Dear White People

Molly McGrady

            This week I decided to check out the series Dear White People on Netflix. I’ve been curious for awhile as to what it’s about, or even what genre it is. My initial thought was it might be a comedy or something, but it is actually a very serious show about racism. It follows a group of black students at a predominantly white ivy league school attempting to show the rest of the campus that racism is still very prevalent in our society as well as at their very own school. In the first episode, a spark that sets off the fire from this group of students that ensues occurs. A black face party is thrown in which white students paint their faces and get trashed. The main character Sam then starts a radio show called, you guessed it, ‘Dear White People.’ She talks about all her grievances with the ways the white students treat and talk to minorities, and basically tries to put at the forefront of everyone’s minds that racism is a problem they are still facing on their very campus. Spoiler alert, at the end of the episode you find out that Samantha herself made and sent out the invitations for the black face party.

            The premise of this show is great in my opinion, but some of the execution of it sat wrong with me. I get what Sam was trying to do on one hand by sending the invites, and that she wanted to prove a point with the fact that people actually went to the party and no-one seemed to have a problem with it. This does not change however, the fact that she was the one who instigated the whole thing. This was a little tough for me to wrap my mind around, but I guess her thinking was that it would take something big like this to get people to see what a problem it is. This part of the show didn’t bother me nearly as much as a different aspect did. Samantha is seeing a white guy in the show, and they make this out to be such a dramatic and crazy thing. For one, the scene where you find out about this was ridiculous in my opinion. It’s a bedroom scene where Sam is hooking up with someone, but for almost a whole minute it seems you can only see Sam and not the guy. When they finally pan over to him to show that he is white, it is extremely dramatic and slow. I was thinking, “ummm, ok… nothing out of the ordinary here…” And then Sam is in a meeting with other black students discussing how they are going to handle the issues that are going on, when the news of Sam’s supposedly scandalous relationship comes out. The way everyone reacts to it, you’d think it was Satan she was sleeping with. I should add that this particular guy she was dating is an incredibly respectful guy, never treats anyone differently regardless of skin color, and had absolutely nothing to do with the black face party. Not only do Sam’s friends act like she is doing the worst thing ever, when she brings them around them they all treat him horribly and refuse to let him help with their movement when he offers. I just feel like this is a terrible message to send and it’s completely counterproductive in attempting to eradicate racism in our society. Plus, I don’t feel like that is actually how anyone would treat a good person who is attempting to help them in reality.

            When it comes to racism, I don’t think anyone would argue whether or not it is still present, but where controversy arises is in how to go about getting rid of it. Obviously our society has come incredibly far over the past hundred years, but there is still more work to be done of course. At the end of the day I personally believe coming together and emphasizing the fact that we are all just people and not putting so much stress on race is the best way to go about it. This show is a great idea in theory and inherently a step in the right direction, but I will admit I didn’t love the principles in it and think they could go about it in much better ways.