By Jeffrey Page

Remember the guy in 2008 who carried the sign reading, “Keep government out of my Medicare you damn socialist?” Was he a genuine anti-government activist taking his position to the extreme? Or was he just dumb as a post?

Now, five years later, this brand of prideful ignorance is still with us – why is this not a surprise? – and requires that we consider a young woman named Nina Davuluri, who is 24 years old and who is Miss America 2014.

A little background: Davuluri, 24, is a native born U.S. citizen. She was born in Syracuse, N.Y., lived for a time in Oklahoma and graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in brain behavior and cognitive science. She the Miss America contest as Miss New York and did all the goofy stuff that most of the 86 Miss Americas and all their runners-up before her had done since the early 1920s. There was the bathing suit business, (hers was zebra striped). There was the gown business (hers was canary yellow). There was the talent business (she performed an East Indian dance). And to show the judges just how smart she is, she was asked a question and responded by saying no, she’s not interested in plastic surgery for herself but that the procedure is available for anyone who wants it.

No surprises and in Davuluri, the judges liked what they heard and liked what they saw, and she was crowned.

The reaction was quick and furious. All it took was the revelation that Davuluri is of East Indian ancestry to bring out racist lunacy at its American best.

Here are some comments and observations I found while wandering around the internet. This is the stupidity that America still must deal with nearly 150 years after the end of the Civil War.

“I swear I’m not a racist. But this is America,” one woman wrote to buzzfeed.com.

“9/11 was 4 days ago. And she gets Miss America?”

“How the f— does a foreigner win Miss America?”

“Miss America is an Indian. With all do [sic] respect, this is America.”

“Congratulations Al-Qaeda. Our Miss America is one of you.”

I am reminded of e.e. cummings’s 1925 take on a great human failing: “Humanity i love you because when you’re hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink and when you’re flush  pride keeps you from the pawn shop.”