Daniel Alexander Apatiga
“Dear White People” Film Response
#
11/18/2014
The
film, Dear White People, juxtaposes two ethnic groups and shows,
psychologically, how they intermingle and behave under different, complicated
situations. Within these two groups, a
smaller, highly educated group, the Dean of Students and the President of the
University, of whom I want to focus on in my first paragraph, are foreground to
all the conflicts: firstly, the cafeteria at the black Greek house sprawl;
secondly, the dislike that occurs between the former and then reestablished
head of the black Greek house with the son of the President of the University;
and thirdly, the fight between the homosexual black man and the formerly
mentioned. These seemingly racially
infused situations causes different reactions to these highly, educated
powerful elite who work for Winchester University. The Dean of Students, who is black, has a son
who was in a relationship with the president’s daughter (who is also the sister
of the head of a white Greek house), and he loses his head status because of a
fluke in the mobile app. He thought he
would win, but instead, Sam wins of whom is a female. This, however, does not go well with the
president of the university, who feels that she is too radical and that she is
causing racial division rather than bringing about positive change. He says essentially, racial prejudice at my
school does not exist and belonged to an older era. The Dean of Students, who has a stake in his son’s
success, wishes to appease the President of the University by pressuring Sam to
end her radio talk show. She does not end
it however, because she feels it right to make the racial prejudices public and
also that Winchester University does not have the right to limit her free
speech. Essentially, the film is about creating this
balance between what is socially acceptable in a more racially tolerant
epoch. The film does not address the new intolerance
of Mexican-American immigrants or central American immigrants. In fact, there is a line that suggests we
black and white folk do not care about them, which I would like to complain
about.
The
president of the university is more concerned with the university’s outwards
appearance and to his donors, since Winchester is considered to be a
prestigious university, and so he does not wish there to be racial division
making headline news at his university. Similarly
in terms of selfish-agendas, the Dean of Students is more concerned about his
job position and his son’s success in general than resolving Sam’s behavior to
a more white-friendly mode of thought.
The Dean of Students seemed to me to be the more corrupted of the two,
considering, he may have lied about the election results for the head of the
black Greek house. Indeed, Sam had
legitimate concerns that she expressed in her radio talk show, where she always
points the finger at white people for being racially prejudiced. However, the legitimacy of the radio talk
show goes unresolved at the end of the slightly comedic film: a lot of the jokes that I did not get that
others immediately laughed at, observationally, made me think of the movie as
falling under the drama genre of film. At
the conclusion of the film, Sam resolves to end her talk show, but she does so
in a film that she shows to class. To
her amazement, all the people clap and for a long period of time, the camera
moves to show the white teacher and her white boyfriend clapping. Does the film moral seem to suggest that all
talks about racial tensions should cave in to a big black hole?
To
me, racial intolerance is not over for everyone; racial prejudice and racism in
general exists on both sides. However,
the moral of the story is based on a correct premise: if both sides agree to
stop the hating, and that includes the incitement that Sam causes and the
violence that the son of the President of the University exhibits. The sooner we drop all presumptions about the
other side, the sooner we can move on to bigger more important topics, the film
seems to suggest. I think that this film
is highly relevant to the pain and pleasure of travel, as the film transports
me to a place where I am more aware of issues of racial division and prejudice
in America.
