Sometimes, when a racial barrier is overcome, there is celebration at how far our nation has come. This is not one of those times.

Nina Davuluri won the Miss America beauty queen pageant on September 15, making her the first person of Indian descent ever to win the title. And while many celebrated the historic first, some were eager to give their not-so-educated opinions on Twitter.

“More like Miss Terrorist,” said one user.

This tweet was just one of many venting racism and anger towards her victory. The idea that the color of her skin somehow linked her to terrorism was a common theme on Twitter following her win.

“9/11 was 4 days ago and she gets Miss America?” said another angry Twitter user.

He wasn’t the only one to feel that way. Some Twitter users resorted to name-calling towards the judges, since they were responsible for this supposedly outrageous choice.

“… she is a Arab! #idiots,” said one Twitter user.

Anyone who possesses a map and a brain should be able to see that India is located firmly in Asia, making claims that she is “a Arab” plain wrong in addition to racist. Of course, we should all be relieved to know that not everyone was upset that Davuluri won. In fact, students were quite happy about it.

“I think it’s great that someone from a different nationality won this year,” said junior John Hoang.

Hoang, like many students, was both upset and confused by the racist reactions to her historic victory.

“Well first of all, she’s not even Middle Eastern,” said Hoang. “So that doesn’t even make sense. America is a very diverse country. We have a lot of different cultures here, and I think [the Twitter backlash] is really ignorant.”

America is already a very diverse country, and some students felt that Davuluri winning the pageant shouldn’t have prompted any response at all, let alone racist critism.

“I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary that she won,” said junior Troy Chaplin.

With a black president in the White House, and people of every race occupying prominent positions across the country, Chaplin didn’t feel that her victory was particularly significant. And when it comes to reasons behind why some Americans chose to respond with racism, she offered a succinct theory.

“That’s just how some people are,” said Chaplin.