The Vixen Wants to Talk About 'Drag Race's' Racist Double Standards

Photo courtesy of Dave McMahon and The Vixen. This piece was condensed and edited by Taylor Henderson.

For the month of June, PRIDE is collaborating with prominent voices in the LGBTQ community to work as guest editors for the site—and this week's guest editor is RuPaul's Drag Race alum The Vixen!

After a controversial run on Season 10, The Vixen is one of the most talked about queens of the entire series. While she might have ruffled a few feathers, she has absolutely no regrets. 

Every day this week, The Vixen will discuss topics like her run on Drag Race, Chicago, race, Black Girl Magic, and more. Today, she wants to talk about Drag Race's glaring double standards. 

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It's one thing to have five black queens on RuPaul's Drag Race, but you actually have to acknowledge the double standard working against them.

We had five black girls, then we had challenges like Trailer Trash and Country Couture. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl can put on jeans and a t-shirt and look All-American, but we do it and we look ghetto. We can't get away with the same things.

Black excellence needs to be celebrated on the show. We all know that Ru loves Diana Ross, but we've had two seasons where there were Madonna runways and Cher challenges. Not all of us look like Madonna or Cher. 

You can't call it a fair race if the challenges don't acknowledge the double standard. I hope they acknowledge that the playing field isn't level and act accordingly.

I hope that the show becomes more self-aware in that way. And the same for differently gendered queens. I hope that trans queens have more of a platform and have more of a voice and are more welcomed on the show.

I hope Drag Race becomes aware of the issues and actually takes action.

Keep up with the rest of The Vixen's guest editor content all week on PRIDE, here!