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Posley: Comparing drag to blackface is both racist & homophobic
Editor’s note: The author, in light of an upcoming Drag Queen Story Hour in St. Johnsbury, asked VDC to publish this op-ed. An article including the Pro perspective appears in today’s VDC.
by Jacq Posley
It has come to my attention that a few of you claim to need someone to explain the very basic principle of how the comparison between blackface and drag is simultaneously racist AND homophobic.
Do I believe that you are actually convinced that this trumpian-era style of rhetoric is ok? No. Do I think you aim to put two (what you perceive to be) minority groups against one another in an Oppression Olympics? Yes.
Nonetheless, I am going to humor you with a very calm, structural, evidence-based explanation of how the comparison between drag shows and blackface is clearly nothing more than an excuse to be both racist and homophobic at the same time.
1) Blackface, alone and with no other assistance, is already a racist concept.
Clearly, it promotes untrue stereotypes, inaccurate representations of AAVE, offensive wardrobes, and dangerous rhetoric that holds in place two centuries worth of oppression and systemic barriers.
Black people are teachers, preachers, lawyers, doctors, fire fighters, caregivers, soldiers, marines, inventors, investors, creators, and Vice Presidents of the United States. If you want to imitate Black people get your PhD, MD, JD, or DDS. That is a start. If you want to imitate Black people, season your food with the flavors of Africa, preserved through years of slavery and passed down to this very generation. That is a start. If you want to imitate Black people, run for local office and serve your community. That is a start. If you want to imitate Black people, win the most Grammies or Olympic gold medals by any gymnast in U.S. history. If you want to imitate Black people, be the first to invent the traffic light, blood banks, or ironing boards.
Do not paint your face with literal tar colored clown paint and parade around like a harlequin. That is racist.
If you are still “confused”, see:
A Cultural History of a Racist Art Form by CBS Sunday Morning
The History of Blackface and Why It’s So Harmful by TedX Shorts
2) The comparison between blackface and drag is also homophobic – achieving its goal of gaslighting two populations at once.
Much like Mrs. Doubtfire, Shakespeare, and even your nephew’s school play: drag is a theatrical expression of those who choose to enjoy performance and performance arts. It is meant to bring joy and laughter like many other forms of art, but especially live performances. Thus, your resistance cannot be toward the theatrical performance itself. How could it be, when you have taken your families to see many “great American classics” that also feature characters dressed as the opposite sex – from your local town theatre to the Pixar/Disney/20th Century Fox big screen, you witnessed it many many times and you laughed and moved on. However, you can’t do that when it comes to drag? This time you are oh so triggered. Why is that?
Ahhh: we’ve arrived. Your inherent (and sometimes also projected outwardly) homophobia. You are angry because you assume that all drag queens are too flamboyantly, openly, happily gay in their personal lives. I would not dare waste my time debating a human right like same sex marriage and relationships; but I’m glad we have arrived together at the root of your disdain. Look within to solve the issue of why someone else’s love life makes you angry.
If you are still “confused”, revisit:
She’s The Man feat. Amanda Bynes – https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0454945/
Mrs. Doubtfire feat. Robin Williams – https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0107614/
Mulan – Disney – https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0120762/
Lilo and Stitch – Disney – https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0275847/
Robinhood – Disney – https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0070608/
Aladdin – Disney – https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0103639/
Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night)
3) So if we treat this like a math equation:
When you make a comparison between these two unrelated topics you are adding two centuries worth of racist oppression & stereotypes + your own inherent personal biases against the LGBTQ+ community which = one big racist homophobic sandwich for your dinner tonight.
If you have made your way through this entire piece and still find yourself questioning how the comparison is harmful, I’m not here to bash you. I am here to let you know that you fall on the racist and homophobic side of history. It’s your job to figure out if that’s where you belong.
Originally from Mississippi, Jacqueline moved to Vermont in 2018. She is now a full time writer, focusing on human rights, politics, and Black culture.
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Categories: Commentary
So where is the discussion about leaving the sex education of children to their parents and not parading it through our public libraries with taxpayer funds?
Re: “I’m not here to bash you. I am here to let you know that you fall on the racist and homophobic side of history. It’s your job to figure out if that’s where you belong. “
Oh, okay, thank you for not bashing me… tsk, tsk.
These are the sentiments of the usual suspects with their usual false dichotomies. Whatever has come to the attention of Jacq Posley has nothing to do with my perspective of ‘trumpian-era style of rhetoric’. I’m a free market advocate. As are Milton Friedman (a white economist) and Thomas Sowell (a black economist). I don’t care what your religion is. I don’t care what race you are. All I care about is what you have to sell, and my freedom to choose whether or not to buy it.
I don’t care that you’re a drag queen. But what I do care about is that you’re forcing me to buy into that behavior for my own family. Your false premise is based on the fact that you don’t allow me to make these choices. I have no school choice. I have no health care choice. I had no choice but to invest in the bankrupt government pension system called Social Security.
Jacq Posley, you can’t ‘humor’ me. You can’t explain anything to me. Because your… ‘calm, structural, evidence-based explanation’ is anything but that. It’s so much word salad.
I didn’t make any of your cited comparisons. You did. So, don’t ‘burden me by what has been’. If anyone is ‘still confused’, it’s Jacq Posley.
The amount of sexual grooming our young children are subject to in Vermont on a daily basis is horrific.
Most people don’t realize how much Alphabet propaganda is fed to children starting at kindergarten level. Request to enter your local schools and take pictures. It’s all over the walls. Also my local elementary school flies that nasty ugly rainbow flag that changes stripes on a daily basis.
Really bad stuff.
Here are the bones of the writer’s logic, summarized:
1) Blackface is racist because it promotes stereotypes and dangerous rhetoric
2) Comparing blackface to drag is homophobic because drag is an entertaining theatrical theme. We should not be angered by other people’s love life.
3) The math is clear: racism plus LGBTQIA+ bias is racism plus homophobia. In a sandwich.
(It would have at least been funny to us math nerds if you called it a ham sandwich. A little tip of the hat to the ham sandwich theorem, which is a actual mathematical concept.)
This logic doesn’t make any sense to me. There is just no way around the fact that drag, dressing up like a woman, is also promoting stereotypes. Are you arguing that women, adult female humans, unlike people of color, haven’t been held in place by “centuries worth of oppression and systemic barriers” as you wrote? It seems like you are the one insisting on winning the “Oppression Olympics” against the feminists without even a fair contest. You assert it, therefore it must be true.
And nobody except for you has brought up the fact that “drag queens are too flamboyantly, openly, happily gay in their personal lives.” But nice strawman. (There are straight and queer drag queens, too, you know.)
Further, attending a live performance of a fully decked-out drag queen bears very little similarity to watching Mulan or Mrs. Doubtfire. Poor analogy.
Dressing up is dressing up. I think it can be argued that just about all costumes are some form of cultural appropriation or promoting stereotypes. It’s just a matter of degrees, and of course who gets offended and who whines the loudest.
This is nothing more then child abuse, and we have laws to deal with this, except when you elected officials let this nonsense happen on your dime……
Indoctrination or Education of ” your ” children, your choice to fix the problem or you’re part of the problem !!
I don’t care what it is — men pretending to be women while reading to children does not promote honesty or integrity. Their need to capture this young audience shows how false they are. Playing to adults is one thing. Praying on young minds is not ok. It’s not homophobic, it’s just not ok.
Teaching children to gender identify before puberty is not ok.
And what does a drag queen impart to their young audiences? Is there anything of value ? Is it seen as entertainment? Seems to me that these drag queens want to be taken seriously. Something is missing in their lives and this is how they choose to show it.
Not for my kids. It’s important to question and disseminate information before making decisions. There’s nothing real here and it shouldn’t be put forth as such.
If you told me these drag queens don’t wish they were women, I’d doubt you. They’re phony. Not owning their stuff but criticizing those who call them on it.
Good point…why is drag not considered by leftist weenies to be just another case of “cultural appropriation”, and hence not permitted in polite society? I’m sure the trans-activist community already has a snappy answer…
So wait. Are you saying it’s OK to be something you’re not, or no?
Because you can’t have it both ways.
One word that hasn’t been mentioned in this conversation is perversion. We can’t stop people from practicing their own perverted behavior behind closed doors, and there are no police patrolling to prevent it.
But as soon as you involve vulnerable, impressionable little children, you’ve crossed a line that that the wrath of heaven is arrayed against. The foolish perversion of men dressing up as women in this context is wrong and evil because they are purposely blurring the lines of morality and what is right and pure from God’s perspective, and intentionally confusing children and setting a horrible example of what true men and masculinity are supposed to look like.
Why don’t we have veterans story hour? Or firefighters story hour? If you want your children to accept those who are different than they (which is the reason several parents gave us when we went to protest the DQSH at the Craftsbury Library) why don’t we have people with disabilities story hour? Or blind persons story hour? They could show the children how they’ve overcome adversity by reading in Braille or a deaf persons story hour in sign language. That would be an inspiring and wholesome and “inclusive” example.
But why allow perverts to come in contact with your children and teach them that sexual perversion is okay? Mama bears and papa bears need to step up and ban these dangerous and unnecessary expressions of wickedness “dressed up” as tolerance, and protect their children from these predators with an agenda from hell. While we are to love all people with the love of Christ, even those enslaved in sins, we are never to tolerate or appease evil behavior.
The problem is that the momma bears and pappa bears are leftist idiots and they think that they are enriching the lives of their children by exposing them to this sexualized “performance art”. DQSH is no more appropriate for children than is bringing them in to a pole dancing establishment in Montreal. Even in Montreal, there is an age restriction for such a venue.
What is actually the point of subjecting children to scary tranny clown hour anyway? Is there no one available or willing to read to children that doesn’t look like an over-sized stuffed, embellished pinata from a carnival freak show? Anyone justifiying or supporting this is a degenerate themselves. The Truth is they get off abusing childen or watching childen be abused. When sexual perversion is widely accepted and innocent children subjected to things that nightmares are made of, it clearly shows a society primed for it’s warranted collapse.
When freaks and perverts are celebrated it shows the depth of how ritualistic abuses and human atrocities are allowed to run rampant across the globe. All the information coming out about the P. Diddy Freak Off Parties and what really goes on in the Playboy Mansion are real life nightmares. Enough to puke a dog and the purest of evil performed by celebrated celebrities.
Woe onto all who subject children to such evil and debauchery. May they all reap what they have sown.
Though I appreciate the platform, let’s be clear: VDC asked ME to write this (as stated in your last article). — Jacqueline Posley
Please note: the offensive imagery in this note was chosen by The Vermont Daily Chronicle, not me.
Anyone who attempts to argue that it’s OK for perverted men who wear women’s clothes to be anywhere near children is both dumb and stupid…no matter how many boxes she checks.
Ms. Posley, your entire essay reeks of self-righteous indignation and derision with no attempt at actually offering a balanced and thoughtful comparison. For instance, your opening line: “It has come to my attention that a few of you claim to need someone to explain the very basic principle of how the comparison between blackface and drag is simultaneously racist AND homophobic.” Just DRIPS with mature and thoughtful discourse. So on that note….
How tragic for you that you have to wade into the very fetid waters of conservative journalism to educate us poor morons on why there is a difference between actors pretending to be black and people with sexual fetishes pretending to care about little children. It must be so difficult to live after this horrific encounter.
Sadly, we conservatives are aware of the difference that you fail to perceive. You just aren’t aware of how WE perceive it. And, you. never. will. EVER. You are stuck in your perpetual jail of prejudice and disdain and probably some hate.
I am sad for you. Not that you care. I’m sad for the people in your life.
Your recent letter to the Caledonia Record you state you are a resident of St. Johnsbury. You wrote a letter to the editor of the aforementioned news service and stated, “If you truly wanted to inform, you could have done so in an unbiased manner.” Yet you’ve clearly demonstrated right here the exact thing you accused the Caledonia Record of doing. Tsk, tsk indeed.
But if it is so “racist” here in Vermont, by all means, do find better lodgings elsewhere. Oh, and by the way, you are aware of the concept of confirmation bias, right?
Cheers.