Kathy Zhu, a conservative firebrand and model, has had her title revoked over unearthed tweets that the organisers deemed offensive.
The 20-year-old student revealed that she was removed from the Miss World America (MWA) pageant and lost her title just one day after being crowned Miss Michigan 2019.
The organisation told her that some of her posts on social media were found to be “offensive, insensitive and inappropriate” and violated the regulations of the contest.
Miss World America's State/National/Chief Director accused me of being racist, Islamaphobic, and insensitive.
— Kathy Zhu (@PoliticalKathy) 19 июля 2019 г.
They stripped me of my Miss Michigan title due to my refusal to try on a hijab in 2018, my tweet about black on black gun violence, and "insensitive" statistical tweets. pic.twitter.com/K1Btho0Pgq
MWA has also wiped any mention of Zhu away from social media platforms, including photos in which she was wearing the Miss Michigan sash and crown.
It appeared that she had fallen from grace for several posts on Twitter, in which she made controversial remarks about black people and Muslims.
One of them dates back to 2018; back then, Kathy Zhu complained about a "try a hijab" booth at her university during the World Hijab Day. "So you're telling me that it's now just a fashion accessory and not a religious thing?" she wrote, as quoted by The Orlando Sentinel. "Or are you just trying to get women used to being oppressed under Islam?"
The subsequent backlash forced her to transfer to another university.
And in another post she addressed black-on-black violence. "Did you know the majority of black deaths are caused by other blacks?" Zhu wrote. "Fix problems within your own community first before blaming others."
'I Stand By My Tweets'
Although the tweets appear to have been deleted, Zhu insists she has done nothing wrong and suffered from political opinion discrimination.
"I stand by each and every one of my tweets on my account", she told The Independent.
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Zhu, who was born in China and moved to the United States as a child, had been bullied both online and offline for campaigning for Donald Trump in 2016, in her own words.
She once described her mission as “fighting against SJW’s, the regressive left, and misinformed liberals” and feels that "coming out as a conservative is way harder than coming out as gay in today's society".
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The student says she had received a lot of positive feedback as her story made the headlines in the US, but negative reactions were also at hand.
“This is so much bigger than pageantry,” she said in a video. “This is about an organisation discriminating against people with different opinions, calling people racist even when they’re not. Just little attacks like those really diminish the value and the truth of the word ‘racism’.
Thank you 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/quEC4ibjCp
— Kathy Zhu (@PoliticalKathy) 19 июля 2019 г.
The model doesn’t intend to take legal action against MWA organisers, explaining that they have “suffered enough negative publicity” already.
The MWA has yet to comment on the story.
