Dear Readers, About Dear White People
Dear White People… and everyone else.
*THIS POST CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS FOR SEASON ONE OF DEAR WHITE PEOPLE*
Wow.
As of this sentence, I am one episode into Dear White People, Netflix’s contentious new show regarding racism in the colleges of America.
And all I can say… is wow.
Okay fine I can say more.
Firstly, that wow is a WOW, in the best way possible. Right from the start, this show has me hollering in my seat, only stopping my laughter to stare, wide-eyed and incredulous, at the fearlessness of the statements made by the characters on the show.
Now, before I say anything further, I’m going to go finish the show. What I’ll do before this time break is lay out the structure of this post.
Since Dear White People primarily addresses the problem of systemic racism in America, specifically against black people, it obviously garnered a fair bit of attention. The issue of race relations, especially those in the US, is one that sparks many controversial views. In regards to the show, some of these views came from people who took issue with the way show said what it did, or even the actual message. As a fan and supporter of the message, my intent here is to highlight the main issues people had, then rebut them.
Because proving people wrong is fun.
After the serious stuff, I’m going to wrap up with what Dear White People does well. Which is a lot. Honestly, it was difficult to not just write a rave review about the show. It may tackle serious issues of racism, identity, and general wokeness, but it’s also just a really fun watch.
Okay brb, finishing the season.
That time break looks like just a couple of line breaks and a centered ellipses to you, but I was actually gone for four days from the last bit. The more you know.
In that time, I’ve finished the first season of Dear White People (again, wow) and gathered a small list of complaints to break down.
Alright. Let’s do this.
“This show is so racist towards white people!”
No no, you read that right. While I will be paraphrasing the major complaints, this was the actual sentiment behind most of them.
Now, while this one is basically an umbrella complaint for the others, I have to address this right here. Branching out from the focus of the Netflix show for a second. Trigger warning, darlings.
Racism, as it exists today, does not — nor will it ever — apply to white people. “Reverse racism” is not a thing.
Sure, I could be disrespectful to a white person based solely on the fact that they’re white. Discriminating against someone based on the colour of their skin is the operative facet of racism, and some PoC (people of colour) do that to white people. No argument there. However, the reality is that racism is so much more than that. What makes the phenomenon of racism so prevalent, so complex, so huge, is the history behind it.
Racism isn’t just a non-PoC (person of colour) using slurs against a PoC. Racism is over two hundred years of slavery in America. Racism is around five centuries of colonialism and apartheid, forced control and the educational depravity of people of colour the world over, through the British Empire. Racism is pain, violence, discrimination, and depravity.
Slurs like the N word and “P*ki” are offensive because of their history of derogatory use. They’re offensive because they’ve been used to shame and dehumanise PoC for literal centuries. Since there is no significant history behind ‘slurs’ like “honkey” and “cracker”, and since there is no significant history of other races dehumanising and brutalising white people, there is no reverse racism.
Got it? Great! Let’s get back to the complaints about the show.
“This show depicts every white person as racist, which is grossly unfair!”
If this one were true, I’d agree with it wholeheartedly. Not every white person is some kind of abhorrent racist, and to assume so is wrong. Unfortunately for the haters, however, this one falls short. All you have to do is get past the halfway mark of the very first episode to see that this simply isn’t true.
Yes, a lot of the white people in the show are depicted as ignorant and racially insensitive (shoutout Wyatt Nash, his depiction of racist douchebag Kurt was annoyingly convincing). But that’s not an issue for two major reasons. Firstly, you have to appreciate that the show is trying to clearly illustrate the racial divide in America. As such, it’s fair that exaggeration of certain points for emphasis would occur. In the case of Dear White People, that exaggeration takes the form of caricature.
With caricature, everything is hyperbolic. Weird becomes crazy, dumb becomes stupid, and racism becomes unbelievably arrogant and ignorant bigotry.
As a result, the racists of Dear White People are racist. Let’s take the aforementioned example of the character of Kurt Fletcher, idiot-in-chief of Winchester’s local prejudice rag, ‘Pastiche’. Kurt disrespects Sam White, our proud black heroine, by constantly trying to undermine her with snarky rhetoric. He demonstrates a callous boredom towards the history of slavery. He even goes so far as to organise a mock protest to drown out Sam and the Black Student Union’s actual protest, chanting the derogatory mantra, “Black lives matter! So do blue! We got shit to whine about too!”
So yeah, white people kinda get the short end of the stick in regards to depiction. But one has to appreciate that the “over-the-top” racism seen in the show serves to draw attention to itself, thus drawing attention to the actual problem in real life. Contrary to smiley university promotional materials, discrimination on North American campuses still exists, albeit to varying degrees in different places.
Also, this isn’t even just to drive the point home; this shit actually happens.
And that’s just in relatively friendly and non-racist Canada. Imagine the scenes in America, a country that has failed to properly address its history with slavery and racism to this day.
The second reason the show’s depiction of white people isn’t an issue is that it’s hardly an overwhelming majority of Winchester’s whites who are portrayed as racist. Of course, it’s made out as such for the sake of the message, but in regards to white characters who actually get screentime, they’re not all bad. Kurt’s a bigot, sure, but then there’s Reggie’s friend at the party of the gun incident, who’s just oversensitive. Also, um, anyone remember Gabe?! That guy is phenomenal. Not only is Gabe not racist, he’s a staunch supporter and ally to the Black Student Union of Winchester, with white friends who are just as woke as he is (albeit a bit pretentious).
“The situations are hardly realistic, which doesn’t make the show’s cry of ‘racism!’ very credible.”
Okay, really? Check your privilege, man.
That check extends to me as well. I’ll admit, upon first watch, I couldn’t believe some of the events I witness transpire. The Ivy League school had a blackface party? The whole class were looking to Sam when slavery was mentioned in lecture? Reggie almost got shot by a campus cop?!
But that shock didn’t take long to dissipate. Each time, it took barely a second before I realised that yes, this is the reality for many students of colour today. I have never known or experienced this reality myself, as I have had the privilege of always being a part of institutions where this sort of thing was genuinely rare. I acknowledge that privilege, but that doesn’t mean I’m entirely unaware. I’ve heard reports of racist occurrences on campuses, and of course we’ve all heard of too many instances of young black men tragically and unfairly being killed by police in America in the past few years.
So no, haters of Dear White People, the situations in the show aren’t “unrealistic”. Your being unaware of the occurrence of racism does not mean racism does not occur.
Okay, I’m done with complaints. I had more, but I want to focus on the positives of the show, of which there are many.
Rushed review time.
Dear White People is easily my favourite Netflix Original in a long while (sorry Riverdale). The humour is sharp and witty, the personal drama is intriguing (SAM AND GABE AND REGGIE, GAH), and the message is unbelievably important.
Let’s start with the first voice you hear: the narrator. Voiced by the talented Giancarlo Esposito, the narrator offers an unabashed and often hilarious preamble to the events of each episode. If there’s one thing that will expertly counter the mounting drama throughout the series, it’s a good narrator.
Speaking of mounting drama, let’s move onto the characters. Set in the fictional Ivy League university of Winchester, Dear White People gifts us with a slew of interesting students. Sam White is our primary heroine, and host of the titular radio show, ‘Dear White People’. Sam is a rebel with a heart of gold, often finding herself in the middle of impossible choices: her rhetoric or her heart, her boyfriend or her best friend, her values or her college.
While I can’t detail every character, I will give quick praise to five in particular. Firstly, Reggie: poet-in-hiding, best friend to Sam, and almost-victim to the systemic racism the BSU spends their time fighting. There’s Gabe, the most woke white boy you ever did see, and paramour to Sam. We have Coco, another wonderful example of black female strength, and a perfect counter to Sam; while the rebel is steadfast in almost all she does, Coco suffers from thinly-veiled insecurity, which manifests itself as more than one awkward situation. We get Troy, the wunderkind who silently suffers in his father’s shadow. And, perhaps the most unexpected main character, there’s Lionel: a quiet, nerdy boy who truly comes into his own during the course of the show.
One thing that’s really cool is how the show looks at the same events from different characters’ perspectives, often making the same events feel new again. This helps to make the personal drama amazing; the love triangle between Sam, Reggie, and Gabe is my personal favourite instance of drama (Gabe deserved better, I’m sorry).
Aside from the main characters, we also have a bunch of students so hyperbolic in their style that you can’t help but laugh every time you see them.
This use of caricature works to the show’s advantage; whoever is the focal character of the current chapter gets fleshed out more, as their scenes become a welcome reprieve from the zaniness of the other characters. This use of archetypal caricatures (Kelsey’s clueless chick, Al’s creative kid, etc.) therefore also works to help the viewer to understand whichever issue is being tackled in the chapter.
Speaking of issues, Dear White People is not just about the problem of institutional racism in North America. The show also tackles other societal issues, such as young romance, living in a parent’s shadow and conformity to parental expectations, conforming to peer pressure, etc. It’s also incredibly progressive in doing so: of the two chapters dedicated to Lionel’s point-of-view, the first is all about the young journalist discovering his sexuality. And, of course, there’s the centrality of the black voices in the show.
Though I touched on this before, it’s arguable that Dear White People goes to extremes at some point. The show does this, I feel, to make a point; I was genuinely terrified when Reggie was staring down the barrel of a campus policeman’s gun at the end of Ch.V. While that may not be an actual extreme in the real world, the use of potential gun violence in the microcosm of Winchester served to shock me into the realisation that this kind of stuff does happen.
Finally, it would be remiss of me to not show some quick appreciation for the dialogue. Sometimes serious, sometimes scathingly witty, Dear White People offers some of the best character dialogue I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. Be it a heavily accented derision from Rashid, or a pop culture quip from Joelle, no conversation in the show left me without a smile on my face.
Ultimately, Dear White People is a phenomenal show with a lot of important messages. The show never misses a beat, always making one both laugh and gasp in equal measure. I cannot wait to see what season two will bring.
Till next we meet,
Sarim
