Recently I caught up with the 2014 film Dear White People, written and directed by Justin Simien, about the trials and tribulations of black students on a supposedly integrated Ivy League campus where racial tensions are rife and raw. It’s mildly amusing but confused and irritating in its messages about race.
The main character is a black female student who has a campus-wide radio show called “Dear White People,” in which she comments on the latest developments in race relations. For example, she declares that saying “African American” is now racist because anyone too afraid to say “black” must actually harbor racial animus. She leads a movement to resist integrated housing and wins the right of black students to have their own dorm. The white boys in the film are mostly piggish Animal House types. They point out the unfairness of affirmative action in an officious kind of way, and, although they do end by saying they are ok with it, she throws them out of the black dorm where they are visiting. The other type of white male is her metrosexual boyfriend who is smitten with her. Although some people think she is too militant in refusing to see progress in racial matters, she is vindicated according to the film when one of the white dorms throws a black-themed party. And then it turns out that she is actually half white herself. So there seems to be something about blacks wanting to be completely independent, except when they want to be part of the larger society.
Now comes the news that Dear White People is going to be made into a television series: “The 10-episode, 30-minute project hails from Lionsgate Television and will, like the film, follow a diverse group of students of color as they navigate a predominantly white Ivy League college where racial tensions are often swept under the rug. The series is a send-up of ‘post-racial’ America that also weaves a universal story about forging one’s own unique path.” It will air in 2017.
Although Simien believes that he is giving “a voice to those too often unheard in our culture,” I suspect many of us will feel that we have indeed heard these voices before.