Hung appear to be buddy-buddy with Rern and Nie.
Here’s hoping that she’s learned her lesson and to watch what she’s saying next time.
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The Miss Universe pageant is meant to showcase beauty in all forms and bring together cultures. However, Miss USA Sarah Rose Summers clearly missed the last point during a recent Instagram Live.
Diet Prada was able to record Sarah saying how she’s “concerned” that Miss Cambodia doesn’t speak English. “Not a single other person speaks her language. Can you imagine? Francesca Hung (Miss Australia) said that that would be so isolating and I said, ‘Yes, and confusing for her all the time.” She then looks at Miss Colombia Valeria Morales, saying that at least she speaks English and there are other people in the competition who speaks Portugese like her.
It doesn’t stop there. In another IG Live video, Sarah talked about how Miss Vietnam would “pretend to know so much English.” Even mocking how she would allegedly look clueless during a conversation, and diffusing it by laughing and saying “She’s adorable.”
Miss USA, your xenophobia is showing.
Xenophobia is the creation of “otherness” in a community or a society, and it’s dominant within white, middle-class Americans according to Everyday Feminism. The culture “imposes its normality by deeming those who don’t fully assimilate to, and embody, that culture in every way as foreign and outsider.”
Feigning sympathy for Miss Cambodia, as well as ridiculing Miss Vietnam, for their lack of English fluency is prejudiced and it just sounds condescending. Just so you know, both countries don’t dominantly speak English as their main language. Sarah saying that she’s concerned about their isolation in the competition further creates the segregation that she’s (pretending to be) against. It’s a low-key way of telling someone, “Learn to speak my language (in this case, English) if you want to be accepted in my group.”
And, oh, we’re also not excusing Miss Australia and Miss Colombia. They took part in that IG Live and laughed at their fellow beauty queens as well.
So much for promoting “women empowering women,” Miss USA. You just created an unnecessary barrier between Miss Cambodia and Miss Vietnam because of your “sympathetic stance.” We wonder what the Miss Universe Organization are going to say about this.
Photo courtesy of Sarah Rose Summers’ Instagram account
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