Brooke Lynn Hytes, a Canadian competitor in season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race (which premieres tonight, by the way), has recently apologized for a now-deleted a 2013 Instagram post showing her next to a performer in blackface.
The photo showed Hytes with a fellow queen named Daytona B*tch. B*tch showed up for a Caribbean Heat theme night at a drag venue dressed as the black lesbian psychic Miss Cleo wearing a head wrap and darkened skin.
In an Instagram post apologizing for the image, Hytes wrote:
“It recently came to my attention that an old photo of me with another drag queen who is in black face surfaced. I had posted the photo to my Instagram in 2014 and I included the hashtag ‘blackface.’ This post was irresponsible on my part; it was rooted in ignorance and came from a place of naivety and privilege.
“I take responsibility for this and deeply apologize to everyone. In the six years since the post I have learned, grown and evolved as a person and I am ashamed that this less informed version of myself might be some followers’ first impression of me and what I stand for. That post was an uninformed mistake that is not indicative of my politics or beliefs. However, my lack of understanding back then is no excuse. I know I should have done better at that time.
“Please let me reiterate that I absolutely do not condone any form of racism, including but not limited to blackface and it saddens me to think about how I have contributed to those harmful ideals in the past. I hope you can accept my sincerest apology and give me a chance to show you who I truly am today and to move forward a kinder, more critically aware artist and person.”
Weirdly, Hytes is actually the second Drag Race contestant to have a blackface scandal.
How about we take this to the next level?
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The first was season 9 competitor Charlie Hides.
Hides occasionally performed as a black character named Laquisha Jonz for 14 years. He discontinued the character in 2015 after a Change.org petition called his act “racist… based on misogynist stereotypes of Black working class women… outdated, offensive [and] shameful” adding “[it] has no place in the LGBT community.”
Related: This gay Instagrammer loves Trump and wore blackface for Halloween, insists he’s not racist
Hides apologized, stating, “The last thing I want to do is contribute to real problems. I want to be a solution…. The last thing I ever wanted to do was to demean a group of people.”
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Wicked Dickie
“…Hides occasionally performed as a black character named Laquisha Jonz for 14 years. He discontinued the character in 2015 after a Change.org petition called his act “racist… based on misogynist stereotypes of Black working class women… outdated, offensive [and] shameful” adding “[it] has no place in the LGBT community.” It took you 14 years to realize you weren’t black? Congrats on the personal growth.
Charlie Hides
Over the past three years, I have apologized numerous times, sincerely, profusely and whole-heartedly. I have apologized on social media, on stage, in YouTube videos and on the radio. I have apologized to individuals in person, in e-mails and on phone calls. I have apologized to my community in numerous interviews, social forums and discussions about the issue of blackface and racism in the LGBTQI community.
I’m apologizing again now and will continue to do so whenever my name is mentioned in relation to the topic.
In December of 2015, within hours of being made aware of the Change.org petition against Laquisha Jonz, I retired the offending character and, agreed to immediately remove all of LJO’s content from YouTube and social media. I apologized sincerely and vowed to take a long hard look at myself and not shy away from accepting responsibly for the mistakes I’d made and the offence I’d caused. I vowed to listen to my harshest critics, to learn more and endeavoured to do better, to BE better.
I am deeply sorry for the offence that my portrayal of a multi-racial character caused. At the time she was created I thought because I was known for playing dozens of different types of characters, male and female, young and old etc. that I was showing range as an actor. I was naïve. Unlike my brothers and sisters of colour, my privilege allowed me to take off my costume at the end of a show, never having to endure the innumerable ways people of colour are discriminated against and the institutional racism they live with every day. My “costume” was another person’s reality. I was wrong to have ever thought otherwise.
As an entertainer my number one motivation has always been to inspire, uplift and spread joy not to cause hurt or create offence. We are living in a time of increasing racial tension and division, I’m deeply sorry that I did something which in any way contributed to this adverse situation. The politics of the Alt-Right and white supremacists disgust me. As I’ve stated on many occasions my desire as an entertainer and as a person is to be a part of the solution and not the problem. I strive to be an ally not a foe.
The most important lesson I learned is that, with 99% of my characters and jokes, I was “punching up.” As a working-class comic and aspiring YouTuber, I was commenting on and making jokes about celebrities who were much more successful and talented than myself. The knowledge that there are people who believe I was using the Laquisha character to “punch down” at a race of people fills me with shame. The charge was made that I was using the character to mock black women in general, that was never my intent, but nonetheless, the hurt was done and the responsibility to learn from my mistakes and to endeavour to never repeat them is mine.
I’m not perfect, I never have been and never will be. But I do care deeply about my friends, family and the community I love and will continue to work hard to be worthy of my position as an entertainer, and public figure.
Thank you for your time.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
She played a character. If you are creative enough to pull it off and not acting in a disrespectful way towards another race why are people losing their minds over this madness??
Al Roker was roasted for dressing up a the Professor from Back to the Future….
Brian
You really still don’t get it? Charlie Hides could have done the same character without the dark makeup and stereotypical name and people would have been fine with it. Even if white people don’t think it’s a big deal, by now we know that black people do, we know why they do, and it’s really REALLY not that difficult to just tweak things a bit so they don’t include blackface.
Or you can just do like Al Roker did and dress up like the character, but not try to change your race. If ever there was a case of white people desperately trying to fake being offended, that was it. If you’re a white guy who wants to do Bill Cosby, put on an ugly sweater, do the Cosby mannerisms and silly voice, make a few jokes about Jello pudding pops and daterape. There is no need to include black makeup, and you’d be amazed how many people who otherwise would have been offended, won’t care in the least that you’re playing a black character as white.
Polaro
No, you really don’t get it. Some of us just don’t believe dressing as a black person is the same as minstrels in the 1930s mimicking black people. Bully all you want, but everything is not racist.
Brian
That’s your idea of bullying? That is hilarious.
Jared Lang
Nice job Queerty. When are you gonna call out Lady Gaga for doing the same thing? Anyone wondering what I’m talking about just needs to search Gaga blackface….
calicroat
Brian, should we all be offended and cry racism when a non-white drag queen puts on a blond or a red hair wig? It would be really silly but it’s the same principle.
Polaro
Exactly the same. I’m now offended by every black woman who straightens her hair. Oh, wait, I really am not offended, because the black woman straightening her hair, while emulating a white woman, means no disrespect.
Brian
I don’t know, are most white people offended by non white people putting on blonde or red wigs? I’m gonna guess that they’re not.
You guys can have whatever opinion you want about blackface, but it’s undeniable that it is offensive to a large percentage of black people. Whether you think it should be or not is irrelevant, because it is. And since it takes literally no effort to not do blackface, and I can’t think it a single instance where it would be important that it be done, I really don’t know why you wouldn’t just err on the side of caution and not do it, and not do this stupid reverse racism thing that makes absolutely no sense as an argument.
But I guess by your logic, since there are people in the world that think that f@ggot and n!gger are ok to say, we should just work them back into the lexicon without worrying about offending people. After all, George Jefferson used to call Tom Willis a honky all the time, isn’t that the same principle?
Craig
Hair color and race are not the same thing AT ALL. What a silly thing to say. And frankly, if you aren’t a person of color, it isn’t your place to determine what we should and shouldn’t be offended by.
cutiesweetone
I feel like you don’t realize that black people can be born with blonde or red hair. There’s no real way to compare black face to wearing a wig. And there’s also black people who have straighter hair.
whatsaywhat
People of color in other countries like Canada and the UK didn’t experience the same kind of enslavement and suppression that people of color in the US society did over the past 400 years. Subsequently, there simply isn’t as much sensitivity to issues of “race” in those countries – the wounds and divisions aren’t as deep and painful as they are in the US.
As for “blackface” minstrel shows from the 1930s – they’re part of American history that the rest of the world is learning about. What until recently looked like a costume now is seen to be a slight against a whole group of people. Same for wearing feather headdresses, and so forth. So times change and people adjust their standards of what is acceptable.
In the future, I predict Drag Race will have to be cancelled since it is a showcase for the privileged (men) to dress up as and impersonate the oppressed (women). And we’ll all be considered sexist MONSTERS for having found it all so entertaining. That’ll be fun.
kiriakis1
People of colour in the UK and Canada experienced exactly the same kind of enslavement. You do realise that it was the British who colonised Canada and the U.S, don’t you?
whatsaywhat
The exact same kind of enslavement?
First of all, the French colonized Canada. The British later won it in a war in 1763 and used it as a dumping ground for Scottish highlanders, Empire Loyalists from the northern US, and the “surplus population”.
Neither the UK or Canada had large numbers of African slaves because there had been no economic “need” for them (as there had been in the the Caribbean and the Southern US). Abolished in 1807, the slave trade was but one evil of colonialism that happened completely outside of most everyday peoples’ experience and comprehension.
The US, by contrast had 12 million people of African origin working as slaves, who after 1865 were subjected to a hundred years more of enforced segregation, violence, and second-class citizenship. This was all sanctioned and enforced by US society and governments. Canada did not even become a country until 1867, after slavery was abolished in the US.
The vast majority of the black people in Canada and the UK are descendants of post WWII economic immigrants from free Caribbean countries. They are but one among several “minority” groups in those countries and their relationship to the broader society is completely different than that of African Americans to broader American society.
Yes, white people in Western countries absolutely have unearned racial privilege based on historic wrongs enacted on people of color – but to draw complete equivalence between the the experiences of black people in other parts of the world to the experiences of African Americans is ignorant, ahistorical, and completely typical of American chauvinism.