Racism in America. Is it okay to turn it into yet another plot device? Well, that depends of course. But then the manner in which we go about exploring just about anything always depends on one thing or another.
After all, depending on how you define “racist”, who isn’t?
And, let’s face it, here in America a week doesn’t go by without one or another news story sparking folks to discuss the issue of “race in America”. And, of course, nothing quite pisses racists off more than having racism itself shoved in their face.
And then the part about black folks reacting to it all. In that context this film reminds you a lot of Spike Lee’s School Daze. After all, it’s not as though the black students themselves are always of a single mind on issues involving race. Instead, the complexities are everywhere…effecting everyone from their own particular vantage point.
For example, here there’s the part about homosexuality.
Still, one would generally asssume that, at least on a college campus, you are more likely to bump into men and women not hopelessly entangled in the belly of the working class beast. There being racist can easily become the equivalent of breathing in and out. Here though many of the students [both black and white] seem comfortably enscounced in the upper middle class.
But then all that stuff about race gets entangled into all that stuff about class in a post-modern world that is never ever all that far removed from all that stuff about the pursuit of fame and fortune.
IMDb
[b]The invitation for the party as shown in the trailer is almost verbatim the invitation for a real life party that occurred at the University of California, San Diego, on February 10th, 2010. The synopsis and film take many cues from the UCSD “Compton Cookout,” an event run by one African American but attended by UCSD’s predominately white and Asian student body. The event itself went fine, but news about it prompted a massive uproar on campus.
Producer Lena Waithe and writer/director Justin Simien met in a scriptwriter’s group. Despite the fact that the script was over 200 pages long, Waithe was so impressed with Simien’s writing that she told him if he could figure out a way to streamline the script she would produce it, despite having never produced a film before.
The theme of the frat party exhibiting blatant racism, parallels the MLK Day celebration that took place at Arizona state university in January 2014. [/b]
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_White_People
trailer: youtu.be/XwJhmqLU0so
DEAR WHITE PEOPLE [2014]
Directed by Justin Simien, Adriana Serrano
[b]Sam [on the radio]: Dear white people, the minimum requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has just been raised to two. Sorry, but your weed man, Tyrone, does not count.
…
Sam [on the radio]: Dear white people…apparently Morgan Freeman wasn’t enough. Obama could cure cancer and somewhere white folks will be embroiled in protest. And he’s only half black.
…
Gabe [on the phone]: So, Sam, how would you feel if someone started a “Dear Black People” show?
Sam: No need. Mass media from Fox News to reality TV on VH1 makes it clear what white people think of us.
…
Reality TV show producer: So your YouTube show, it’s called “Doing Time at an Ivy League?”
Coco: I’m in my second year of a four year sentence.
Reality TV show producer: Armstrong-Parker, that’s your housing assignment?
Coco: Traditionally it’s where the hopelessly Afrocentric gather to process their guilt over not going to an HBCU. Where the negros be at.
Reality TV show producer: That’s not where you wanted to be, right?
Coco: Bechet House is more my style.
Reality TV show producer: The rich white kids?
Coco: Excuse me?
…
Reality TV show producer: What part of Chicago are you from?
Coco: Hyde Park.
Reality TV show producer: What street?
Coco: Seventy-eighth and…
Reality TV show producer: Seventy-eighth! That’s Southside, sweetheart. You know what they say. You can take the girl out the hood, but you cannot take the hood…
Coco: There is nothing hood about me!
…
Sam [on the radio]: Dear white people, this just in: Dating a black person to piss off your parents is a form of racism.
…
Troy: Do you seriously think you can win?
Sam: Troy, we live in a world where there’s a Big Momma’s House 3. I don’t think I have a chance in hell. Thank God.
…
Sam: Troy is a legacy kid…and yet it’s under his watch that Armstrong-Parker, the bastion of black culture here was gutted by the Randomization of Housing Act. Now, second years of color no longer have a say in where they go. The culture that’s been fostered in this house for two decades will be wiped out in two years. This wasn’t motivated by a desire to mix things up bring about racial and socioeconomic harmony, no. The black kids are sitting together in the proverbial cafeteria so they must be up to no good. Over a century of houses grouped by sports affiliations political leanings, majors, you name it. Black kids get their own house and suddenly we got a problem? This doesn’t affect the other houses like it does ours. There are plenty of trustees, former coaches, presidents watching out for the others but all we have is a dean who would rather please his massa…
Troy [in the audience]: Yo, that’s enough of that, Sam!
Sam: …then stand up for his own!
…
Sam [voiceover]: The Armstrong-Parker dining hall is the epicenter of black culture as it stands at Winchester. Only here can you commiserate, celebrate and discuss everything from Kanye West lyrics to theoretical relativism all in a sitting…not to mention find someone who can actually do your hair.
…
Professor Bodkin: Sam?
Sam: Before you say anything might I remind you that I sat through A Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind and Tarantino week without protest.
Professor Bodkin: …Might I also remind you that I read your entire fifteen-page unsolicited treatise on why the Gremlins is actually about suburban white fear of black culture.
Sam: The Gremlins are loud, talk in slang, are addicted to fried chicken and freak out when you get their hair wet.[/b]
Intellectuals discuss race:
[b]Gabe: You invoke minstrelsy for shock value, to what end?
Sam: To invoke the same feeling I get when I turn on the TV and see some so-called reality star shuck and jive for ratings egged on by no doubt white producers. Or the sassy black secretary who has no backstory or character development aside from her skin color.
Gabe: So it’s a tit for tat?
Sam: Are you honestly saying that art can’t be reactionary?
Gabe: You’re reacting to something that’s 100 years old.
Sam [ironically]: Because fear of black men involved in U.S. government is a completely antiquated concept. No social relevance today.
Gabe: I think that sometimes you should hold a mirror up to your audience rather than dropping an ideological piano on their head.
Sam: I just think that works that deal with the African Diaspora through a post-modern lens are outright rejected unless handled by a white artist.
Gabe: African Diaspora?
Sam: Yeah, I said it. I’m sorry, but blackface is alive and well in our culture. Who primarily buys hip hop and watches Housewives of Atlanta? The same homogenized images of black people over and over again? White people, Gabe.
Gabe: Who goes to see Tyler Perry movies?
Sam: We’re an underfed community. None of this changes the fact that the vibrancy…the complexity of black culture has been distilled into commodities and marketing schemes
to be bought and sold.
…
Sam [on the radio]: Dear white people, please stop touching my hair. Does this look like a petting zoo to you?
…
Sam [on the radio]: Dear white people, knowing Lil’ Wayne lyrics no longer earns you an honorary black card. It just reminds me of how often you say the word “nigga” when no one black is around as is required in reciting said lyrics.
…
Sam [on the radio]: Dear white people, in a shocking reversal using the term “African-American” is borderline racist now. It turns out if you’re too worried about political correctness to say “black”, odds are you secretly just want to call us niggers anyway…and truth be told, I’d rather you just be honest about it.
…
President Fletcher [to the dean of students]: Racism is over in America. The only people who are thinking about it are, I dunno, Mexicans probably.
…
Dean Fairbanks: Your show is racist.
Sam: Black people can’t be racist. Prejudiced, yes, but not racist. Racism describes a system of disadvantage based on race. Black people can’t be racist since we don’t stand to benefit from such a system.
…
Sam: You don’t understand. Girls like me…
Gabe: What, have to pick a side? I’m sick of your tragic mulatto bullshit, Sam.
Sam: You can’t say “mulatto.”
Gabe: Mulatto, mulatto, mulatto! I’m sorry if I can’t be your Nubian Prince on my black horse ready to take you back to fucking Zamunda.
Sam: That’s not a real African country.
Gabe: Can I at least get a little credit for a solid ‘Coming to America’ reference? This isn’t you Sam.
Sam: No? And who am I?
Gabe: You’re this girl…
Sam: Perceptive…
Gabe: Who likes to argue with me about every fucking thing. And I hate it because we both know you’re smarter than me. Your favorite director is Bergman. But you tell everyone it’s Spike Lee. You love bebop but you’ve got a thing for Taylor Swift. And I know because my Mac picks up your Mac’s library.
Sam: I was so careful…
Gabe: You like to watch me when you think I’m sleeping and trace the outlines of my face. You’re more Banksy than Barack. But you’ve been co-opted as some sort of revolutionary leader or something. But really, you’re an anarchist. A shit-starter. A beautiful filmmaker. And beautiful in general.
…
Sam: You’re trying to frighten me, but I think you’re the one who’s scared.
President Fletcher: And I think you long for days when blacks were hanging from trees and denied actual rights that way you’d have something to actually fight against.
…
Dean Fairbanks: What sort of vision do you have for yourself?
Troy [his son]: Get my degree. Then law school.
Dean Fairbanks: And what’s that got to do with partying with Kurt? With smoking weed and writing jokes? Is it the spotlight Kurt gets? You want to be on tv or something? You know how many Black men waste their lives to get on TV? Be rappers and ball players?
Troy: Dad no. I want what we always talked about. Maybe have my own firm someday? Run for office. Make a difference. Wife. Kids. I want all that. I really, really do.
Dean Fairbanks: And the drugs? God damn it Troy I taught you better than this. I have been in academia a long time, I’ve seen a lot of things. The men who really run this world? You got no idea what they see when they see you. You are not going to be what they all think you are. You will not give them that satisfaction, you hear me?
Troy: Yes sir.
…
Kurt [voiceover]: Dear white people, are you tired of your humdrum Wonder Bread existence of accidental racism, and wishing you could sip on henny out your crunk cup without a bitch giving you the side eye? Of course you are. For all those looking to unleash their inner negro from years of bondage and oppression, Pastiche proudly presents Dear White People our 89th annual Hallows Eve costume party tonight at 10 Pacific time…or five colored people time. Dudes must rock Fubu, Ecko… Rocawear, or Sean John. XXXL is the smallest sized T-shirt you can wear preferably with a collage of Barack Obama and Tupac on it. Ladies, we need to see huge hoop earrings long nails, and cheap, tight clothes. Proper hood rat starts fights, speaks loudly and when she can’t think of the words she’s trying to say… just makes one up, such as “edjmucated.” Now feel free to fry on up some chicken bring some Kool-Aid, watermelon, forties, and of course, that purple drank. Naturally, there will be a freestyle rap competition so bring it and join us for the party of the year. Oh, and uh…nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga, nigga. Boy, that felt good.
…
Reality TV show producer: Let me get this straight. First you try to break up the black house. Then you take down the sister with the little radio show. Then after all of that your son throws a blackface party.
President Fletcher: Now wait a minute.
Reality TV show producer: Now if you thought you were having trouble finding money before…just wait until cable news gets their hands on this story. I mean, Bill Maher is going to fuck you up.
President Fletcher: You know, I’ve heard enough. I’m sorry.
Reality TV show producer: Look, the point is from where I’m sitting this place is a gold mine.
Dean Fairbanks: What?
Reality TV show producer: Well, we still need the stuff that leads up to the party.
Dean Faribanks: That happened already.
Reality TV show producer: Well yeah, we can re-enact it.
Dean Fairbanks: Re-enact?
Reality TV show producer: It’s a documentary term. The point is, I could be putting together an overall deal today. I am talking real money. Turns out the only thing Americans love in their reality TV more than ignorant black kids is crazy racist white folks.
Dean Fairbanks: Now look here. This is an honorable institution. The idea that we would so much as entertain…
President Fletchers [holds up his hand to shut Fairbanks up and looks over at the producer]: How much we talking?[/b]