Pretty little liars

Tacos aside, is the Miss San Antonio beauty queen drama about fat — or class?

Miss San Antonio 2011 Dominique Ramirez
See, it's possible to photoshop just about anything

A San Antonio jury today showed their support for 17-year-old Domonique Ramirez — and tacos — by re-crowning her Miss San Antonio.

Ramirez made national news when she sued after she was unceremoniously dumped by pageant officials in January for allegedly gaining too much weight. Bexar County pageant spokesperson Linda Woods admitted that she had told Ramirez to "get off the tacos" (no subtle racism there!) and lose some weight.

Pageant officials also testified that at a bikini photo shoot, Ramirez was so out of shape that her photos were "unusable" and beyond the limits of photo editing software to fix.

Now I'm no professional photo editor, but I've photoshopped Tiger Wood's head onto Hugh Hefner's body with little to no effort, so I find it ridiculous to suggest that the 5-foot-8, 128-pound, size-2 Ramirez had flab so disgusting and jiggly that photo editing software was powerless to remove it.

Perhaps fearing a jury would see a slender, beautiful girl and agree, during the trial the position of the pageant shifted more towards allegations that Ramirez skipped our or was late to official events and failed to write thank you notes.

It's an interesting strategy: Some beauty queens have lost titles for getting arrested and taking nude photos, but chronic lateness would be new offense. Miss USA Tara Conner wasn't even dethroned after testing positive for cocaine and heroin. But hey, cocaine and heroin don't make you fat.

Ramirez has countered in interviews that she has been responsible enough to graduate high school early, and that people representing organizations she volunteers with testified in defense of her character.

But the complaint I find most interesting is that pageant officials, including director Caroline Haggard Flores, didn't like having a beauty queen that wasn't nouveau riche.

"She told me to stop shopping at Walmart for my dresses,” Ramirez testified. “I was in it for the scholarship. I didn't think I had to be wealthy to compete in this.”

I don't think the pageant officials are racist — or classist for that matter. I think they just decided that Ramirez wasn't the beauty queen they wanted anymore — whether for her lateness, her dresses, or her abs — and thought they could bully her out of her title and the scholarship.

And I'm glad a jury decided they were wrong.

unspecified

Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

undefined

Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”