It's not the winner of Sunday night's Miss America pageant, Miss New York, who has people buzzing today -- it's Miss Michigan, aka Emily Sioma, who used her introduction to the audience during the broadcast to call out the handling of the Flint water crisis.
During the introductions of Sunday night's Miss America pageant, Sioma took a direct shot at the Flint water crisis, saying, "From the state with 84 percent of the U.S. freshwater, but none for its residents to drink, I am Miss Michigan Emily Sioma.”
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“from the state with 84 percent of the u.s. fresh water but none for its residents to drink, i am miss michigan emily sioma” — the new #missamerica2019 pageant did not come to play pic.twitter.com/H05eifix2e
— alex rees (@maybealexislost) September 10, 2018
Videos of Sioma's introduction quickly flooded social media, with many praising Miss Michigan for switching things up.
Miss Michigan should automatically win #MissAmerica for starting with this! 😳 #Home #GoGirl pic.twitter.com/fdhRILMEtA
— Joel Schipper (@JSchipperWDRB) September 10, 2018
Miss Michigan called out the drinking water crisis in her state during the parade of states and I couldn’t be happier! #MissAmerica
— Ky (@_KylieB97) September 10, 2018
my face at the miss michigan intro #missamerica pic.twitter.com/qVE3Vq0R7m
— andrea (@andreabair_6) September 10, 2018
DAMN. #MissMichigan with the mic drop in the #MissAmerica2019 intros! pic.twitter.com/iSrodwUzjo
— Casey. (@kcbrewski) September 10, 2018
Users on Twitter even noted how refreshing it was to see that Sioma used her very short introduction to talk about Flint and not about herself.
Oh snap, Miss Michigan didn't give her CV. Talked about clean water for Michigan. LOVE HER. #aumissamerica
— Jeff Middents (@Middento) September 10, 2018
Miss Michigan using her 10 second intro to speak on flints water crisis instead of herself is truly using her platform for her state 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
— Jesse (@swaggirljesse) September 10, 2018
Sioma, who hails from Grass Lake, Michigan, is no newcomer to political activism, so it's no surprise that she used her platform to speak out for the residents of Flint. Sioma is a sexual assault survivor and advocate, and she even protested at her college graduation in honor of survivors of sexual assault.
While Sioma didn't make the top 15, is there some sort of Miss Congeniality prize that Sioma can win, except maybe call it Miss Advocate?