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"  Every once in a while some things happen that just remind me how backwards our world still is, and it&amp;#039;s extremely disappointing. The instance I&amp;#039;m referring to in this case happened this past Tuesday following Sebastian de la Cruz&amp;#039;s rendition of the National Anthem at Game 3 of the NBA Finals, which took place in San Antonio. De la Cruz had been invited to perform because a) he was recently on America&amp;#039;s Got Talent b) sings incredibly well and c) is a San Antonio native, so obviously it was fitting. As he began to sing, people took to Twitter posting racist comments about the boy and his citizenship. To say they were offensive is an understatement, but it wasn&amp;#039;t just one social group, literally every race, social background\u2014every one, even Latino&amp;#039;s\u2014had something negative to say. The tweets literally make my blood boil and make me want to cry at the same time. Let&amp;#039;s start with that this boy is 11 years old (who this is an amazing opportunity for), so the fact that anyone thinks it&amp;#039;s okay to bully or talk bad about an innocent child is ridiculous and sick. Like seriously you&amp;#039;re cool as you sit on your ass and talk about a kid who&amp;#039;s doing more at 11 then most people ever will. We should also discuss that people had a huge problem that he was Mexican, when clearly he was announced as a San Antonio native so obviously he&amp;#039;s American. Thankfully not only is this young man extremely talented, he&amp;#039;s also well-spoken. When he addressed all of his ignorant haters he let them know his father had served in the U.S. Navy and that he was born and raised in San Antonio. I know that in today&amp;#039;s day it&amp;#039;s very easy to send a tweet and not think twice, but to all the followers, you don&amp;#039;t look like someone commenting on something &amp;quot;trending&amp;quot; you look like an ignorant moron. The fact that people are stupid enough to talk about this kid&amp;#039;s background simply because of what was wearing is insane. And maybe I do take more offense due to the fact that I&amp;#039;m Mexican-American as well, but had it not been a charro costume would there have been this much negative backlash? Do people just have it in for Mexicans because we&amp;#039;re a trendy target as our country tries to figure out how to deal with immigration reform? I&amp;#039;m not really sure but I am outraged and disappointed. I&amp;#039;m a proud Mexican-American and if that means being questioned about my citizenship because I embrace both sides of my culture, then I guess I&amp;#039;d better get ready to answer a lot of questions. Major props to Sebastian for singing the hell out of our National Anthem and for addressing those haters who need to read a book. I commend him and hope we can all learn something from this unfortunate situation. We can&amp;#039;t end racism but we can educate ourselves and not pass judgment on others. The next time I take to Twitter I&amp;#039;ll definitely be more mindful and hope others will too. What are your thoughts? Want more from Krystyna? Follow her on Twitter @Krysty_C "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/news/a13263/sebastian-de-la-cruz-racism/>