I usually tend to steer away from politics or anything over-stimulating that will rouse the masses into a frenzy when being discussed, but it has come to my attention that there are people in this great nation that still believe in the fear.

If you’ve read my article from last week, you would’ve known about the so-called “fear” that the
government and mass media tries to instill in us based on absurd grounds. They want to control your
mindset of what a “true” American really looks like and act because as of last weekend, certain people
were calling the winner of Miss America, who was of Indian descent, a terrorist among Americans just
for winning a pageant contest and looking different.

“I swear I’m not racist but this is America,” was one of the many tweets surfacing the interweb about
the woman, Nina Davuluri. As an outsider looking in myself, I do want to ask all of you; what do you
think makes up a true American? Do Americans have to be a specific type of way or can it just be that
they were born here?

As a student of mainstream media and a lover of films, even I’ve been called “as American as can be”
because of my advanced pop culture knowledge from watching tons of MTV back when I was younger
in Malaysia. Does that make me an American then? The truth is, no I’m not. As much as I would like to
be, I’m not unless I’m legally allowed to be and even then, I might not be accepted.

The problem with how Americans see themselves is only through the eyes that have been shut behind
closed doors for many years. They don’t look outside the window enough to realize that the world is
ever expanding and people are constantly intermingling with one another. This is probably the most
natural and accepted form of evolution out there that doesn’t take any heat from all the respective
belief systems.

We don’t all have to have blonde hair, white skin or blue eyes to be accepted. Being distinct among
each other is the best thing we can ever do to create a better environment filled with all sorts of
colors. I understand that 9/11 was and still is a tragic memory lodged into people’s minds but instead
of being defensive and overwhelmingly disintegrate human connections, I think the better way to deal
with that is to not revert back to how we used to be before it happened. I say “we” because I consider
myself and all of you not as Americans, but citizens of the world, which is a far better description.

It’s time to put our differences aside and bury the hatchet, so to speak. Enough of all these terrorist
claims and non-Americanism and just learn to accept everyone as a neighbor who’s willing to help
you at any cost. That to me is a true citizen of the world.

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