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BREAKIN' IT DOWN
October/November 1989
Inclusion:”
Miss America 1990, Debbye Turner of Missouri gives a thumbs up.
“The Illusion of
A Response to the
Miss America
Pageant 1989
by Gloria Wade-Gayles
This article was written at the request of
the editorial staff of The Spelman Spotlight.
1 must confess that I did not watch the
Miss America Pageant this year. 1 simply
didn’t have time to sit through the long parade
of bodies wearing swimsuits and high-heels (I
have never understood the combination!);
and, later, white gowns and pearls, symboliz
ing innocence and sweetness (I have never
understood the contrast!). I couldn’t wait until
midnight for the final vote, the crowning, the
expected tears, the rehearsed walk, and the
simple song always sung by a man who can’t
sing. I was busy grading papers, preparing
discussions for the exciting classes I teach at
Spelman and trying to find a few minutes for
my own writing.
I remember hearing above the sound of
clicking computer keys a message of screams
on my answering machine. The voices were
women’s voices, but I could not make out the
message. I returned to my work. The next
morning (or later that same morning), I put the
news about the new Miss America and the
screams on my answering machine together.
Spelman women were excited that one of us
was Miss America 1989. According to several
reports, women were literally crying and lit
erally dancing in the dorms.
Of course! We are always proud when
one of our own wins a coveted prize—be
comes a first or a second or even a third in a
national competition. It is that way, and un
derstandably so, with being on the outside
trying to get inside where the programming
says we should want to be. All across the
country, my people are claiming a victory be
cause Debbye Turner, an African-American
woman, has been crowned Miss America.
I knew students would want to discuss
the new queen; I knew I would have to ask
about the victory they were celebrating. What
is the nature of the victory and what what
effect, if any, will it have on the lives of
women in general and African-American
women in particular in this country. That’s an
unfair question, but in an academic commu
nity where learning is about asking questions
and searching for answers, I was obligated to
ask it. I would do so at the risk of being asked,
in return, a number of questions which would
not be questions really, but interpretations,
judgements, of my politics. Among them
would be the following: “Did you burn your
bra during the 1970’s?” I knew that if I were to
disrobe and show my Maidenform—even the
cup size—some of my sisters would take a
quantum leap from the question, “Why is it a
victory?” to “You’re envious of beautiful
women” or “ You’re a radical, bra-burning
feminist.” I am neither.
I decided to ask the question and accept
the consequences because between my stu
dents and me there has to be unconditional
honesty. I expect honesty from them on ex
ams and papers; they have a right to expect
honesty from me in our intellectual dialogues.
If fear of labels prevents me from being hon
est about my politics, then my students can
argue that fear of failure prevents them from
being honest on exams. The foundation of our
relationship, which is one of respect for each
other’s integrity, has to be honesty—even
risky honesty. So, I decided, adjusting my bra
on the expressway, to ask the question, “What
is the nature of the victory?”
I received predictable answers: “She’s
one of us.””I mean, she’s not light-skinned”
(as if we are not the most beautiful of rain
bows)." Just think what this says to little dark-
skinned girls in this country. ‘You’re beauti
ful, too’.” (The too bothered me.)
I’m not sure Debbye Turner was thinking
about little dark-skinned girls when she took
her walk. “Being Black,” she said in an inter
view following the crowning, “is the least of
who I am [italics mine].” There are acceptable
ways, I suppose, of saying that you don’t want
to be a token. Who does? Using least is not
one of them. Debbye Turner would not say
being female is the least of who she is. Cer
tainly not. That would be absurd for someone
who now symbolizes the ideal beautiful
woman in America. So, too, is it absurd for her
to say that being Black is the least of who she
is, for we live in a society that excludes people
from the inner circles of power on the basis of
race.
Only robots have no race and no gender.
For the time being I wish our own Debbye
Turner had dome some homework on race
and gender before she was interviewed. I wish
she had talked to Vanessa Williams! Remem
ber our first African-American Miss Amer
ica? Like Debbye Turner (and the ice-skating
Debbie who should have won the gold medal),
Vanessa Williams identified with a raceless
America and learned the hard way that it does
not exist. Now she says with pride, “My people
stood by me?”
I guess I am asking too much of Debbye
Turner. I know I am because in the process of
becoming winners, we are often programmed
to disconnnect from “losers,” the masses of
our people. Indeed, doing so might well be an
implicit prerequisite for winning.
And so, she won, but did women win?
Did African-Americans win? If so, what? A
paradox of an answer: We won lost ground.
Since the Women’s Movement of the seven
ties, women and sensitive men in partnership
have struggled against sexism in all arenas,
even the glittering ones. The Miss America
Pageant, which Ellen Goodman describes as
“hype and hair spray” The Atlanta
Constitution, September 19) does not help that
struggle.
Not because it celebrates the beauty of
women, mind you, but because it makes
beauty, a narrow definition of beauty. woman’s
major asset, the number one requirement for
her success. Those contestants who don’t
have it can get it surgically. What are women
contestants saying to little girls, regardless of
race, when they make themselves over to look
like the woman in a picture of the ideal woman
(physically, that is) somebody drew a long,
long time ago? Silicon breasts often harden
and have to be replaced. Liposuction can
cause infection and has caused at least eleven
deaths (Goodman, The Atlanta Constitution).
New noses, capped teeth, rounded cheek
bones, straightened backs—all of the “essen
tials” of physical beauty—cost a great deal of
money and pain. That women endure all of
this for one night of glitter which amasses
millions for the profit-makers sends the wrong
message to women, to little girls and to men.
Self-esteem, one of the keys to a little Afri
can-American girl’s success in this world of
madness, was not hidden in the roses Debbye
Turner carried on her walk.
Women parading their bodies (Please
don’t tell me about answers in the interview
which demonstrate their intelligence!) before
the nation reminds me of auction blocks. Our
people were forced to bare their bodies—
teeth and genitals—before bidders who had
power and were adding to their profits. Women
do a similar thing by choice, with music,
under lights, for a title which gives them
neither power nor profit. I know the analogy
is a harsh one, but sometimes only when we
take an idea to the ridiculous extreme are we
able to bring it back to the logical center.
(After that analogy, I will have to show you a
hundred worn bras, none of them padded.)
Without taking anything away from
Debbye Turner. I must confess that I am a bit
concerned about the timing of her selection as
Miss America. I believe those in power know
the power of timing. Andree Nicola-McLaugh-
lin, in “White Power, Black Despair: Vanessa
Williams in Babylon, which Dr. Phillips shared
with me and uses in one of her classes” ( The
Black Scholar, March-April 1985), writes that
Vanessa’s title occurred at a time when “new
conservatism [was] embracing the nation
aimed at keeping oppressed groups locked
out and powerless in American society.”
Naming an African-American woman Miss
America, according to Nicola-McLaughlin,
was supposesd to renew our faith in the
American Dream and (‘lest the natives be
come restless) take our attention away from a
resurgence of racism. It gave African-Ameri
cans “the illusion of inclusion” in the main
stream.
If you watched the network documenta
ries on race in white America and listened
closely to the brilliance of our Sister Presi
dent, you know that too many of us are ex
cluded from, not included in, the picture of
health in America. We do not enjoy full em
ployment, adequate health care, decent hous
ing and other “inalienable rights” in this de
mocracy. Seeing an African-American woman
walking queenly to the singing of “There she
is. Miss America" gives us the illusion that we
are progressing rather than regressing, sur
viving rather than dying. Of course we are
going to dance in the dorms because Debbye
Turner is Miss America 1989, but we shouldn’t
dance too long. That would be too easy, too
much like what we are supposed to do.
What I am suggesting is that we must
match the excitement we feel when a few of us
excel in a given arena with concern for the
many of us who never have an opportunity to
demonstrate that they can excel. I am suggest
ing that we remember in our moments of cele
bration, those who are hungry, unemployed,
homeless, illiterate—oppressed in various
ways. These are the people the Community
Service Program at Spelman College asks
you to remember and to serve. African-
American women are disproportionately rep
resented among them. So are African-Ameri
can men.
I have been uncomfortable writing this
article. Believe me. I have been. You see,
when we tell the truth as we see it (or as it
forces itself upon us), we run the risk of at
tacking our own, or seeming to attack our
own. I do not want to attack Debbye Turner.
She’s only a face and a name in a billion-
dollar industry she has not yet entered, even
with her crown and American beauty roses.She
is not the problem. She is an ambitious, bright
and probably personable young woman who
knows how to use the system to “milk” it for
her own goals. I think she read Ellison’s
Invisible Man and she intends to “play the
game and raise the ante." That’s smart, and I
guess I'm pleased that she understands that a
game is being played. My problem is that I
have a fear of games.
Having gone through the sixties expect
ing more than we gained and seeing the ground
slip away from us in the eighties, I just want
more. Now! Perhaps unfairly, my greed and
my impatience are standing in the way of the
pride I should feel and wilting the roses I
should send to my sister Debbye.
I wish Debbye Turner, Miss America
1989, had been inspired by the courage of the
gold medalists who surprised the nation and
the world by raising black-gloved fists when
the national anthem was played. If the cam
eras did not show their racial identity, the men
made certain that the fists would. They made
a political statement, and I danced.
Women, even those in beauty pageants,
can make political statements. It’s not too late
for a statement from Debbye Turner. As my
mother used to say, “Only a very short road
has no curves;” and she would add, “Just keep
on living.” The road from the beginning of
Debbye’s reign to the end is hardly a short
one.There will be many interviews, many ap
pearances, and many opportunities for her to
say something to all of us about the plight of
our people and the plight of women in this
country. What I have learned from the study
of our history suggests that she will.
I think she will.