Why I Don’t Have Sympathy for Lucian Piane

RuPaul's Drag Race guest judge Lucian Piane is still going hard with his racism and bigotry on Twitter, except now he's using racial slurs. The response—while not the largest because really, who is Piane?—has been split dominantly between people who are furious about his white supremacist, anti-Semitic tweets, and those who are trying to find compassion for a man who's reportedly struggling with mental health issues. Articles across the web (here, here, here, and here) have tried to bolster these arguments, dropping subtle suggestions that Piane could be suffering from mental illness. Regardless, mental illness is not an excuse for prejudice behavior.

Somewhere along the line, racist and bigoted celebrity males were given a special sympathy not reserved for the rest of us. It's the kind of sympathy that excuses whatever horrible things you say and do under the guise of mental illness (yes, I'm looking at you Kanye West).

The truth is, I don't feel bad for Piane and I don't think anyone else should either. "Point blank, cut and dry," as Drag Race's Jasmine Masters would say. It's not because I don't care about mental illness, but because people seem to misunderstand what having a mental illness means. You can be both mentally ill and a white supremacist. They don't magically cancel each other out. So, even if he is mentally ill, that still doesn't make it okay for him to say what he's saying. Nor does it prove he doesn't really believe what he's saying. It especially shouldn't make him more sympathetic.

Whether people want to admit it or not, his social position as a cisgender, (formerly) socially attractive, white gay man affects how the public perceives him. If a woman of color were to say or do the things he's done, they'd be destroyed. I hate to be a broken record here, but remember Azealia Banks? The public crucified her for her support of Donald Trump, yet somehow people are willing to look past his support of Trump, his racism, his anti-Semitism, and his body shaming to try and see the human being underneath? That's the epitome of a double standard. But still, people like RuPaul tell us to find compassion, only furthering the aforementioned, oppressive double standards.

What makes this stressful for people is that this isn't just about mental health. It's also about whiteness. Though Twitter rants and mass shootings are hardly the same, in both instances, when an entitled white man is behind the wheel, people like to find excuses for them. The hurt they cause becomes secondary as the media focuses on their home life, childhood, and how many people in the community thought he was such a kind man. This luxury is never afforded to women and POC, whose pasts are scrutinized and combed through for anything that could even remotely be perceived as negative.

What's worse, marginalized people are asked to empathize with their oppressors. Not only is it unfair to ask queer people—particularly queer people of color—to empathize with someone saying bigoted things, it's pointless. Empathizing with and/or appealing to the sensibilities of oppressors has never been historically proven to be a strong catalyst for change. More often than not, it's bold resistance that makes a point. Marginalized people have enough on their plates in regards to living in the new President-Elect's America to be worrying about a white gay celebrity having a meltdown.

There is no proof that Piane is suffering from a mental illness. That being said, there is still also the chance that he is. In a Facebook post that has since been deleted, Piane claims he saw a mental health doctor, though, even if that is the case, seeing a doctor doesn't indicate anything about his mental health status. Nevertheless, it's not okay to assume that all deranged people are mentally ill. And even if some fo them are mentally ill, most mentally ill people are not hateful racists. The language derives from something deeper. The sad, simple truth is that sometimes people are just bad. You can spend all your time looking for reasons and answers, but ultimately, it could be your ruin. If something looks like garbage, acts like garbage, talks like garbage, and associates with garbage, then maybe it's just garbage. Not everything has a silver lining and not everyone can be saved. Better yet, not everyone deserves it.

People need to stop thinking of Piane as the formerly cute judge and friend of RuPaul. This is a man with hateful views, regardless of whether or not he's suffering from some sort of mental illness. He's not the first and won't be the last person to believe these things. Write him off as "crazy" and you excuse the lies and bigotry he spouts.