If You're Black Step Back
(especially if you are poor)

So, normally nothing that happens in a beauty pageant would make it in to anything I write. But this points out one of the great problems in Colombia. All of the judges have come out and publicly stated that if they had it their way Nataly would have won Miss Cartagena.


Nataly first left, Siad 3rd from right

But,instead of choosing her they chose Siad.
Why? Well Nataly, despite being in her fourth year as an art student, and according to them charming and the best looking of the girls, is poor (and black). They were told that they needed to vote for a rich girl.

The judges state that while they weren't told who to vote vote for by name; they were told that it should be a girl who belonged to a certain elite club--only two of the contestants belonged to this club.

While they say this is because the city couldn't afford to pay a poor girl's way they also note that Nataly had an NGO that had offered to pay for her needs as Miss Cartagena (that is a whole other topic... What the hell is an NGO doing paying for beauty queens?)
At any rate they were also pressured to have a rich girl win because the girl would have "a certain class" according to them. They were told to elect a girl that was of the same class as last year's miss Cartagena (a young woman who is part of Cartagena's elite).The judges said that they chose Siad over her because in the end choosing Nataly would have caused too many problems for Nataly since the pageant didn't want her to be chosen. How considerate of them... I guess its going to be peachy keen for her to be runner up with all of this out in the open. I'm told last year the queen from Bogota was disqualified by the national pageant directors-based in Cartagena-ostensibly because she hadn't lived in the city long enough but in actuality because she was black and poor too. More reasons for these things to be abolished.