American comedian Druski has gone viral with a short parody video titled “How Conservative Women in America Act”.

In it, Druski plays a character whose costumes, make-up and activities all resemble those of right-wing activist Erika Kirk, widow of former Turning Point CEO Charlie Kirk – whose role she has taken up.

Conservatives are up in arms, predictably. Many are calling it racism or reverse racism. Imagine, they declare, how fast a white man would be cancelled if he were to don blackface to send up the activities of an African American widow.

But this backlash misses the point. Blackface and whiteface are not opposite and equal.

Blackface punches down. Whiteface can’t

Whiteface draws attention to the privileges and protections that whiteness allows.

It uses exaggeration – in this case the ordering of not just coffee, but a “sweet cream foam chai ice matcha” with an “organic pup cup” for the fluffy pet – to draw attention to how gaudy and obviously performative the elite white class can be.

The joke in whiteface comedy is not “this person is white”, but “this person is protected, entitled and used to being in control”.

That privilege can even extend to white people who aren’t especially wealthy, as Druski has explored in other whiteface videos. In “Guy who is just proud to be an American”, the comedian portrays a........

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