Being Miss America: Behind the Rhinestone Curtain (Discovering America) (15 page)

I tell them that they can ask me absolutely anything. And boy, do they. Usually the questions start out pretty mildly: how I got into pageants, where I grew up. But I’m always waiting. Because I’ve now learned that in almost every group of kids, regardless of size, there’s one hotshot—usually a boy—who wants to put you on the spot. Not so much to embarrass you (or so I like to think) as to impress his friends and make everybody laugh. I love That Kid. He works as the icebreaker to get into the real, important questions. I definitely have to earn my stripes each time, but once the kids figure out that I can hang, and that I’m not going to run out of the room or start crying (and especially when I’m a bit of a smart-ass right back), the floodgates open. Over the course of the year, That Kid asks about everything from oral sex to—true story—what he should do about a yellow-green rash on his scrotum (here’s where I should mention the fact that That Kid is also The Kid Most Likely To Get Dragged Out Of An Assembly By The Vice-Principal)
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That Kid asks a lot of questions about my own sex life, which is the hardest topic to navigate. I don’t want to make headlines for my sexual proclivities; more important, I have a gut feeling that it’s crucial not to alienate the kids who aren’t making the same choices I do. In truth, at this point, I’ve never had sex. I’ve never even been close to sex. But the phantom headline “Virgin Miss America Gives AIDS Talk at Area School” haunts my nightmares. It’s nobody’s business, and more than that, it has the potential to backfire in about five different ways. So in the end, I steal a line from Leanza Cornett (1993) and say that I practice what I preach. Or that I’ve never had unsafe sex. There’s no information
in that answer, of course, but they’re almost always satisfied with it. All of this stuff acts as a springboard for discussion—and, probably, as a cause of skyrocketing blood pressure among the grown-ups standing around the room, whose proud smiles fade once they hear some of the stuff coming out of their little angels’ mouths in front of Miss America. They shouldn’t have worried—I couldn’t be happier. Goodbye, stupid questions about swimsuits; hello, questions that could save a teenager’s life
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It’s a high when I succeed at those assemblies. It’s a high afterward, too, because if they aren’t forced to go back to class right away, the kids hang around and talk to me. Some of them want a photo (in hindsight, I’m so glad these are the days before every cell phone has a camera). But some stay to say the kinds of things you just can’t say in front of your whole school. Many times, they have a friend or family member with HIV and don’t know how to deal with it. One sweet, pretty, Midwestern cheerleader-type tells me that her best friend has just tested positive and is trying to figure out how to tell her parents. Another confides that she’s been thinking about having sex with her boyfriend, but after hearing me speak, she’s decided to wait. This happens more than once, and it always makes me really happy, because I’m not an abstinence-pusher. Do I talk about it? Absolutely. But never, I like to think, do I orient a speech from the perspective of you-shouldn’t-do-this-but-oh-well-if-you-have-to-I-guess-there’s-some-stuff-you-should-know. For me, it’s always about options, not caving to peer pressure, being okay with going against the crowd, and protecting yourself every single time you get into a situation that might put you at risk
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Because I do it this way, trying hard not to advocate or judge, I learn something amazing and heartening: there is absolutely every reason to believe that teenagers are capable of making smart, healthy choices if they’re given accurate and complete information. Sometimes I don’t know how to answer their questions, of course . . . but I believe that Miss
America, aside from being a public servant, also needs to be a traffic cop. It’s fine to show up somewhere and stir everything up, but you’d better remember that you’re leaving the next day. It would be wildly irresponsible for me not to educate myself in advance about the resources in the cities and towns I visit. I try to help them figure out where to go after I leave—plenty of times, I just recommend that they talk to their parents or the guidance counselor, but I also make the kids repeat the National HIV/AIDS Hotline number during the assembly. Ethically speaking, I know I can’t just go in, talk to them, accept their school sweatshirt or the key to the city, and sail blithely back to the airport without helping them locate the network of resources available to them. It’s now that I also become a big fan of peer educators: I have absolutely no problem with an entire school bypassing the drivel that’s shoveled at them by teachers who are either naive or forbidden to talk turkey about sex and health. As long as the one kid in school who knows where to get condoms is properly trained and can dole out accurate information, that kid is an invaluable resource
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In my perfect world, comprehensive health education curriculum (including the truth about safer sex) would be legislatively mandated starting in middle school. And at the appropriate grade level, students would be able to go get condoms—and counseling—in the school nurse’s office. But that seems about as likely as hell freezing over, so if the condoms are in somebody’s locker, fine by me. As long as anyone who takes one knows to check its expiration date, stay away from oil-based lubricants that break down the latex, keep it out of their wallet so it doesn’t deteriorate, avoid layering them (or, to use everyone’s favorite slang, “double bagging”), and so on. Condoms are not, by nature, all that difficult to figure out—but they sure don’t do much good if you use them incorrectly
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Those assemblies aren’t the only high that comes from doing something that matters. I love when a really great op-ed
piece or news story comes out. Don’t get me wrong—there is a definite law of diminishing returns when it comes to having my picture in the paper. But every so often, a really kickass piece appears, focusing not on the crown or what I’m wearing, but on the fact that Miss America is transforming, and I’m helping her to do so. There’s only one that I actually frame, from the
Boston Globe,
both because the writing is so beautiful and because the author, James Carroll, homes in on exactly what I want so badly to achieve. I’m not a sappy girl, but I’ll tell you what: this one still makes my eyes well up a little bit
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Instead of serving as a consumer culture icon of loveliness, she has made her own the cause of the most despised among us. Instead of adopting the sex-symbol style of demure coyness, Shindle speaks frankly about the need for sex education in high schools, including condoms. Instead of denigrating women by enacting male fantasies of beauty, Shindle has been a defender of women who are being infected by the AIDS virus at rates never seen before. Instead of remaining aloof, unpolitical, and noncontroversial, she has decried the federal government’s refusal to fund the very needle-exchange programs that federal research shows to be successful in stemming AIDS and even getting addicts into treatment
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It is stunning to attach such words to the pretty face of the girl I watched, as she listened to the teenage volunteers. Kate Shindle has the figure-perfect, wholesome “beauty” of a contest winner, but there is a depth in her dark eyes that suggests another kind of beauty. She is alive to the pain of America’s young people—because she is one of them
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I saw Miss America use the peculiar power that came her way this year to soothe that pain in teenagers who, like her, have chosen for each other’s sake to feel it. If Miss America has taken on such a cause; if young America can
produce such a beauty whose best features are courage and compassion, then hope is alive
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It’s amazing what happens when that momentum gets rolling. The first story that really grabs me is Marc Peyser’s piece in
Newsweek.
He and I have spent World AIDS Day together; it’s intense. No matter how together you believe yourself to be (or how nice they are), being trailed by a thinking, attentive journalist can be intimidating. We sit in the connecting living room in my J. W. Marriott hotel suite that evening so that I can answer his questions. But I’m also trying to anticipate the land mines before they blow up in plain sight of millions of readers. When Marc’s piece comes out, it’s a big deal; although other journalists have given me favorable coverage, this one has a lot of nuance and insight. And of course, the
Newsweek
imprimatur is valuable. After that, I’m more likely to have a quote from one of my speeches hit the wire service, more likely to be the subject of interesting editorials, more likely to be given too much credit for having some killer media strategy. In reality, I’m just going where I’m told and following my gut regarding what to say when I get there. But the impression it’s making on the public consciousness begins to pile up in a really significant way
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The same is true of awards. I still laugh about the fact that after I receive one from a major HIV/AIDS organization, they whisper in my ear that the other possible honorees in contention had been Vice President and Mrs. Gore. Heady stuff for someone who’s barely old enough to order her own beer at a restaurant. I get some beautiful things and some very, very meaningful ones. But the real prize, as far as I’m concerned, is always the ability to win respect for the Miss America Organization. Generally, the audience at an AIDS service organization’s awards gala is already sympathetic to the cause. But they’re often very skeptical of the pageant. I am keenly and constantly aware that the speeches
I give on these occasions (and at other similar high-profile events, like the World AIDS Conference and the National Press Club) are high risk, high reward. Sometimes I get a last-minute burst of inspiration from what’s already been said that night and scribble a supplemental paragraph on my napkin, or rewrite the whole speech at the bottom of the menu or on a torn-out page from the evening’s program. Every time I stand behind a podium to be recognized, I grab for the brass ring that I believe will help lead Miss America back to cultural relevance. Who really cares about me? In a matter of months, they will crown a new winner and put me out to pasture. But in the meantime, I’m absolutely determined to elevate Miss America. At the time, it’s not only an organization doing something nobody else is doing—giving a college student a prominent national platform for social activism—but all the old jokes and condescending one-liners that have hounded Miss America for decades just seem totally played out
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For a while, it works. Boy, does it work. I’m getting to do the most stimulating and challenging work I’ve ever done, at the very highest levels that exist. Because I’m dedicated, because I take advantage of every opportunity that seems even peripherally substantive, I find myself on the inside track of something I care deeply about. When President Clinton makes the disappointing decision to oppose federal funding for lifesaving needle exchange programs, I get a heads-up call from Secretary Donna Shalala’s Health and Human Services office just before the news goes public. I remember being in yet another indistinguishable hotel room, my hair wet, trying to iron my clothes for that day’s appearances, and HHS is suddenly on the line for me. Somehow I find myself “in the loop,” as they say
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All this is not to say that there aren’t bumps in the road. Of course there are. I have to fight (and then write a proposal, and then fight some more) to be able to do a little volunteer work on the side. I do get tired of standing behind a podium
all the time, when my background has been so varied. More than that, though, I believe that it’s good for the pageant if the public sees Miss America getting her hands dirty, instead of just making speeches and shaking hands with people in suits. The Miss America staff doesn’t see it that way. They’re worried that the sponsors bringing me to town will be angry if my stop at a soup kitchen poaches media attention from the bigger events I’m there to promote. I keep the debate alive, and eventually, I win. I work in a couple of food pantries. I chop broccoli at a soup kitchen. To my knowledge, no one ever complains—mostly because I’m careful to direct attention back to the main event that’s brought me to town in the first place
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Things are going well for me, but they’re also going well for those who have been fighting HIV/AIDS for a long time. Throughout the year, there is tremendous optimism about the future of the epidemic. The new protease inhibitor “cocktail”—so named because it involves a combination of different drugs attacking the virus from different angles—seems to be extending both the length and the quality of life for people with AIDS. AZT, which has had mixed results for many years (and is still the only affordable treatment for most of the developing world) has been mostly phased out in America. The cocktail isn’t a miracle, but it’s far better than the death sentence AIDS has been for years. And the HIV/AIDS movement (initially launched as a desperate plea for the world to notice that otherwise healthy people had started dropping dead) is by this point a model of health-related activism. Sure, we might eventually look back at it as the initiative that launched a thousand colored lapel ribbons. But it has also launched a thousand nonviolent protests that make use of shocking imagery, the way ACT UP did when they lay in the street covered in fake blood. Or put a giant condom over Jesse Helms’s house. Or—well—did anything Larry Kramer participated in
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But, of course, the year isn’t all sunshine and unicorns.
I certainly have access and make inroads because of the crown in my suitcase. There are some things, though, that are insurmountable for me. No matter what I’m able to achieve, there are plenty of times when I learn that I simply can’t help. As excited as everyone is about the protease inhibitors, for example, they definitely have their flaws. I meet people who tell me about the difficulties of getting—and staying on—these drugs. Those living with HIV/AIDS are taking up to sixty pills every single day, with significant restrictions regarding their use. Some need to be taken on an empty stomach. Some require fatty foods. Many have to be refrigerated, making it more and more difficult to treat the communities seeing massive increases in infection rates: the poor, the homeless, the indigent. HIV isn’t a thinking virus, of course, but it’s about as close to “smart” as a disease gets; it mutates so quickly that missing a few doses, or taking a drug holiday, can allow the disease to quickly become resistant to medications that were previously effective
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