The 2015 Miss USA pageant—which was rife with controversy surrounding GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump—posed questions on race relations to two of the final five contestants.
Prior to the pageant, NBC and Univision decided not to broadcast the competition—breaking contracts with Donald Trump—in light of his comments on illegal immigrants during his formal presidential announcement.
Miss Nevada USA Brittany McGowan was asked by Miss USA 2008 Crystal Stewart, “What would you do to improve race relations in the U.S.?”
“What I would do to improve race relations in the U.S. is get more races groups together and be able to be together… in a non… let’s see… I think what we need to do is… uh… bring… we need to be more accepting of each other and bring people together… That’s what I think we need to do,” McGowan said.
The painful answer can be seen at the 2:48 time mark.
Miss Rhode Island USA Anea Garcia was asked about political correctness and if it was helping or hurting this country. She froze and had to have the question repeated, yet she still managed to run out of time before giving a full sentence answer—stating just that she thinks, “It is a balance of both.”
Miss Texas USA Ylianna Guerra—who came is as first runner-up—previously shamed Trump’s comments he made on illegal immigration.
Guerra said she came from a family of immigrants and called Trump’s comments “unfortunate.”
“I understand (the) political or PR reasons the judges and the performers had to back out, but if the contestants such as Miss California or I – or others with Mexican descent – backed out, we’re just going to let him win,” Guerra said. “I just wanted to show that we’re strong people and we’re not going to go down without a fight,” reported The Monitor.
The winner was Miss Oklahoma USA Olivia Jordan, who was questioned about the confederate flag, which became a political issue after the South Carolina church shooting, among other topics. She answered, “I think that we still need to talk about race relations in this country. We have not solved this issue.”
The struggling answers tied to race controversies were ironic in light of the remarks Trump made about illegal immigrants, which has become a political firestorm, costing him to lose some business partnerships.
No contestant was asked specifically about the topic of illegal immigration.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.