Patreon Exclusive: Maddy Morphosis

y’all can’t put this in audio format

cashew

Here’s something to consider about Rachel D — she could’ve made herself look a LOT blacker than she did. She chose to tan to NC42 and permed her hair to about a 3C/4A. Unambiguously Black women and visibly mixed/ambiguous Black women have VASTLY different experiences that literally change the entire trajectory of their lives. I don’t hand Black cards to anybody, even if they did grow up INFLUENCED by the culture by way of their Black parents. I would argue that these people are just as influenced, if not more so, by their societal treatment as someone who appears white.

In my view, having Maddy on the show would be a move that increases diversity, not limits it. Even though there are straight drag queens in the world, they've never been openly represented on RPDR. I was wondering if people felt the same

cclove

I think as long as Maddy shows good allyship no one should even be questioning her... it feels backwards to me with regards to what drag is all about. Also, yes being straight confers a great deal of privilege. but being a man in a wig, regardless of your sexual orientation, can isolate you from the more homophobic parts of society. I feel like people are not giving Maddy, a working drag queen, the respect she deserves. It also feels a little unfair that she is being defined by her sexuality. I agree it's not an insignificant topic, but she should have the ability to shine on the show for who she is as a drag queen and a person. I'm rambling but honestly, as a gay man, I felt a little upset seeing Maddy being treated poorly or being excluded because of her sexuality. In my view, drag is a beautiful microcosm of queer culture where LGBTQ+ folks are actually in the majority, and they have the say. So for a heterosexual person who embraces and loves drag, and is an ally of LGBT people, like to shut that down is so backwards. We need MORE straight men like Maddy breaking down shitty gender norms and bridging the divide between straight people and LGBTQ+ people. I'm saying all this understanding WHY people might not want her on the show, and I can respect that, I just don't agree

cclove

“There is no such thing as race, none” – this is how master novelist late Toni Morrison broke it down very simply in a famous interview. “It’s the human race, scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct, and it has benefits, money can be made off of it, people who don’t like themselves can feel better because of it … so it has a social function. But race can only be defined as a human being.” https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/7/23/white-is-not-a-colour-white-is-an-ideology

Clarice Lispector

cant agree more, gender roles are a 100% construction and "sexuality roles" are the same. He is more privileged than anyone else on there, but beyond that, he seems to really love drag and gender play and is not heteronormative. That is a marker for change. Doesnt need special celebration to him other than, kudos for being an artist, but it is something to show as an example of how things can be.

Gloriamus

**to clarify: "arab" is not a race like black is. so regardless of my skin colour i am an arab, that is my ethnicity. just thought it might be relevant given that arabs in general are on the receiving end of lots of racism/orientalism/prejudice!

Eddie Bannayan

very late to the convo, but about the race discussion: i'm 100% arab and lived in the middle east my whole life, surrounded by mostly brown and some black arabs (my family included), and i'm very white -- my sister and i were the anomalies. i personally believe white passing = white, just based off of my own experience. have i been on the receiving end of micro-aggressions once people *find out* about my arabness? yes, but it's never based on my skin colour. so i just consider myself white, calling myself a poc regardless of my struggles as an arab just seems reductive to me, like it's taking space from people who actually struggle based on their skin tone. what i think is the difference b/w white and "white passing" (for lack of a better term) people is that white passing people have a more 3-dimensional perception of race and identity politics. i'm white but my heritage is entirelty arab & i've lived nowhere but the middle east, so i'm engrossed in the arab experience. + i've seen what my friends and family, who are darker skinned, have gone through and can relate more. unfortunately, white people tend to listen to white people more often, and based on my experience, people tend to tokenise me as their 'arab friend' because i'm more palatable to white spaces. so i just end up using that position to destigmatise and empower those who actually struggle based on their skin tone

Eddie Bannayan

And again with that NY bias and poor geography. Starting to question Kevin’s college credits. Oh, art school. Smh. Love Bob though!

Robert Harrold

Monet makes no sense. Blood does not change the your experience that skin tone gets. That’s just common sense. Lighter skin even get passes sometimes over darker tones in life. Baffles me.

Robert Harrold

Omg. Is she Captain Planet's mortal enemy?!!! LOL!

Andra Chae

ru paul is the gay jeff bezos it's a bit different

vcarly

LMAO

vcarly

me having kerri kornbread and maddy as my top 3

vcarly

i simply do not understand what rachel dolezal has to do with maddy morphosis bob lmao, this felt like two episodes cut together

vcarly

What was the bad movie Bob??

*created before

EdHead

As a mixed race person who has been told they look like just about every race under the sun I think only setting store by what Bob is saying doesn’t necessarily hold up. Especially because these categories were created being mixed was as prevalent as it is today (and before transracialism was discussed)

EdHead

I am a mixed raced lady and I agree with Monet. My daddy was white and not around, I was raised by my black mum and her Caribbean family and I identify as black. I think there are elements of “identifying as a race” however, the difference comes in choice. Choosing to lighten or darken your skin will determine how others view you unfortunately.

Gabrielle Lofthouse

People really thinking a straight man on drag race is gonna change his peoples point of view? That’s a reach, str8 people never bring any positive change, it has been their world for hundreds of years and now participating on a queer show.

Antonio GZ

"But the Edit", Ok yah sure, but you still said those things like...bro...you read the room BEFORE you walk into that space...

The whitest dude here adopted into a native family. Can confirm I am part of the family and tribe, but in the big picture, I am a guest of the 1st nations. DNA matters, growing up in the culture won't change that.

100, plp be happy to ignore this fact.

So i don't have the answer either about race but i was wondering the same thing about drakes son. Drake is a bi-racial man and you can tell that he is bi-racial but theres no such thing as half white so he is black. now his son whoever is 3/4 white which pretty much just makes him white..i mean he has blonde hair and blue eyes. But he also has curly hair, thick lips and wide nose ( keeping in mind that he is still a child and his features could change) but most importantly his dad is one of the biggest rappers arguably ever, so he is around and drowned in so much black culture and will share so many of the same experiences black people do, that we will probably consider him black too even though his genetic make up says other wise. if he becomes a rapper and says nigga i cant say that i would flinch

I know Bob likes documentaries, so I thought I’d recommend Race The Power Of an Illusion. I don’t think it will answer his question, but I think he’d find it interesting.

Rattlin_Bones

Doesn’t matter if she’s black if she’s a liar she shouldn’t be tricking black people into giving her position of power

kittygirlineedsomehelp

It seems as though there is much to discuss on both topics mentioned here. Applause for Bob and Monet for opening it up for discussion. I can see the point that Bob is getting hung up on- if society views an individual as part of a certain racial segment, they will generally get treated as such. So, they are ___. But having the option to opt in and out of that race's shared experience, like RD did, means one is not really living as a member of that race. As for a straight white guy on drag race, well, let's see what she has to offer before we say F*ck your drag.

A Sexton

as a biracial sociologist…i would love to field some questions for you

i fully agree. This did make me think about the movie Cherry Pop though lol.

Sorry to nitpick but Brazil is a former Portuguese colony, not Spanish. Also after WW2 a lot of German, Italian and Japanese people fled to Brazil. There are plenty of people in Brazil who have no native or african mix and are considered to be white, like Giselle Bündchen, Paulo Coelho, Ayrton Senna, etc. But there are many people who are mixed and a lot of people wouldn't guess are not white. Like Adriana Lima. It's not that rare, there is huge range of mixes there.

Debora Dias

I think phenotype and genotype can both be taken into account when discussing race. Someone who is biracial but looks completely white has a white phenotype & their genotype is biracial. They are perceived as white therefore treated as such and vice versa.

Salvatore ♱

as an afab person I find it offensive that the mere attraction to feminine features makes them unfit to be on rpdr

Lena Kuester

Why are people surprised about cis-straight men wanna do drag? Did everyone forgot about celebrity drag race, in that show there’s multiple straight mens doing drag! Lastly did everyone forgot about Tyler Perry being a drag queen on tv. What is so surprising like damn let that guy live.

I am a mixed race person and I had to ask about this scenario as I look white. I have heard people encouraging mixed race people to define their own race which is what allows for the second part of the definition that you guys read off (ie. Someone who looks white or is very light skin and is blood related to people who are black or brown is likely to have had an experience affected by the race of their blood relatives that wasn’t their choice.) This understanding allows us to say that Rachel Dolezal is white, Michael Jackson is black. People in Latin American countries I think are more focused on their skin color when defining themselves but I think their experiences must affect some of them. So that’s why when you ask a light skin Brazilian what they are, they are just going to say white because they are thinking “oh my skin is white and the only reason it’s that way is because I am mixed with a Spaniard who was white. Maybe the more accurate term for them is Afro-Latino if they are closely related to a black person which usually affects them through experience along with looks. If a Brazilian person were to come to American we would label them Latino and since Latino is not a race we would then look at this person’s skin color. Oh they are light skin brown? They may be a mixed of Spaniard+Native Indian or Spaniard+Native Indian+African. But they could also be those mixes and look white though I think that’s rare but it might not be. This also allows Obama to say he is black because of his blood relation but also his natural looks. He could technically go around saying he is mixed. But I think he examined his experiences and just decided to say he was black. And maybe it’s less confusing to the public? I don’t like saying Rachel Dolezal is black because the way she changed herself allowed her to be what was at the time the most desirable black person which was someone with light skin and light eyes (because colorism exists). But also her blood connection to black people is way far back.

its the way you are perceived sure, but there's also the social aspect. different cultural experiences also count. the way you're raised and your cultural background make a huge difference. i'm perceived as white, but the way my family culture works is very different to my white friends. it's a bit of a mind fuck honestly, like, i'm white (passing) but i'm not like white people in a lot of ways.

I don't think it's super common for brown people in Brazil to consider themselves as white anymore. They are usually called "pardos" (multiracial) or "negros/pretos" (black/brown). Pardo is a term that has been losing popularity in recent years, as more and more mixed-race people with African features started to identify as black. The term "white" in Brazil is generally used to refer to individuals whose physical characteristics are associated with Europeans and this includes some people of Middle Eastern origin. Because there's a huge gradation of skin color between white and black in Brazil and Latin America, racial classifications have always been more fluid and strongly based on skin color and other physical traits. Every year there are fewer Brazilians of mixed descent identifying themselves as white as their social status increases. However, light-skinned biracials and "mestiços" with Caucasian features were historically considered more related to the "white" group than the "brown" group, so it's not impossible to find a light-skinned person still refer to themselves as white. It's definitely not everyone, though. The dominant view on racial categories change from generation to generation. It's a more arbitrary system compared to the One-drop rule for sure. Race is 100% a social construct.

Gonzales

Race is a construct but it's not created in a vacuum. Dolezal is not black

laurendelgay

NOT BLACK! A lot of traumatic confusing things happen too black kids while they barely in elementary school that are confusing and hard that white kid will never go through. Like, being made fun of your hair, being treated unfairly by staff ect, You don’t get to opt in being black when YOU’RE ready to.

Also we have the 1drop rule here in America!

Bob is missing one big thing the biracial people who look white in fact has one parent of color..Rachel has 2 white parents...she changed her appearance to be perceived as black...she is not black. She is a white women who changed her looks to look black.

WAAAOOOWWW - not Bob and Monet being okay with a straight guy on drag race!! 😆😆😆 seriously tho, y’all helped me grow on this - I’m on the side of defending/ protecting queer culture for queer consumption - but bob (per usu.) is always right. 🤷🏻‍♂️💃🏻💙

Adrian Suzuki

In Australia, if you are "one drop" Black, you are Black, regardless of your outward appearance. You can appear to be the whitest person alive, looking like Ned Flanders, and Aboriginal Australians will ask you "are you a Blackfulla?" to determine if you are of Aboriginal ancestry. And if you are, then you are. It is very common to see Aboriginal, Torres Straight Islander, and even peoples who "look" utterly white who are in full regalia at rallies etc, fully embraced by the community, because appearance is not how Blackness is measured here. Many Aboriginal people were forced out of their culture by colonisers trying to measure their Aboriginality by halves, quarters, and these days that shit is not tolerated within the community. Something I really admire and respect so much, coming from a much less open culture where one has to PROVE how brown you are.

if that's how you fell then don't watch the season

My issue with Raven is that, after heavy criticism from Black people, she has not decided to lighten up on her tanning regimen, which I find to be in poor taste. Ariana heard the criticism and she's brightened the fuck up since. For Raven to completely disregard the concerns of MANY outspoken Black voices on this topic feels very "well my Black friends think it's fine that I say the N-word" vibes

Gayle King Kong

When Bob is talking about Rachael, they're literally describing Blackfishing lol

Scott McGoldrick

My issue with Maddy is just that he spent his whole promo time shoving his straightness down our throats. I had no issue with Scaredy Cat because it was just mentioned once and it was not constantly shoved in our faces. It's also that much worse that he's a cis white man - the epitome of privilege. There was a cis woman on UK season 3 but I felt no issues because her womanhood gives her an understanding of what it means to be oppressed. and she wasn't walking around shoving it in our faces either. Maddy just really gives off bad vibes in that promo video.

I love you Bob and Monet, and I will always support, but I have to call it out. Yes, Raven was definitely blackfishing (I still don’t think you understand the term fully which is why there’s confusion), and I think it is a topic you should definitely revisit, considering how many non-Black/POC people watch this show. And no, Rachel is not Black. While I’m open to the conversation, Rachel literally darkening her skin to pass in Black places (taking opportunities from other POCs) is the epitome of her white privileged. You can talk about transracialism in whatever other context, but using that to justify her “blackness” is just appalling.

😭 we gotta get a nice black woman who’s an anthropologist or sumn to help with our collective understanding of race

Taylor D

The biological definition of race is different from whatever bullshit Wikipedia has to say. Biologically, you must share a common heritage to be considered the same race. Rachel Dolezal does not share a common heritage with actual Black people. She isn't Black. Please don't try to give her any credibility ever again. I'd honestly love to just forget that she's a person who exists Also, there are a lot of things online that are trying to intentionally blur the lines on issues such as race and gender identity and expression for the sole purpose of discrediting marginalized groups. You cannot believe every source you read on the internet. You know what Black is. Don't let Wikipedia do you like this

Gayle King Kong

lmao i think its just her house and short shorts idk whats in the background tho

Anna

I agree with all this, wish I was part of the discussion lol and i wouldnt see a problem with a straight woman or straight man being on the show, since when is it a requirement to like dick, in order to do drag? Lol

Anthony

Not the Bro's !!! lol

Westly Jones

That part

Em Val

If Maddy says he’s straight shouldn’t we just leave it at that instead of saying he’s on the road to coming out or assuming he’ll eventually reveal he’s gay. Surely that’s counterproductive because if he’s straight and an ally then by assuming that’s he’ll eventually come out kind of attaches a stigma to allys because your assuming that an ally has to be ‘somewhat gay’

I agree with your stance on Maddie- I see the point of others that say that Maddie took a spot from a queer drag artist but at the same time they should be able to showcase their drag as well. If people are upset with the casting they should be frustrated with production and not the artist themselves

Em Val

Can we get rid of Sharon Needles racist ass already??

Em Val

Race - as it pertains to physiological features - takes root in cultural and medical falsifications. The physical qualities you speak of were explicitly defined in medical texts and included skull features, facial feature (lips, nose), and hair texture. These definitions were created with the understanding that black people, and people of color, cannot undo their race. People who masquerade in black face have the option to return to whiteness. We also cannot ignore the one drop rule. Historically, white passing people of color feared being discovered to be black. Because no matter how white they appeared, the presence of some blackness = black. This is the cause of the ignoring of mixed race whiteness. Race is socially and medically constructed. For sure. And these constructions have real world outcomes. People from nations that have been colonized often align themselves with whiteness, or blackness, depends on the messages they received from their colonizers. How they might organically have identified we don’t know because nations of white people have dominated and destroyed their true heritage. In short, whiteness/lightness/brightness is/are valued above all other skin tones throughout the western colonial world. To assimilate, or to claim whiteness, and then to lose that whiteness in a new country is simply the removal of a veil of internalized racism. Because, to the white western world, colonial nations are always already people of color. Obviously, we should rage against racial definitions in order to resist colonial oppression. But we cannot deny that we live in a world defined by whiteness. Whiteness can only exist if we continue to agree that it exists.

Maddy Morph’s presence reeks of colonialism. He is a straight cis-man colonizing a queer space. Rupaul wants $$$$. This is all a ratings ploy. Drama = money.

on the opposite side, i saw someone comment “who’s maddy” and someone replied back “ the bald pink one” and someone replied saying “WOW the bullying has already started! 🙄” like it’s okay relax baby you doing too much

zyair jackson

I9:29 Is Monet sitting in a public bathroom with no pants on? Not shaming just asking

M

not me having an identity crisis again when bob started to talk about race. me being mixed race and not knowing who i am anymore 😭

Mia Shai

Came here to comment that exact point! She didn't have a "black experience" until she decided to basically live in blackface when she was 32. I'm sure Bob would agree there's definitely cultural differences in the way black vs. white families are raised. Not to mention Rachel constantly lied about her upbringing, saying she lived in a teepee and hunted with a bow and arrow. I do think race is more complicated than we often think about, but in the case of Rachel, she is absolutely not black in my eyes.

Will

those creed jokes made me fucking howl

Mace

No the A is for asexual. And gay people not wanting straight people in gay spaces isn't the same as vice versa. They probably just have him on to expand the show's audience and make cishets feel more included. I agree he probably won't make it to the top anyway, but that could also be an argument to not have him on the show in the first place

Anthony St. John

My biggest issue with the Maddy Morphosis controversy is the same ppl are rarely uplifting Kerri and Kornbread

Isn't the A or A+ in LGBTQIA+ = Allies? The idea of excluding someone from a space because of a characteristic like sexual orientation just sits wrong with me, especially having experienced it most of my life even in my professional work-life. The majority of what I'm reading in the comments sound too familiar. I personally think it's resentment, and drag race producers surrrrre know how to push those buttons! Plus, y y'all worried?? His drags don't look that great anyway.

OverWatchery

What's your reaction when Nick Smith says the N word?

First of all he is not a cross dresser. He is a drag artist. Cross dressers are men who enjoy wearing women's clothes either in a sexual manor or for self-gratification of some manor. He is doing drag as an art form and that's a huge difference. Not to mention, If that's how he identified maybe you can use that argument, but he does not.

Paul Graves

Maddy is a cross-dresser, therefore by definition is queer!!

Bob's gotta be talking about Passing on Netflix. That shit was ass.

puresomewhere

I keep seeing people creating a narative that suggests that Maddy feels theyve had it hard or been discriminated against because they are straight cis and white. Maddy has actually said the opposite and acknowledged their privilege. Also, not every queer person has experienced trauma or discrimination for being gay. Rosé's finale speech was basically talking about her being loved and not having a hard life from what I remember. I think Maddy not relating to some of the queer experiences and seeing how they navigate it will also be good to see. Maybe itll open up the convo of how cis straight white people can actually be good and effective allies, since there are a lot of cis straight fans (namely women but also some men). To your other point, I think Maddy is getting so much attention becuase people are trying to offset the negativity. Honestly I never would have looked up Maddy's twitter or insta if it werent for everyone complaining about them.

Daniel

i think a good perspective to consider, especially with being bi/multiracial but white passing, is looking at race vs ethnicity. you can be white (racially) but have a close connection to your cultural/ethnic origins as a result of being biracial? but on the flip side we can get into colourism and all of that jazz, but this specific differentiation of social labels (race vs ethnicity) was a little helpful for me.

christian

I don’t necessarily have an issue with a straight man doing drag or even being on the show except it’s still a queer space and a queer platform that he does not fit him and is not even inclusive enough for our own community. My first issue was how he’s started off. Instead of using the platform to show us who he was and show us he was an ally and trying to break toxic masculinity, he choose tone deaf remarks. Yes I know he was being sarcastic, but it wasn't funny. Secondly, Think of all the queer moments on the show he can’t be part of because he has not walked in our shoes. What’s gonna happen if he makes it to the finally and Ru wants his gut wrenching story about his queer struggles and asks him to talk to his younger self? What’s he gonna say, “I’m a straight white cis man, my life was so hard because of that”? No thanks, Go on skin wars or some other straight dominated show. We are barely scratching the surface with proper LGBTQIA+ representation, So why is this straight man getting so much praise and attention!? We have trans queens and queens of color who's attention and representation is being diverted to "the first cis straight male contestant". I can't get on board with that...

Paul Graves

i think the difference between r*ch**l and actual black people is that while she may have experienced what it's like to be black for a small window of time, the black experience is life long. black people don't get to blip out of their blackness, and have had the same experience since they were born, where as You-Know-Who hasn't.

Being white =\= white passing. Also I agree with monet that if your skin is darkened, your hair is changed, that does not make you black. Black people in America already have a one drop rule so yeah maybe Rachel’s colleagues were like “yeah shes black” but the “I guess….” Was silent

Jas

Ok- I just wanted to pop in and say that TYPICALLY when I watch any drag race related video on YouTube, I will get ads for prep or other HIV medication‘s. I swear to god I got an ad for a construction company during Maddy’s “Meet the Queens” interview.

tiffadoodles

Skaredy Kat is bisexual not straight.

Neal Miles

Didnt DRUK have a straight AMAB drag queen who had a gf? I loved how they received him, 'yass you're wonderful, ur drag needs work, but yass!'

OverWatchery

This really felt like watching ebony and irony and bob was the lady bunny

Elijah

We stan. I really want more AFAB queens on the show and Victoria from UK really opened my eyes to how much amazing drag we are missing out by not including them. Even with this, I don’t think it’s right for people to say that the lack of representation of women means that there shouldn’t be any representation of straight men, especially since drag race is being watched by a lot of straight people too and can help show them how to be better allies and maybe even get into gender expression/drag if they wanted to.

Connor Cline

The transracial episode already blew my mind. Because race is a social construct, you’re just gonna go around in circles trying to define it because it doesn’t exist so how do you define it? How do you decide? As for the Maddy topic, as an AFAB queen I really don’t have an issue. We’re making noise about the wrong person. We should be celebrating the trans women on the show. You both made amazing points about how, to quote bob, this reaction is tew muchhhh. If she’s fierce, she’s fierce. If not then werk. In a society still plagued by toxic masculinity, I think it’s a great step to get rid of that. I do think kings and trans and AFAB queens still deserve a platform but it’s not the worst thing in the world to have a straight man on drag race. And also scaredy Kat said she was bisexual on the show :)

Frida Sapphic

I am not having any discussions about this: Maddy can go the first ep. Not because straights can't do drag, but because we have BARELY seen afabs, women, trans men and black trans women on the show. Yet the straights are already taking up space????? (The reason why I include black trans women in this list is because they contributed the most to our community. So even though they've been on the show, the representation has been far too little.)

RENO

On Maddy I think I have limited space to contribute to the discussion. As a straight identifying person I don't think I have the right to grapple with this but see both sides and understand the intersectionality frustration. On the race issue I think its hard to have a global conversation about this because its all made up and entirely culturally relative. The issues in relation to blackness, what it means and why, is different for everywhere because our history of being discriminated against varies so much in so many different ways. Lived experiences vary too. I think if you are ancesterally black you always have the right to claim that social history (though I accept the research that race is legit made up, its something that has effected you and your forebears for generations). I think if you are ancesterally black and white passing then you should recognise your privilege in relation to colourism, but that doesn't make you any less black. In the UK you are just as likely to have experienced racism in those circumstances. You can't take people's identity / experiences away from them. I guess from the way society works race is immutable from birth because it starts as you are being socialised. In the UK children as young as five, me included, regularly ask their parents to be white because they have experienced racism and colourism in some way or another during their early life socialisation. Is race defined by discrimination? It shouldn't be, but that plays a significant part I think, in being socialised in society. Then, lots of people have aligned this to being trans as gender is also a social construct. Like, yes, but there is no bioloical heritage / famililal history part that goes hand in hand with gender and for me that makes it entirely separate. The nature of the construct is different and mutable. You haven't been socialised for generations into your gender as race has. Your sex / gender tells you nothing about how your ancestors were treated. Your race does tell this story and is often an important part. Sex is a 50/ 50 for everyone in every generation. Yes, it effects treatment during your life, but then the coin is tossed gain. No hand-down. There may be biological facts I.e. a familiaral proneness to certain types of cancer etc but people don't form identity based on this & it hardly seems relevant. Basically, I don't think thinking race is immutable through life is in anyway incompatable with thinking gender is fluid and sex is not immutable. Sorry for essay. Hope I expressed myself well enough to be understood!!

Monifa

The thing about aboriginal Australians and a black identity is that it isn’t based on genetics - it is very much about culture and identity. They do not believe in “proving” that you’re indigenous. If your ancestors are indigenous and you claim the identity then you’re welcome in the culture - doesn’t matter if it’s your parents or great-grandparents. There’s a history in Australia where it was government policy to kidnap mixed race aboriginal kids and marry them off to be raped once they were of age to “breed out” their skin colour. The result is a whole generation of people that lost their cultural identity. “It doesn’t matter how much milk is in the coffee, it’s still coffee” This article explains it so much better than me though https://amp.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/nov/08/not-quite-blak-enough-the-people-who-think-i-am-too-white-to-be-aboriginal-are-all-white-claire-g-coleman-lies-damned-lies

Luen Tobar

Also! Jojo Zaho from DRDU is Aboriginal. Can yall have her on SR to discuss this? I also did some digging a few mo this ago when I watched her on DRDU and I found there is an entire BLM movement in Australia for Aboriginal people. One thing that they say as well is "always was, always will be" regarding land ownership in Australia for the Aboriginal people.

jessica bw

Bob, thank you for your comment about Joe Biden and liberals - people talk about "infighting" like bitch ima call you out to reinforce how I feel! Re: Brazil, at times color is associated with class. That said, there are plenty of Black people in Brazil who identify as black or Afeo-Brazilian. My grandmother was from Brazil and considered herself to be Black.

jessica bw

I've read that Scaredy is bi.

jessica bw

In regards to the show people tend to forget the title: RUPAUL'S Drag Race. If you don't like how Ru makes the platform to showcase drag to the world, then don't watch the show. Ru has created this platform and can cast it however she wants!

jessica bw

The perception of mixed/biracial people is a complicated thing, and the constant online debate of what constitutes as "white-passing" has made it even more complicated. In my personal experience, my white family can very easily point out all the features that make me stand out from they way they look, although we share similar skin tones. To them, my siblings and I are not white despite our lighter skin. In my primarily Afro-Latine community, I have been told they can easily tell I am something other than white, because it is so common for our families to have varied shades of skin (like one dark sibling, one pale as paper, one ambiguous), or been told they knew I was at least partially black. But online I have been told and seen other mixed people be told they are white, white-passing, their features don't matter because of skintone.

Aali Dez

Indigenous Australians are black. A quick Google will show that; even looking up famous Aboriginal people like Eddie Mabo (who secured land rights for Indigenous Australians by new law as late as 1997, which is buck wild how recent blak people in Australia were still legally and procedurally oppressed) will show you that our Indigenous population has a very black history. The “brown” Indigenous Australians you may be thinking of are probably those who are the offspring of The Stolen Generation, where white people spent decades separating Aboriginal children from their parents so that they can have the colour bred out of their genetics. Even so, they are still black, or ‘blak’, as their culture and history is still very much a part of their identity and their off-skewed political value.

dust to scaredy kat.

D

Some of the current Drag Race fans would probably be like "Who is David Bowie?"

Marchmain

oh my goodness please do an episode about Painted!!! I would love to hear yalls take on it, especially the remote style of competition! do you think the drama feels more fabricated/forced because the contestants aren't together?

Maya Chessen

You dont have to be gay to do drag. There are different kinds of drags. Even Drag Kings....this is what dismantling toxic masculinity and gay prejudice looks like.

Dezz

Yeah it got muddled cause Bob read the definition and completely disregarded the "shared experiences" part 😂

Dustin E

Bob, I totally agree with you in regard to Rachel Dolezal! Race is a social construct, and DNA is analyzed based on ancestry, not race. There is no such thing as "black DNA".

Although I have sympathy for both Maddy and Rachel's situations, they are both experiences antithetical to the struggles of the larger populations they are attempting to collude with. I am a Dark Complexed, racialized Black, They/he, of Trans experience. But most people just see a Bearish Black Dude with a penchant for Brown and Pastels. My direct expression of my experience conflicts with how I appear just as I am. Not with the addition of hair extensions, MUA techniques, or the glare of publicity. Not that the politics of expression are any less important just more profitable.

I think we need to get out of the habit of running to the dictionary to define things like race and racism. Mainstream dictionaries are not written by sociologists, and they're not useful for nuanced discussions like this. Personally, I think we should do away with describing people by race altogether, because ethnic culture informs a person's identity way more than race. Racialized Black people are easy to group because of our dominant features, but the fact is that the only thing every single person in the African diaspora has in common is the fact that we're all living with the consequences of white supremacy in some way. Every other "Black" experience is heavily influenced by regional culture.That's a discussion for a different day (look up racial eliminativism). Anyway, someone like Dolezal cannot claim Blackness because no matter how much she tans or where she works, she will never have an intimate understanding of the generational trauma experienced by most people in the African diaspora. The fact that she'd even consider being "transracial" shows that she has no idea what it feels like to be of African descent in a country that literally fought a war using our people as bargaining chips. If she understood that, she'd never even consider this foolishness. I love y'all but these kind of unnuanced takes on racial identity can do actual harm in this country.

The history of "blackness" and "whiteness" is also, I think, important to discuss and the ways it intersects with laws (most explicitly tied to maintaining segregation and blood quantum laws) too. Neither are stable and dependent on time and place. Australian, New Zealand, SE Asian use of terminology is specific to those countries and cultural markers specific to colonialism, colorism, indigenaity (among other things) - using United States definitions do not make for neat one-to-one comparisons as it argues for an ahistorical understanding of race. When its absolutely dependent on the region and specific moment in time

Right!? The snotty attitude I saw in the comments from one in particular made me wonder why in the hell they're here. No one is forcing them so why not just GTFO?

MaryJo Anderson (JojoMama1965)

I commented on this on YouTube. Trixie is 1/2 Ojibwe, and was raised by her indigenous family, but said she knows she presents white. I follow a gamer on Twitch who is indigenous and made a snide comment about Trixie diminishing her when he obviously knew very little about her. I don't understand why we as humans feel the need to attack each other.

MaryJo Anderson (JojoMama1965)

I felt this very deeply.

Stfu chad 😂

Hey y’all! Sociologist here. Respectfully. Being black is *not* solely physical, nor solely “how you appear”. One drop rule was literally invented because of eugenics and white supremacy - Plessy (of plessy v. Ferguson actually was white passing). Blackness is defined as physical, cultural, ancestral, political and social - and more. Dolezal believes she is politically and socially black. She puts it on like a costume but still will never be culturally nor ancestral black. I actually want to do a video essay on this topic - it is a nuanced one. Physical features alone is far too blunt an analysis - just, for example, many south Asian people could be considered “black passing” but it would be erroneous to call them Black. Race is also an internal experience, as some white passing folks have mentioned. How you understand yourself matters too. dolezal’s attachment to blackness is actually an attempt to escape white privilege/guilt/trauma. She cannot “feel” black because she is not, nor ever can be. She can only pantomime. I would totally talk to both of you about this!!!

I don't think anyone should be talking about her situation without the context that she's obviously mentally ill being a compulsive liar and whatnot. It's shocking to see how so many people discuss her as if she genuinely "transitioned into blackness" whatever that means. It's obvious that she tried to reinvent herself to run away from her true self, it's a really Freudian case...

Anthony St. John

Scardy cat is Bisexual thou. Also her name is Disasterina and they mention it on the show so it’s not outing.

That Rachel lady ain’t black. We can have lots and lots of nuanced discussion about race as a social construct in the US vs other parts of the world and all that but we keeping Rachel outside the gate.

Natasha Petit

The way that people treat politicians or celebrities (honestly what's the difference at this point) just speaks to how they handle relationships in real life. So many people are in unhealthy relationships where they think they need to defend every single thing the person does and don't know how to communicate grievances and then it winds up spontaneously combusting. They don't understand that it's fine to discuss these things and just because you disagree doesn't mean you're sending them to the trash. Almost 2022 can we move on already.......

Anthony St. John

"Rupaul is the antichrist" HAHAH work

Anthony St. John

The whole problem with the black conversation, for me, is yall never gave your definitions of "black" before discussing if you regarded that person as black or not. Because it seems like yall were implementing different definitions. Are we talking about ancestry or the social construct of "blackness" or just the physical features of "looking black." We gotta set definitions and context like how you gotta establish the UNO house rules!!! 🤣

Cierra Sullivan

gay culture is toxic? sit the fuck down faggot. oops, was that toxic?

Chad H.

mannn, i paid for a month for THIS. lol my mistake, i shoulda kept my dollars, your opinions are wack lol

Chad H.

Sibling Watchery : Passing

on dolezal, I think that since race is a made up social construct, it's not going to hold up to scrutiny or logic. It's completely illogical.

Bob really shouldn’t have opinions sometimes.

Being perceived as black needs to start before you’re even fully conscious of what race is tbh.

Shola Amusa

also the white privilege a passing Black person has is very much not the same as Rachel D choosing to hide her whiteness and purposefully distancing herself from her white privilege

kimberlizard

My straight husband loves drag race he always says how talented u have to be to do all the work y’all do.

Markee

the ability to discontinue being perceived as Black is a very white privilege, like @darkest.hue on IG talks about with Ariana Grande, Miley, Kim K etc. Being perceived as Black while still benefitting from in-group white supremacy doesn't really seem like being Black.

kimberlizard

People dragging Maddy gave me the same energy that Bisexual people are put under in the queer community. What Maddy is doing is QUEER, and he owns that. If a bisexual was to be in a straight relationship, that does NOT erase their bisexuality or queerness. It is extremely important to be also be aware of the PRIVILEGE that SOME bi people is straight relationships have, just like I’m sure Maddy is aware of his privileges as a white cisgender man doing drag!

JonathanTiki

Bob's argument that Rachel Dolezal could possibly considered Black doesn't make any sense. Race is absolutely a social construct and our ideas of race and who is considered white etc. have evolved at different points, but it also takes into account things like shared experiences, cultural background etc. Rachel Dolezal is perceived as a white woman who wants to convince people she's Black by the majority of society, she was also raised in a white family and had the experience of moving through the world as a white woman before she started deceiving people. And even then, multiple people didn't believe she was Black which is what led to her being exposed. Therefore, society generally believes that she is a white person and is therefore a white person. Even by Bob's standard that race is based entirely on perception, she has been perceived as white for the majority of her life except for a a period of time where she went out of her way to deceive people. Even if she had some experiences as a "Black person" that doesn't cancel out the rest of her life.

Also, we need to be encouraging to cishet men of all races to be more open and kind. If we could get cishet men more in touch with their femininity, maybe we could actually start chipping away at toxic masculinity.

Brandon Combs

Also, how dare anyone say someone is the “antichrist” of the LGBTQIA+ community. Get your Christian metaphors OUT of here. And for folks who are worried that Maddy is white- Bob and Monet literally state in this video that between them they know like 5 cishet drag queens. So I’m guessing that there’s not a huge number (if ANY) of POC cishet queens applying to drag race

Brandon Combs

u cannot lose your blackness, ex michael jackson, u can bleach, change ur physical appearance but u are who u are no matter how u try to erase it. Ppl can ascribe race to someone but that doesnt mean it's true...bc ethnicity and phenotype,genetics don't change, society may change its opinions and classifications but u cannot change genetics and what that means.

This is about passing as white from the 80's, very interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_tO7Q5RvIg

NayNaySayersX

Do you get shit for it? I've watched since season 1 and got shit for it until the last few years. turned several people onto it, though, Other straight guys included.

I am legitimately worried about the health and safety of some of them… 🤣🤣🤣

Squeaky_Fromage

Not bob outing Scardy cat and that dragula queen

Jake Jan Cook

No cap, the chatters have really gone wild and the brain rot has set in- I can’t even go on Reddit anymore lmao

Squeaky_Fromage

Bob is so right and it's really not said enough. I'm always shocked when I meet gay guys that blame all straight men for their problems when there are so many gay men doing super fucked up shit. Even gay culture itself is toxic. I'm happy they casted a straight guy

Jake Jan Cook

I am a straight man listening and subscribed to sibling rivalry. I am a straight man that watches drag race. I love Bob, and I love Monét.

i think people are upset that they chose a cishet other than afab queen or drag king that is what i see everyone being upset about

Marycruz Frausto

not to mention a cishet AFAB queen! or a drag king!!! why a straight white dude? it’s just like UGHHHHH

Evinn

Scardy Cat (sp?) was bi I thought

Listo

but i just also wanted to state: the reason i find Mike Madhatterman so frustrating is bc like if we’re going to have a cishet rep WHY did he have to be white? like at least give us an underrepresented cishet person. like an Asian person since we rarely get them or we boot them early. i resonate with the frustrations. no hate to Matthew Mcbalderson but we didn’t need this from him.

Evinn

girlllll i’m more invested in the race conversation. i’ve wondered this myself. i’m latinx and when i do my census i have to mark myself as “native american” or “caucasian” bc being latinx isn’t a race it’s an ethnicity. which then leads me to afro latinx people and where those lines are drawn. it’s all so confusing 💀 also i’m tired of hearing about Marcus Morphobro. can we move on now? and just celebrate the beauty and grace that are Kerri Colby and Kornbread Jeté 😍😍😍

Evinn

The issue is not that ppl are mad at maddy being a cishet male, and I feel ppl painting us as “overreacting” or being bothered by it know this too. It’s that it felt like it took forever to get trans queens and we just a few months ago got a queer cis woman on rpdruk. Hell, we got a cishet white guy before proper rep for Asian and indigenous queens! Yes drag is art, but it’s also queer art. It was and continues to be a safe space so why can’t we be a little weirded out that a cishet white guy is taking up a spot for the vast bodies/identities in the community without straight fans telling us we’re overreacting? Again, no ones mad at maddy for being cishet, it’s just frustrating to see this white straight man take up valuable rep in the community. This isn’t really towards either of you but more towards the comments lol I’m seeing too many ppl twist our frustration. But it’s not surprising since dr is not good at representation to begin with so….

maddy being there doesnt feel necessary but at the same time could be teachable for straight people. it does does feel lowkey they taking a spot from US. just because theres straight queens doesnt mean we have to see them lol but goodluck. and he if fucks up they better go in hard on him his a straight white man he can take it

toy_soldier32

um its a valid question. if people can say they were born in the wrong body( gender) why cant a person feel the same way about race. i mean if ur willing to go thru all the bullshit that black ppl have to go thru then its worth questioning. but my answer is still hell na she aint black lmao

toy_soldier32

Love your guyses discussions into the completixites and problems with our society's construction of race, I really think the two of you would love to have a conversation about this with a Black Anthropologist or Sociologist because a lot of these questions are things that these folks careers are built on interrogating and getting to the bottom of. I'm not really qualified to speak on it (I'm an archaeologist, so while I've read a fair amount of things relating to this i am not an expert at all) but there are so many folks who would have the language and expertise to really answer your questions in a way that I think both of you would find fascinating! (and would make a really fantastic patreon exclusive 🥴) I can't think of any specific names off the top of my head that you could reach out to but there is a lovely book by Augustín Fuentes called "Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies they Told You" that might be a good starting point!

Gage Huey

rachel dolezal can't be black because she was a white woman born to white parents smh. i completely agree with ur sentiment about not invalidating trans ppl on this basis, but it's comparing apples and oranges to argue that rachel dolezal or any completely genetically white person should be able to do this and consider it a valid identity imo. i find it an affront to transgender people when "transracial" ppl argue that their identities are based on the same principals

joey

I am not an expert and I'm white, so this is just my opinion, but I don't think we should call people by categories just by how they look. I know people already do this about people's genders and we know that you can't assume that about someone so to me I feel like race could be the same or similar. If you're describing someone's skin tone I think that's different though like how you may say someone is fem or masc. As far as where you are in the world that totally makes sense that different places would categorize people differently just like how I'm average height (5'8") here in the US but extremely tall in many other countries.

Scaredy Kat explicitly says on the show she isn’t straight. She says she’s not gay and has a girlfriend and then in the next episode she clarifys that she’s bi or pan (can’t remember which one)

Dsw

Rachel was not a Black woman and there were many people in her community who didn’t believe she was Black. That’s why they began looking into her background. Many people did not believe she was a Black woman they just didn’t have evidence to prove it until her parents came out and told the truth.

couldnt agree more love u guys

Fernando Michea

Im mixed white and black and get mistaken as Dominican or Puerto Rican in Washington Heights more than 98% of the time. Does this make me Hispanic? 🙊

alec hathcock

Bob needs to stop it with this "Rachel Dolezal is black" nonsense. It wasn't cute the first time. It's even less cute now.

Tres

I totally stand behind Bob and Monets opinions on Maddy. Bobs race opinion is not really vibing with me. First, Webster is not the sole authority on how things are define and what they mean. It’s one source of many. Academics and sociologists hardly rely on the dictionary for authority over the meaning of heavy concepts like racism. With that said, the argument that Rachel Dolezal is black is weak bc race isn’t just about appearance. It’s like arguing that someone who does black face all their lives can be black just via aesthetic. Blackface and black fishing are modes of white dominance that have historical meaning. Rachel wanted to be black and did so in order to monetize it (I.e., her position at the ACLU, public speeches, etc.). I think the clearest example of how race isn’t just about appearance is the case study that they did long ago where they examined how in hiring practices employers were more likely to extend an interview to resumes that had more white sounding names over black ones.

David Preciado

My issue with the Maddy situation is about the fact that I tuned in to drag race to watch queer people do cool things. My first season I ever watched was season 8 and I was so happy getting to watch a show that was just queer people being authentically themselves. For me, it was shocking to then see a straight cis person casted because I loved drag race because it was just “us” (and the occasional straight guest judge lol). I personally do not like the fact that she’s on because I would’ve rather seen another queer or trans person. I also don’t think modern drag is just “art” and that it can be divorced from gender or sexuality. It is queer and trans art. Not saying straight people can’t do drag since that’s another conversation, my issue is with casting. We have very few shows where queer and trans people can have our own thing and while yeah straight people can be very loving and supportive and I sincerely appreciate that and it’s necessary, I don’t need straight people to always be part of everything that queer and trans people have. The “A” in LGBTQIA is not and never was for “ally.” My view is not about pushing others away because I think it’s great straight people watch the show. For me, it’s about setting boundaries. With my feelings on this, I draw a lot of analogies from how I view and experience white people in POC spaces. We love the support, but sometimes we prefer if certain things are just us.

Adalberto Rosado

Aboriginal people were BLACK black. Australian colonizers tried to breed it out. They are Black people

I’m sorry but Monét is right on this. You can’t invalidate the experience of a “white passing” person who is genetically black and was actually raised by black family. While trying to validate the “blackness” of a white woman who grew up in a white household and flipped back and forth between identifying as white then black when it benefited her. Just pointing out the problems with these two specific examples. Race is such a nuanced topic and so many things go into how someone is perceived vs how they identify racially, so just going by the definition will never be adequate enough. Just wanted to say I love you guys and chime in on this topic.

Mariama Forth

Ok, I am biracial and white-passing (to white people). My father is a Black man. The reason I look so white is because he is extremely light-skinned. And he is so light-skinned because our ancestors were slaves and the white enslavers raped them, had children, etc, etc. Even though white people think I'm passing, the Black community has always seen me. I have always been sister to them - I've never been rejected. I ran marketing for a regional Black museum for years, talking about our history and role in the community. I have been discriminated against, called monkey, gorilla, house n-word and othered my whole life. I was considered Black until very recently - the newer generation telling me I'm not. It's wild. I'm the same age as Bob and went from being Black to being told I'm white. But why the fk do they get to decide that without knowing my story?

I commented earlier, but I wanna add that most people I’ve met would agree that you’re black if you have black parents or grandparents but other than that no. Like whether or not you are noticeably black at first glance, if you have a black parent or grandparent like you can identify with being black. I think the black experience can be different depending on who you talk to so like people basing their blackness off of that/interacting with that alone could potentially be warranted for an assbeating 💀 all the white people that grew up poor & in the ghetto and claim to be black just bc they associate blackness with poverty would be an example of that

Anyone else need to listen again due to being distracted by Bobs gorgeous fucking face ?! Dayuuummmm 🥵

Angieeee

Willing to give Maddy’s drag a shot… willing to listen to her story. As to Rachel, I stand with Monet, black wherrrre lol.

Alexander

Speaking about Maddy, I just don’t care at all. Social media has people writing think pieces and dissertations. Drag Race viewers sensitivity levels are on 100 at all times.

Wilson

Bitch you’re literally saying my point. Did you listen, Mary!? 🙄

Bob The Drag Queen & Monét X Change

TOKEN STRAIGHT GUY HERE.. I'm stoked for Maddy. my two rusty cents.

i cba w the rachel dolezal talk, she's whack bob

Does this not tread in to colorism at a certain point though?

Grant

I don’t know how to feel, I get the argument about breaking down gender norms requiring work from all parties, but I just have this innate aversion to the continued loss of gay spaces to non queer/cis people. For example, I’ve been to Club One in Savannah GA multiple times. Fantastic drag queens, so so talented, and a great gay bar all around. But Savannah is a location that is a really prominent white straight wedding venue (v plantation-y, it’s a whole thing girl) and as an unfortunate result, on most nights, the crowd there is very predominantly straight white females. Each time I’ve been there both the drag show and the dance floor etc is literally like 8-9 bachelorette parties and like, under 20 (at least visibly, so ya know, you got me there) queer people all together, not including staff. And now it’s become cyclical because now everyone knows that’s what it’s like, it seems that less queer people and PoC even go out there. I don’t know, I think mainstreaming queer culture has pros and cons. Income and acceptance for our people, but the loss of our identity and spaces.

Grant

Hey! Volunteering to be the biracial person you get on to discuss the subjectivity of race 🙏🏽 check out my TikTok @everydamndaley where I discuss this a lot 🥰

Daley Grace Sweeting

PLEASE get Amanda Seales in on this conversation! Pleeeeease!

Nigel Eliot

A lot of what is mentioned sounds like the one-drop, which we could all do well in leaving behind. Yes, race is based on how you look, but how you look affects the shared experiences you might have with those of your community. I think it’s shortsighted to say just because someone played dress up for a few years that makes them Black. This assumption doesn’t take into account that she presented as an extremely light skin Black woman, and was embraced BECAUSE of that, and because society holds onto One Drop. Colorism played a major role in her successful deceit, and is a larger factor in how Blackness is defined, for example, in places like Brasil. And no, it’s not about people being Black enough. That’s just a baseless echo of someone’s (understandable) insecurities. Dark skinned African immigrants who come to America speaking French can also be told they’re not “black enough”. That phrase and use alone should tell you that Blackness isn’t just defined by how you look. The shared experiences of people around you might affect that. That said, as a dark skinned child of african parents, I myself have struggled with being “black enough”, but I only felt reassured once I 1) came to terms with my personal experiences and inclinations towards anti-blackness 2) decided -for myself- that how I live and who/what I care about speaks for itself

J

didn’t you see alaska’s boy look😭😭😭

I think you can have black heritage and be white and vice versa… i guess going down that rabbit hole you can choose your race, but its not the race you were born or dictate your experience up until the point you start presenting as a different race. But its not choice everyone has and its not like thats necessarily a choice that’s socially acceptable.

It’s Not that I’m upset about maddy, just that a straight cishet person got casted before a cis woman or a drag king, but again that’s not Maddys fault

Elias El-bitar

I grew up with several black people as family members but I would never consider myself black. My nephew is a twin and he's white with red hair fair skin and blue eyes, so idk if he can be considered black but his twin sister is black. My brother is white and my sister in law is black. So idk if I agree with my nephew who is visibly not black being considered black.

White presenting people are white. Specifically white presenting people with one white parent and one black parent. They. Are. White.

Trash Ketchum

I think I disagree. Since race is a social construct its merits should also derive from the social. Much about race groups people based on shared experience, and someone who is viewed as white will never have the experience of someone who is black. This is not to invalidate mixed people but instead to say that the mixed experience is something of its own. My instincts are also to reject rachel's claim to blackness, but i struggle to substantiate these feelings.

Jadawg

I came here to do this so thank you ❤️

Abra

I usually don’t comment much here but I do have to speak up on the whole Tik Tok rhetoric of “If you look X, you’re X” and i *have* taken a few anthropology/sociology classes that I think can back up the viewpoint that there is a lot more to “race” than just the phenotypes. The way Tik Tok has skewed and projected their opinions and talked over other opinions because of their negative experiences is wild to me. To say someone isn’t black just because they look white invalidates and gaslights an entire portion of the Black community. You are minimizing the effects of being raised by parents who have experienced racism, being protective over these members in more ways than just allyship. Knowing the nuances, being told since infancy that you’re black and seeing blackness before you even see the sun. It’s really gaslighting, cannot find a better term. To revoke someone’s identity because of how *you feel is unfair. Rachel Dolezal did not grow up with this identity, she did not decide this lifestyle until her brother was adopted or whatever the story is. She did not feel since birth that that was who she was. She’s an unfortunate case of lost but it doesn’t make her black. I think it’s also interesting to point out in the Deaf community there is a distinction between the deaf and the Deaf: whether you identify as Deaf and have a shared experience with the Deaf community as opposed to just possessing the shared trait of deafness. Someone grandfather who lost his hearing at 67 typically will not identify as Deaf but just is deaf. Someone in Brazil may be black but will never identify as Black.

Nia

Really interesting commentary on Rachel Dolezal. I don't personally think that she is black, but what I found interesting about Monet's justification of why she isn't black was almost borderline transphobic. "if you change your appearance, it doesn't mean anything" is an argument used against transgender people to invalidate their experience as a person of their gender. And if gender and race are both a social construct, then why can't Rachel Dolezal be black? I don't know. Really, really interesting topic though. Love you both!

miles2179

I'm rooting for Maddy "Mad Dog" Morphosis for season 14!

It’s a tv show made for entertainment and I’m hoping to be entertained like I always am. Even if I felt some type of way, why take it online. Like who has the time to be that hateful.

I hate when straight people chime in and try to defend us over dumb shit like this. Like girl no one asked you to be our hero everyone’s fine and accepting you can cool down lmao

Riles Fo’miles

“We’ve had trump supporters”. I wanna know which queens are trump supporters for real. Say their names!

Breaking someone's character down before they even have a chance to show themselves (simply based on their appearance and sexuality) sounds very familiar. As the gay community, this is exactly what happens to us and now we feel it is okay to do this to someone else simply because of their sexual preference? It's so disappointing and this is the exact opposite of progression. What I'm hearing is the straights need to learn tolerance, but gays don't need to meet that same requirement? This is a weird fucking world we live in.

The definition includes “physical attributes”. Makeup is not a physical attribute. To say Rachel dolezol is black because she was able to trick people into perceiving her as such is like saying people who dress up as geishas for halloween are Asian for night. Yes, race is based on how you physically look/are perceived in a certain cultural context, but besides physical characteristics, we also look at ancestry. In the USA, a tan person can be viewed as racially Black or White, simply depending on whether they have Black ancestry or not.

Sasu

Agreed but also it seems like he's gone out of his way to say that he isn't queer...

WERQ DJ

real talk i really didn't understand why people are so mad< especially after Maddy's post on ig. I think they're very funny in my opinion and also why do people care so much! I fr think people are bored and just want something to complain about. i say go outside and touch some mf grass yall1

I feel like the definition of race being determined by how you look is just part A of a longer definition which is why it’s such a hard thing to discern. I mean if a white looking person has 2 black parents by blood how can you fully deny their blackness? But I also understand a huge part of race is how you’re seen so it’s tough. This kinda reminds of the transracialism episode where one of them said if Charlize Theron was on the call she’d be more African than bob, monet, and kizha lol.

Dragula had a cishet white male contestant on season 2 though.

Marco Stevanin

1) Is Monet in the bathroom? 2) Why? 3) I grew up with white adopters, in a white neighborhood, but I'm CLEARLY not white. I'd never say I am white. I am not treated as a white person, especially by white people, in white dominated societies nor in Asia. If I bleached my skin, hair, and changed my eyes I'd still not be able to pass as white. 4) RD is an exploitative appropriating pos, and she should be erased even faster than Ch**ry Pie; She caused more harm in terms of reach (maybe not intensity) than CP. Also, talk about taking space away from a person who is REALLY a part of the community!

I feel like some people are just trauma dumping all their frustrations about white straight men onto Maddy. Not really fair to her because we know literally nothing about this person. Hopefully people will realize we need to judge others on their actions and not their life experiences.

Cesar Munoz

Loved this exclusive. This race conversation gets even more complicated in the context of Indigenous people because the one drop rule doesn’t apply to us (particularly because of phenotype). Blood quantum is super fucked and is the reason I’m not enrolled in my tribe even though my grandma who raised me doesn’t have any white ancestors (that she knew of). I’m also white presenting so my cultural heritage gets challenged all the time and honestly it hurts, but I also recognize that I have a shit ton of privilege because of it. And a lot of people try to falsely claim Native ancestry. We have our own Rachel Dolezal and her name is Andrea Smith. You should get Lady Shug on the Pod to talk about this conversation so you can get a Native perspective as well.

Hunter Herrera-McFarland

Gay men often talk about not having any straight male friends. Things are changing in lgbtq spaces but that is one of the things that doesn’t seem to be changing much at all. I think it’s refreshing to have someone actually making an effort to bridge the gap.

Alexys Jordan

girl what the fuck are you talkin about

kechi

I don’t think people are upset that straight men are doing drag. Anyone can do drag. The thing people are upset about is that a cis het man is given the platform and is being represented when there a other people who are still being left out. Instead of 2 trans women on the season why not make it 3? Or a drag king? Also, it’s okay to be upset about this aspect of the show while still praising other aspects.

Diego Ramirez

I literally forgot my point because of how good Bob looks with that beard… Ok, so first: Dame Edna, arguably one of the most famous queens of all time was a white, straight, cis male as well, and no one questions the validity of their drag. Second: If David Bowie tried out for drag race would people freak out this hard? To quote another pasty faced, red haired Brit I love: “I don’t think”

Squeaky_Fromage

100% Agree with Roberta, glad cause I didn’t know what those tweets meant lmao. CAN WE TALK ABOUT THIS BEARD THO?!? I literally didn’t think Bob could be hotter, but then the bitch had the nerve, the cheek, the gaul, the audacity, and then the motherfuckin GUMPTION to go and pull a stunt like this and drop jaws AND draws!!?!???! Simpin so hard right now it’s embarrassing lmao.

Squeaky_Fromage

As a Straight Drag Queen from Australia. I think this is Amazing!.

Some of y’all sound absolutely insane. This is a WILD FAMILY 😂

Paige 'FINESSA' Cannon

This is what I wanted to comment but am not educated, or patient enough to lmao. The people coming for Bob, not understanding thought experiments, or the difference between genetics and race as a social construct are bad takes. ♥️

Squeaky_Fromage

Can you guys talk about how there's no Asian representation this season and the lack of conversation around it? Like is it just me or does nobody care? o_O There was a rumor of one Asian queen getting cast before she was cancelled, but even if that were true, the fact that they said "we have our token" and had no backup? Aside from that, the perception of race is definitely arbitrary depending on where you live and the society you live in. For example, years ago, Italians were not considered white by Americans (even though they consider themselves white, and we consider them white today).

Interesting topic, but let's use the reverse argument. If men can put on female clothing and do their hair makeup, does that make them a woman??? A man who says he's a woman simply because he says he is doesn't make him one right? Or does it? In that case transgender wouldn't exist and the laws and protections around it should go away, if the same argument is used for this dolezal phenomenon. Or can u be whoever u want to be? Like dolezal, and transgender ppl, is it about how u feel and identify as? Or is it based on genetics? Having a penis makes u a man, female anatomy makes u a woman, african genetics make u african, etc or do we get to say well i have African genetics but I identify as Irish because I like the culture? For examples, which is right?

Me tooooooo! LoL 🤦🏽‍♀️

Primadonna08

I appreciate that Bob and Monet occasionally call out the actually problematic Ru Girls. The people condemning Maddy for being *gasp* straight are probably some of the same people who stand behind Sharon.

EscApie

I want to clarify something. Words do not have meaning, they have usages. Definitions are NOT prescriptive they are Descriptive. Appealing to a definition in some cases does not work especially in areas where it is ambiguous, like “Race”.

Maestre

Even if ur white, adopted grow up with blk folks your still white, so I agree with Bob on that point. Rachel dolezal will never be black btw

it was the comment on YouTube " he thinks he's straight, that's cute" for me 😂

I liked your response, bob and Monet! I agree. Best way to decrease violence against queer community is to take down toxic masculinity! Also love that you know the word “phenotype”, bob. Hugs to you both!

Noelle

Isn't Bob calling her bi-racial acknowledging that one of her races is black though?

There is also the side that I agree with, and it is to accept all creeds (pun intended) into the drag race community. So I guess I am just a bit torn about how I feel with Maddy on being Drag Race. But he is on the show now, so let’s see how his socials and actual current interactions unfold.

Maestre

How much more experience of “black” does she need to go through since having siblings, a husband, a child & adopted children who are black is not enough?

Maestre

Exactly, especially your last statement. If Rachel Dolezal was born looking the way she does now, that would be one thing. But she deliberately crafted an image to be read physically as a race different from the one she was born as. If we follow Bob's logic we could all just switch races whenever we wanted if we were willing to commit to changing our appearance for a few years.

Enjoy my Siblings so much and always look forward to new content! Regarding Rachel Dolezal, even by the definition that Bob is basing their argument on she does not have Black DNA, nor did she have the “Black” experience. She was raised by her White parents that adopted “Black” kids that she grew up with. Not to mention, she married a Black man that she has a child with and adopted her adoptive brother. But that still does make her Black, period. Anyone else see her doc on Netflix?

Very VeeBeeeee

14yrs it took to have a colorless hetero cis man and YES IT IS TOO QUICK. Did you all forget that it took DECADES for any lgbt+ people to be represented on tv and radio? There are FAR TOO MANY poc’s & indigenous drag artists who should be on this show before a colorless hetero cis man. *edited* thanks for correction!

Maestre

Get Naomi in to talk about it! She's black or mixed (Idk how she identifies) and grew up in all white family right?

Marcus Been

"will smith" has me cryinnnggg 💀💀

umchileanywayso

Where’s the new production company ????? Not Bob actually frozen 🥶

I think it’s great. Kind of shocked but not shocked at the blowback. I completely welcome it and it just reflects the idea masculinity is what you make it. As for Rachel, no I don’t see her or consider her as black. A white person can grow up from birth in that culture and still be white, especially when genotype comes into play.

Edward C

I understand to some extent the feeling of "can't we just have this one thing" and there are many gay people who had very bad experiences with straight dudes growing up and don't have straight men in their social circles at all and want nothing to do with them. My feeling is if he is an entertaining reality tv personality and does well in the competition I'm fine with it. If he is mediocre hopefully he won't last. Have to say personally I was not super excited about having a cis woman on DRUK either (though at least she was a lesbian) but used the same metric. I thought well if she is fierce and entertaining I will be fine with it. Obviously that got cut short but that is her own damned fault for sliding across the stage on her knees for a Ru Peter Badge. Now I see people on Twitter acting like it was all Ru's fault and Ru got up and beat her with a metal bat. Like wtf? As far as Drag Kings go I have zero interest in it and don't really get why people are angry about no Drag Kings on a Drag Queen show but if Ru decides to cast one on the show maybe I'll be proved wrong. Loved the discussion of race at the end. I'm half Iranian which is a mix of light and dark skinned people. My father was freakishly light skinned though. Red hair, blue eyes, and freckles. The other kids used to make fun of him for it and call him a "little German Boy" (this was during and right after WW II). A lot of Iranians consider themselves white even if they are dark haired/dark skinned but one of my fathers friends was like "No I am a woman of color. White people see me as a woman of color here in the US so that is what I am." and my father couldn't understand her point of view. I was trying to explain to him the differences of their lived experiences here in the US based on their appearances but I don't think I got through. I definitely look white and always identified as white growing up but I started to see that as soon as people heard my Iranian name they got super confused and put me in the "other category". Like I could see the mental gymnastics going on in their brains being like "Well he looks white but he can't possibly be." Even a close friend of mine was like "You're not white." I was like "What the hell? I'm not pasty fish belly white like you but look at my skin what are you talking about?"

Marchmain

Claudette Colvin’s son looked 100% white. Her book is great!

Jenny Jupiter

Give us Drag Kings, more trans contestants before a cis straight white guy. Can we have something without them? this one thing

Really didn't expect this to become Bob's defense of Rachel Dolezal. Quite the turn of events.

P.s. by this logic, Thorgy is black??

Tyler Akers

This is perfect with bobs face completely over it frozen xd

Nicolas Leiva Herrera

Bob, check out Adrian piper’s art (search Adrian piper calling cards) she has a retrospective at moma a few years back and covers these topics smartly and extensively

Tyler Akers

Coors light 🤣🤣🤣

I totally agree with what you're sharing, but It's the absence of an Asian drag queen on the cast that makes me have an issue with Maddy. It would have been great to have Asian representation on this cast, especially following the Atlanta shootings and heightened anti-Asian violence in the past year. It's hard for me not to think that a spot was taken from an Asian queen to have a straight White man on the show.

Vince

Would've loved a cis queer woman or a drag king over a straight white guy any day. But that's why I only watch Dragula and come to you guys for updates on DR. 💸

Why does this queen have to be the fifth with my name 😩

Maddy

I really enjoyed the conversation about race towards the end. By no means am I a profesional but I did take some courses on this not that long ago. What Bob said is true — race is a social construct. Just to make this argument concise. In 1922 Takao Ozawa, a Japanese man, petitioned the U.S for citizenship. It was denied because he was not white. He argued that he had assimilated into American culture, speaks the language, got an education here, and most importantly had pale skin therefore qualified. However the judge ruled that he was of the “Japanese race” and could not qualify regardless of what he outlined. This gets into eugenics but essentially the U.S. argued that you would have to be genetically Caucasian to be white and get U.S citizenship. In 1923 in Thind v U.S. Bhagat Singh Thind an Asian Indian, proved that he was “genetically” aryan / Caucasian. The court ruled that regardless of genetics we would not be socially accepted as a white person. Thus it didn’t matter if you assimilated, acculturated, and were genetically Caucasian or live that experience you are not white. All this to say that regardless of genetics, race relies a lot on social acceptance. You can have two visibly black parents and grow up in a black family, live the black experience, but if you do not “look black” you will not be perceived as such. We see this through how white people and lighter skin people are treated over darker skin people. The issue with Rachel is if she was socially accepted to be Black, because she looked black, she would technically be black* because in order to argue against it you’d have to believe in race science which is just eugenics. We of course know she isn’t, but if it wasn’t for her being exposed, no one would have known. This is to say race is fickle and as cliche as it sounds, a construct. * wanted to edit that there are certain things / conditions within our genome that are unique to certain groups based on culture, generational trauma, and location. So while Rachel may have been socially seen as a black woman, she would not have the entire understanding of what it means to be black because she had not been predisposed to biological conditions unique to a certain group.

I agree with Monet that a person’s race is (or at least should be) according to how they are perceived with the features they develop *naturally*. Bob was like “you’re just adding this to the definition,” and I understand that’s true, but maybe it’s time we do that. Definitions are not unchanging. I think now that people have the means to acquire “blackness” through cosmetic procedures or whatever, we should draw the line somewhere and say you are not black just because you decided to be. Black people do not get to decide that they are black. I really do wonder if some day I’ll be considered wrong for not believing in transracialism tho.

Palloae

That is the most educational thing I've ever heard in reference to the whole Spokane Situation.

MadMaxineShaw

let’s talk about dragula girl

Bob looks good in motion

pyxis

BOB MONET IM LIGHT SKIN HALF BLACK PERSON AND HAVE SM TRAUMA LET ME ON!!!!! I wanna chat!!!

Malibu

That part.

KB

Bob loves a dictionary definition, but race doesn’t have a dictionary definition. It is in the dictionary, but that does not encompass what race means. The word love is in the dictionary too, are we going to base all of our feelings of love on that? He’s right though — race is a social construct, it changes wherever you go in the world. He should just leave it at that.

Melissa Rivera

I think Bob and Monet gave short change to this argument. I think the pushback has very little to do with whether cishet people can do drag, and more to do with "Why was a cishet man cast before a single queer Indian-American? Or a single lesbian, cis female queen? Or when there's been 1 trans man?" etc. I think there are just so many queer stories the show still hasn't told over 14 years that's its like, really? We get a cishet white dude before a single South Asian contestant?

Alex

Race is indeed a social construct, but there are also epigenetic biotypes that are unique to racial groups in different regions due to intergenerational/systemic traumas (like chattel slavery). Rachel was pretending to be a Black American for her own benefit—and taking up professional space that a Black woman should have occupied—without any of the epigenetic features specific to people whose ancestors survived the horrors of the diaspora. She also sued Howard University, claiming discrimination as a white person, then faked hate crimes against herself for attention, and lied about who her parents are, so…😬

i feel like with the rachel dolezal thing - how you look might dictate how you're treated and if you experience racism, but Blackness is also a distinct cultural group. so maybe you can be treated as Black by police, white supremacists, etc, but some of the state systems that discriminate against Black people you haven't experienced. for example, people whose ancestors were enslaved have generational affects of that that Rachel hasn't experienced, for example her family hasn't experienced redlining, etc, and she also doesn't have lived experience of Black culture.

It fixes itself a few minutes in, they must've had a camera problem

HI! I'm a fan that likes this response!! I've also met a straight queen and I think the fan response (often) reveals how most people who engage with the show have no frame of reference of drag except through the lens of Drag Race. If DR were meant to be a true reflection of the community, every season would've been packed with trans women, fat people, and people of color. But it isn't. This one straight man, who makes his livelihood in queer spaces, playing with gender expression, is not a threat to "our spaces." Should we be critical? Absolutely. As we always should be. But the kneejerk respose of "NO, GET OUT," ain't it. And the argument that the spot could've gone to someone else, you can make that argument for everyone. Cast a ____ person? That could've been a ____ person instead. So, I'm with y'all. But for Rachel? She ain't black... But she's adopted family now. On that note, my dad is white, raised by a black family, but didn't find out he was white until his mid-60s when he tracked down his biological family, but still considers himself black. And I fully identify (and appear) as black too. So, it's complicated. At the end of the day, just like gender, race is truly a construct.

Jay G

I keep deleting my comments bc I'm afraid of replies lmaoaoa I love Maddie being there, I support the decision and I'd love for her to slay, but I don't agree w villainizing those who do have an issue with a straight white man's inclusion. It's not about Maddie the person (I think those who send her hate are trash, *she* isn't doing anything wrong).

Sean

Do people still consider "Questioning" as part of the LGTBQ? I think Maddy said on instagram that they got into drag during a period where they were questioning their identity. Like are people who question themselves and potentially have some queer experiences still considered queer, even if they ultimately decide that they are cis and straight? This is not to speak for Maddy, I dont know their life, but I would be interested to hear peoples takes.

Daniel

I think the conversation about Rachel can get very nuanced and even I can see it from different angles. On one hand, I do agree that it is possible that she lived a black experience if those she interacted with on a daily basis perceived her to be black. I kinda like to approach this as if a random person on the street described you to someone would they say you were white or black. So if Rachel had the black hair styles, darken skin, etc, I can see it from that angle. However, there are some privileges that Rachel, as a white woman, probably couldn’t avoid. I’m curious if her driver’s licenses said she was white or what she put on the doctor’s form. There are many examples where on paper she probably had to put she was white and was treated as such. That’s something even a “white-passing” black person couldn’t accomplish. Very interesting conversation indeed.

The drag race fandom’s ignorance doesn’t even surprise me anymore. Some people in this fandom can’t even check their racism and fat phobia for one damn season (Kimora Amour is the current victim). They have no business saying who is allowed to be on the show and they damn sure have no business fixing their crusty ass lips to speak on diversity and inclusion. Kandi was right with what she tweeted and I wish she hadn’t deleted it, but she probably just didn’t want to deal with the crazies again. Also, Vanessa Van Cartier’s husband says he’s a straight man. It could be the same thing with Maddy for all we know.

Mel8235

ALSO just to add on I think i get where Monét is coming from saying that a white-looking person with black biological parents and upbringing etc would be considered black. BUT. To me it comes down to the question - if someone met them on the street, what race would they think they are? Because how people interact with you given their own prejudices and biases plays a big part. Literally as I type this it’s making me think back to Rachel and how someone walking up to her would probably have perceived and treated her as they would a black woman so I’m going to be this is too confusing for me 😭

Louis Cissé

this video provoked a lot of interesting thought. this is why I love yall because you aren't afraid to just explore shit and speak without a filter. It's really valuable -- even if people are gonna hate yall (lollll). I do think -- somewhat in line to what Bob was saying --perception (especially the way people perceive us) is really the anchor of reality and the anchor of our experiences.

M JM

Having said all that, I'm going to cheer the bitch on until I no longer have a reason to, just like I will with the rest of the girls. To be honest she had one of my favourite looks.

OMNIA

Being biracial, I feel like y’all having a podcast episode about this frfr might help with the almost like anxiety or apprehensiveness some of us get bc we get invalidated a lot tbh. Like we’re either not black enough, or we’re not white enough, or we’re not ___ enough like whatever you’re mixed with (I’m black and white but like yk). Then there’s the conversation about whether or not you can say certain things or if that’s not okay, who you hang out with can get you judged for that like I have some biracial friends that go to IU which is like a biggg PWI and they are have more black physical features than I do but feel more judged bc of the school they go to and people they hang out with even though like the other people that go there is out of their control?? You also even if youre lighter like I think most biracial people still get called all the slurs, like I’ve literally been called damn near everything in the book by my white side, but then people invalidate who you are when you’ve also seen that too and I just idk. It’s a lot that goes into it damn near but id love to hear yalls thoughts in a full podcast length episode. And like im fully aware I’m a lightskin ass bitch and can definitely pass as white, I have privilege and Ik that, that’s just my like thoughts Ig

right, lol

lrx

Thank you for this interesting conversation. I was really excited to hear it because I wasn't sure exactly how I felt about this whole thing myself and I think I generally agree with your take on it. I was surprised to discover my own discomfort when I heard that a straight cis queen was going to be on the show. I've always been a strong supporter of AFAB queens getting on the show so logically you would think anyone else doing drag would have my full support, but for some reason I had this feeling that something was being taken from me. I'm not saying it's right but it's just how I felt. As a queen myself who has been obsessed with drag race since the very beginning, it has been an incredible journey to be a part of as a queer person. And even when the show and drag became much more mainstream I still felt at its core it was a queer phenomenon uplifting queer artists and subverting mainstream culture. I guess the question now is can a cast member with the full privileges of mainstream society be subversive? Is it subversive to subvert the subversive, or is it just claiming space in a culture of people whose struggle you do not share?

OMNIA

No because Bob really does make me think more deeply every single episode it’s wild. I wouldn’t ever consider Rachel to be black - sure the people she interacted with while pretending who knew no better will have assumed she was, but it comes down to the lengths she took just to get strangers to think she was not white. Just like MJ, where he experienced the majority of his life and his formative years as a black man, Rachel lived hers as a white woman, so her worldview would have been built up in a completely different way - affected by culture, surroundings etc. Of course every person, including within the same race, has a different outlook and perspective and life experience, but there are some more common and even fundamental differences in opinions/outlooks etc that occur because of someone’s race. It was really really interesting to talk about how race is fundamentally relative to environment though! The fact that you could be considered one race in one region/country and another somewhere else is so strange to think about.

Louis Cissé

Not a Trump supporter but Gia was really anti Vax and anti science and stuff at the beginning until she got it lol.

Robert Khachatryan

I know Maddy personally from a few years back when I was in college and can genuinely say she’s a wonderful person who has nothing but love for the queer community. I’m so excited to see my friend show her art. I’m so excited to see trans queens of color on the show. I’m excited period.

biiiiitchhh monet!!! I need a full cover of that Creed song lmao sounded so good

Sean

I’m calling it “genderification” lol cause it’s not gentrification but it sure does feel like it lol. Drag’s history didn’t include and wasn’t necessarily FOR cis white men, their part in the story is oppressing the queer folk (and so many others but we’re just speaking on drag here)…. So it does feel weird.

Jordan

I think the conversation is not so much whether Maddy is allowed to drag or not, because of course she can, but rather she should be given such a huge, life-changing platform like drag race before so many deserving and still underrepresented drag performers? She already signed to Voss events. If Drag Race was truly representative of the outside drag world there would be way more trans people on the show, the show would have had drag kings and queer women on there. It's just annoying to me that they gave a spot to a straight person before others is the queer community. Maddy seems like a nice person so hate to them.

IJS

Period

Wait, who was the Trump supporter on DR?

Gregory Ellwood

I felt like he was taking a spot from a queer person but really this will bring more publicity to the show. So just that alone will help all the other LGBT queens stay relevant.

R

Spokane is barely a city and she is NOT black. Guh...I hate that bitch.

Kell Ryland

Bob is really pushing this argument. Rachel dolezal is not black and never will be. Her genetics are not black. Doesn’t matter her appearance. Your talking about phenotypes without discussing genotype and that’s reckless. If you don’t have black DNA you are not black.

KB

Bob be dead wrong and always try to justify his statements

I honestly hate the reaction Maddy is getting I mean I get the views they’re pointing out but she really is breaking barriers with toxic masculinity and is showing that there are straight people who are really big allies to gay community there is so many queer people who really damage this community and im really hoping Maddy fucking serves it on the show love you guys!

Ironically, when you were talking about adopted white people in black families not being black, that is literally what the term transracial used to describe. It was a term invented for adopted children whose race differed from their adopted family and the challenges that came with that. (Obviously mostly used in the context of black adopted children with white parents as that is more common) Rachel using that term erased a really complicated social position from understanding and made it harder for those kids to find resources for their situation.

Bren Donnellan

I feel like this part of the wiki, this particular definition came from is of note: “Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.” Rachel ain’t black in America. Maybe in Sweden or something but not here

lilcczar89

100% I think Maddy has to rly watch himself more in regards to what he says but his response to the whole situation thus far has seemed thoughtful to me at least! We can only hope for the best I guess🤷🏼‍♀️

Stephanie

Same lol

bob said in a pod once that Tyler perry is one of the most famous drag queens so people shouldn’t be surprised by this

Stephanie

I think the difference is Rachel did not grow up Black or have to deal with the unique trauma that comes with it. White people have always had the ability to have "optional identities" in a way that is not accessible to Black people. At any point she could have just "become" white again. We can't.

I could go the rest of my life without hearing about Rachel Dolezal again. 😐 But I agree with their take on Maddy.

MadMaxineShaw

This is why I love you both. Thank you so much for having such a levelheaded take on all of this. Drag is for everyone, and I was so disappointed to see so many people who have never done drag try to gatekeep what drag is and who's allowed to do it.

Justin Wendzicki

As a non-Black person, I’m trying to understand Bob’s need to justify what I perceive as “Blackfishing” as also being a legitimate definition of Blackness . She’s attempted to have this discussion multiple times, but I am just trying to have it make sense .

VERDELINDO

No Bob, Rachel is NOT black, just like black people who pass for white, are NOT white.

Es Dub

I did not bat a lash when he said he was straight. I do not care who he lays with I rolled my eyes this Chile may go home first problem solved for those who are so mad. people be so pressed about nothing.

Jordan Harper

I like Maddy, I think she’s fierce. And I’ve gotten into many Internet squabbles with people over it 😂😂

Zoe Meltdown

OH MY GOD WHEN BOB SAYS “IS SHE BLACK” I THOUGHT SHE MEANT RAVEN IM DUMB

Anthony

I LOVE YOU BOTH

Joe Andrews

I have been WAITING for this one

Leen Rowe

It's really strange how queer people claim to be open and welcoming to everyone, and yet gatekeep who can and can't be queer.

I do not have an issue with Maddy being on the show…However I wanted a drag king first.

KB

Am I the only one where bob is frozen?

Santi Sifuentez

I’m excited to see what Maddy will give but I do NOT wanna hear about you being straight all season or how “difficult” it’s been for you being white & straight 🙄

Redgee

I'm not surprised by y'all opinions which are *correct* in myyy opinion. I feel like the people being upset forgot this show is worldwide mainstream and has a very large cis and straight part of its audience now.

Can we book a cameo of Maddy singing “with arms wide open”??

tiffadoodles

An honest question to discuss not loaded or intent. If in 10 years the Drag scene becomes primarily cis straight white men do we look back on this day and say it wasn't his place?..question from a black ass straight woman who is a little concerned.

Tasheena Smith

IM SO READY FOR YALLS THOUGHTS OMG

Oh see yall had to drop it right as I'm doing some homework?!?!? Let me finish this assignment so I can get into this.....I need to know if my siblings feel the same way I do

Gucci R

RIGHT on time 🙏🏽 I was just looking for something to listen to while I make dinner.

MadMaxineShaw

I was like when are they dropping that thang! Lol

Redgee

Hype. Now all the new salty siblings, that are only here for this, can watch the vid, then piss off. Their attitudes have me bothered.

Jordan

y'all dropping this right before i go into work 😭

i clicked so fast lmao

Rachel Claire Adams

DROPPING EVERYTHING

VERDELINDO

I literally bought a Patreon subscription to hear this segment 🥵

Right on time! Lol

Brittany

oooh right when i lay down too

stian