A woman stripped of her title as Miss Michigan for her polarising social media posts has hit back at organisers, saying they are the discriminators.
Kathy Zhu, 20, received a letter from the State Director of Miss World America formally stripping her of her crown after a series of posts, deemed to be "offensive, insensitive and inappropriate" were pointed out to the organisation.
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While the posts of concern have since been deleted, screenshots have circulated showing they involve Zhu's comments on Muslin hijabs and gun violence.
"There's a 'try a hijab on' booth at my college campus. So you're telling me that it's now just a fashion accessory and not a religious thing? Or are you just trying to get women used to being oppressed under Islam?," a screenshot of her Tweet, obtained by the Orlando Sentinal, read.
The other comment singled out by organisers was re-posted by Zhu herself in response to the incident.
"Did you know that the majority of black deaths are caused by other blacks? Fix problems within your own community first before blaming others."
Zhu, a vocal supporter of the US Republican party and Donald Trump, also published email and text message conversations between herself and organiser Laurie DeJack in which she defended herself.
"This is ridiculous and to work with someone that thinks statistics is racist is the last thing I want to do. Maybe you should read an educational journal on the statistics of blacks killing other blacks. I go to school for this," one text message read.
"I'm sure you will love to find a 'woman' who is cookie-cutter perfect and says brainless comments like, 'I like world peace'".
In the aftermath of those conversations, Zhu posted a video to her Twitter account standing by her claims that she is the party being discriminated against for what she calls simple opinions.
"This is so much bigger than pageantry. This is about an organisation discriminating against people with different opinions, calling people racist even when they're not."
However, despite Zhu's claim that organisers labelled her posts racist, there is no such evidence in any of the correspondence currently made public.
Newshub.
