If you watched Sunday night’s Miss Universe competition, you may have witnessed the humiliating circumstances after host Steve Harvey mistakenly announced that Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez, was the 2015 Miss Universe champion when, in fact, the winner was Pia Wurtzbach of the Philippines.
Although the comedian, radio and television host would apologize and make the correction shortly thereafter on live television, he’s been highly scrutinized in the days that would follow.
Memes all over social media sites including, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, were shared mocking the events. And while Harvey would, once again, publicly apologize via his own social sites and in an open letter to the contestants, he’s continued to be demonized for the human error.
But here’s one disturbing fact. Forty-eight hours after Steve’s humiliating mistake, a grand jury in the Sandra Bland “murder” case ruled that there would be no indictment against the Texas Sheriff’s department.
See: A Grand Jury Fail to Indict Officers in the Sandra Bland Case
If you all remember, Bland died last summer while in police custody at the Waller County jail in Texas. An investigation into Bland’s death and the Sheriff’s department began when dash cam footage revealed Bland’s volatile traffic stop by Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia.
Hours later, the Chicago native was found dead in her jail cell, which the Sheriff’s department claimed was as a result of her own suicide.
It didn’t take long for debates of misconduct and racial profiling to ensue regarding what took place between Bland, an African-American woman, and Enicia, a Caucasian man.
Bland’s family argues that a traffic violation shouldn’t have resulted in her arrest while Enicia believes the arrest was warranted as a result of Bland’s failure to comply.
And while the grand jury is scheduled to meet again in January, the no indictment ruling has, once again, left the Black community in an uproar and Bland’s family feeling defeated in a “broken judicial system.”
Fact is, Black or White, we should all be in an uproar against the ruling. While an unarmed woman stopped for a minor traffic violation, did not live to see her 29th birthday, Steve Harvey’s Miss Universe mishap has continued to be the hot topic of debates.
That factor should teach us something about our society. It teaches us that our culture relishes in foolishness for jovial and comical relief.
It also teaches us that the more serious the conversation, entering into murky territory is scary for us. Why? Because we’re afraid of hearing the truth and being held accountable for allowing injustices like Bland’s and countless others to continue to occur.
We are afraid to admit that America is STILL a very racist society.
In fact, Harvey’s own mistake has somehow opened the flood gates to racial slurs and insults at his expense.
The question now is, how can and will we evoke change?
Let’s wake up America.
