And Ru is known to change her hair and style and whatnot to fit the white audience intentionally.

I think everyone who belongs to a minority makes conscious choices on that, though. It's hard not to be aware that if you're black and dress down, you're more likely to be followed around the store by a security guard. If you're a lesbian, it's probably going to occur to you that your new girlfriend's parents might receive you better if you femme it up a little. If you're gay, you might choose to go SUPER GAY with your outfit when you go to a particularly liberal part of town because you want the savour the feeling of expressing yourself to a slightly extra degree and seeing it being treated as no big deal. I think we all make choices when it comes to how likely people are to receive you and what your goal is that day, or in life.

Ru chose to make himself palatable because he wanted to get as famous as possible and have a voice - it's not the choice I would have made but I think it's a valid approach. The sad part comes when the implication is black queens should play down their blackness to be more acceptable and you realise that the whole point of the show is creating "drag superstars"... like Ru. She moves the parameters of the competition and chooses queens that will slowly push the envelope but the bottom line is Ru wants them to be marketable and if she doesn't think they are (for how they approach their blackness or any other reason), she peels them off. The queens who get to the end are nearly always talented as hell but that doesn't make the queens who were left behind necessarily less so. They just might not bring in as much in booking fees.