Former VP's daughter Mary Cheney: Why is drag 'acceptable' but blackface isn't?
theGrio REPORT - This week Mary Cheney, the openly gay daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, posed a controversial question on a private Facebook message
This week, Mary Cheney, the openly gay daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, posed a controversial question on a private Facebook message obtained by CNN.
In the post, Cheney — who is married to wife Heather Poe — asked why it’s “socially acceptable” for drag queens to mock women but not also acceptable for white people to put on blackface.
The message reads:
Why is it socially acceptable — as a form of entertainment — for men to put on dresses, make up and high heels and act out every offensive stereotype of women (bitchy, catty, dumb, slutty, etc.). But it is not socially acceptable — as a form of entertainment — for a white person to put on blackface and act out offensive stereotypes of African Americans?
Shouldn’t both be okay or neither? Why does society treat these activities so differently?
According to the mother of two, this line of questioning was sparked after she saw a commercial for the upcoming season of RuPaul’s Drag Race on television.
On the show’s website, a statement response to Cheney read:
‘Y’know we don’t have a clear-cut answer — and maybe there isn’t one. All we know is what a queen told us once: “Drag queens don’t make fun of women, they make fun of society’s expectations of women. If you’re just insulting women that’s not drag — that’s misogyny.”’
Do you agree with Mary Cheney that men in drag and blackface should be treated equally?
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