Photo via @juliuspleazerfanaccount/TikTok
February 10, 2022, 11:19 am
Controversy has hit the U.S. beauty pageant circuit, and this time it’s not for being a generally weird and creepy excuse to stare at a bunch of women or girls who happen to fit the modern beauty standards. Instead, recently crowned Miss Washington Teen USA winner Kate Dixon, a white 17-year-old, is under fire for using the n-word in a video clip that went viral on TikTok after being posted on Tuesday.
Featured Video Hide
The clip in question is barely two seconds long, showing Dixon in a vehicle of some kind saying “gangsta n—-” before others around her seem to cheer while she laughs. Dixon, however, claims she was pressured by peers into saying it and didn’t know she was being filmed.
Advertisement Hide
It’s unclear why this is followed by a clip of Dixon and a friend mouthing along to something that some might consider vulgar, but not nearly in any way as offensive as a white person using the n-word. Pageants Northwest, which oversees the Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants, says they were aware of the video when Dixon began competing but decided it did not disqualify her from the competitions or even holding the crown.
“What she did was absolutely unacceptable,” said executive producer Maureen Francisco. “But as I shared with you—if our organization is designed to be the best version of yourself and if somebody admits fault to it, has apologized and says ‘hey, I want to work on being the best version of myself, and that’s why I want to be part of your community,’ how do you turn your back away?”
Another question might be: How do Black women get fired for letting their hair grow naturally but white women always get another chance?
Dixon has maintained her claim that she was coerced into using the word and apologized “if” people are offended by it.
“They coerced me into saying a racial slur. I told them ‘no, I don’t want to say that,’” she said. “I know that it’s not appropriate. And they told me ‘you have a free pass just this one time, it would be funny.’ So I decided, after much persuasion, I said the word that they wanted me to say and without my knowledge I was recorded.”
She has further claimed that she received bullying messages and death threats over the clip after it was first posted online three years ago and had to change schools. She’s used this experience to warn others about the potential consequences of being convinced to use the n-word, because it might get filmed and posted onto the internet where people can see it.
Advertisement Hide
“Honestly having gone through this experience, I feel like you don’t realize the true meaning of how something can affect you that’s posted online until you’re caught in a situation like mine. Where something negative from your past, because it being on social media, comes to resurface again,” Kate said. “I think most of all that if they feel offended by this that I am very deeply sorry, that I have learned my lesson and I have not used that word to this day.”
It doesn’t seem that her use of the word has done much to derail her career in beauty pageantry, since she won the crown anyway.
Third runner-up for the title won by Dixon, Hannah Merritt, gave a statement to local press on how exhausting it is to be Black in this industry while people like Dixon keep winning.
“As an African-American woman who’s walked that stage four times and has the weight of so many little girls on my shoulders, to know that Kate, who will never understand that, won, it’s just really tiring,” she said.
*First Published: February 10, 2022, 11:19 am
0 Comments