One white kid's perspective on "Dear White People"

While I'm not averse to the in-your-face style of satire Stephen Colbert has brought to TV for the past couple decades, I am a huge fan of more subtle fare when it comes to satire. I like it when I can ridicule the moron I'm watching, only to realize it's a reflection of myself. That may be the most effective part of "Dear White People" for me.

"Dear White People" examines the modern issues regarding identity using it's phenomenal ensemble cast attending the prestigious Winchester University. First, there's Sam White (Tessa Thompson), a mixed-race film student who hosts the witty and sharp tongued "Dear White People" radio show and wrote the self-published "Ebony and Ivy." Sam takes on the racist transgressions of the University and white people in general. Sam works to effect change in her way with the help of Reggie (Marque Richardson) and other members of Winchester's Black Student Union. The first step is a successful run for head of house at Armstrong/Parker, the school's historically black residence hall, to unseat Sam's ex-boyfriend, Troy (Brandon P. Bell). While Troy aspires to become a comedic writer, his father (Dennis Haysbert) is Winchester's dean of students and wants his son to become a lawyer so that white people can't profile him the way we are wont to do. We also have Colandrea (Teyonah Parris), who goes by CoCo and goes out of her way to avoid mannerisms associated with blackness to better fit in with the predominantly white population of Winchester. Rounding out the cast is Lionel Higgins (Tyler James Williams), a gay student who feels that he doesn't fit in with any groups at the school until he finally finds his place at Winchester's top newspaper writing about the black experience. 

While the movie's core conflict is a blackface themed Halloween party, "Dear White People" plays more like a collection of connected vignettes, which allows first time writer and director Justin Simien to explore the characters' identity issues from different angles and situations without the movie feeling overloaded. In the wrong hands, this could have resulted in a rambling movie with no development. However, Simien pulls it off beautifully and our cast shows some wonderful growth.

After the good things I heard about this movie from Sundance last year, I was pretty surprised to see a low rating and so many reviews on Redbox slamming the story and the characters. Having now seen the movie, I understand why. The people writing those reviews either didn't understand what the movie was trying to say, or were made uncomfortable when they realized they were looking at a reflection of their own thoughts. Seeing their prejudices laid out in front of them, it was easier to tear down the movie in order to negate those feelings rather than confront them. 

After watching "Dear White People," I feel like it should be required viewing. I fancy myself a pretty open-minded individual without prejudice, but this movie opened my eyes to some prejudices that I have due to ignorance. I grew up in a pretty diverse neighborhood, but I didn't really have any black friends growing up and my friend group (and Facebook friend list) is pretty monochrome. Seeing this perspective of life in this way showed me just how much I don't know about black people. Our film industry is horrifically dominated by white, male voices. More voices like that of Simien would definitely go a long way to help change these prejudices we white people have.