OPINION: Big Chuck Weighs In on Miss America Racism Controversy!

The torrent of hate and racism that has gone on this morning over the new Miss America gives me great pain and a reason to pause and reflect.

Nina Davuluri is by all accounts a stunning, talented and remarkable young woman from Syracuse. As Miss New York State, she was given a more than even chance to win the crown, and in fact she did! What an exciting time for this native daughter of central New York!

Now, of course, the log of reason has been rolled over the those creepy, slimy little racist bugs have been crawling out seeking a brief moment in the sun and fresh air. Their poisonous message is all over the internet this morning in vile rants against our neighbor from Syracuse.

Davuluri was born in Syracuse, but because her parents came from India she has been the target of some of the most vicious personal attacks I can remember.

Some have said her ascension to Miss America trashes the memory of those who died on 9-11. What? On Sept. 11, 2001, she was an 11-year-old in an elementary school in the United States.

Some have said the title should be "Miss Al Queda" instead of Miss America. Or "Miss 7-11." How idiotic. Some have said she "should go home to the country she came from!"  Um, she was born an hour and a half from where I am sitting right now!

Stupid people say stupid things, and that is something that has not changed over the years.

When I read all this hate this morning I could not help but think of my dear old grandfather Luciano D'Imperio. He came from Italy in 1898 when he was fourteen, had no money and spoke no English. After being processed at Ellis Island, he was taken in by the goodness of strangers who helped him.

Millions of Italians came with him on the boats from the "Old Country." They were called "sack toting heathens" who just came to America to take jobs away from true Americans.

My grandfather was one of them.  He saved up enough money to take a train "as far north as he could go" and ended up in Unadilla. After a few years he moved to Sidney where he and his wife had my father. He was our town's shoemaker for 70 years. He lived to be 100 years old. In America, the land he loved with all his heart.

He told me of his early days of being in New York and how an apostrophe at the end of your name could cost you your job. "No Beer For Italians" signs hung in the local pubs.  "No work for Wops!" the signs said at the Brooklyn iron factories. It was a bad time for him and his countrymen in America.

His wife, Sarah Day, had parents and grandparents from Ireland that came escaping the potato famine. Together, my grandparents, had the whole Italian/Irish discrimination thing to deal with. Stupid. Fears fanned. People feeling threatened. Tough times.

Today, as a guy with two capital letters, an apostrophe and a vowel at the end of my name, I can only imagine what that was like a century ago. How Miss America must feel when people call her a dirty Muslim because of her last name? She is not a Muslim, by the way. And remember, she is from Syracuse, New York people!

The hundreds of racist comments being hurled her way are disturbing to me, but not surprising. I hope the log gets rolled back over on these hateful bugs, and they can live in the damp realm of darkness for a long time, or at least until another person of color, a person with a funny sounding last name or a different outlook makes a headline. Like becoming president, or going into space, or winning an Oscar or writing a best seller, or inventing a vaccine. Then, I am sure, they will be back.

Congratulations, Nina Davuluri! We here in central New York are proud of you!