When Manila & RuPaul are your patriarchy, you're addicted to oppression.
Look, we're never going to get everything right when it comes to race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and other sensitive areas, in part because we're all imperfect and a product of various biases, but also in part because there is no consensus within each group as to what matters.
And because there are always going to be people out there who want us to always be wrong.
For example, a lot of writers (including myself) are not buying Kevin Hart's apology regarding his past homophobic statements and homophobic jokes, but I would guess that the majority of people polled find this a non-issue, and I would also bet — maybe less money, but I'd still bet — that a majority of gay people are more likely to think that yeah, what he said was bad, but let's get over it. I accept that.
This unscientific nature of what qualifies as offensive — blackface is duh-obvious, but Native American headdresses have been addressed and yet many seem to ignore the drive to stop using them carelessly, etc. — is frustrating, and I think it leads to people who are prone to analyze to overanalyze while it leads people who are prone to be more instinctive to shut down and paint every complaint, heartfelt or not, as utter P.C. B.S.
We all have a right to try to suss out which is at play on a case-by-case basis.
A new micro-scandal that erupted this week centers on drag queen Manila Luzon, who did a pretty uncreative Barbra Streisand impersonation on RuPaul's Drag Race Season 4, yet who won for her efforts because everyone else stank. A very small contingent of commenters on social media took offense, not as Barbra Stans (some can't spell her first name, which to me is the real blood libel ...), but because they felt Manila's prosthetic nose was anti-Semitic, a relic of the ways in which Jews have been shamed for countless years.
