Dear Black American People,

Yes every last one of you. See this movie. If I had a moment to talk to Justin Simien about his influence on how he made this movie, I would not be surprised if Spike Lee was his inspiration. Oh wait, yeah he totally did say that he was honored by the comparison. Quite frankly, this movie is much needed right now more than some of the movies that Tyler Perry has pumped out to an underfed (as alluded to in this movie) Black audience and to audiences in general. In my mind, this is 21^st century Obama-era satire at its best. This was also a reminder that we still have a very long ways to go before we reach ‘post racial’ America.

What is this movie about? Initially, from what I saw, Dear White People looked at different characters on an Ivy League college campus and how cultures intersected with each other while a reality show prepared to give ‘the people’ what they wanted, but the further the movie went, it became more than just about college, it became about life in general and how we treat and mistreat each other. For me, there were far too many relatable moments (such as fascination with MY HAIR!) in this movie and it was spot on.

There is Tessa Thompson as Samantha White who is your cage rattler and rabble rouser of the movie. She is the one that leads the movement for Black students to bring about change, but what happens when pushed to the point that she has to actually follow through?

There is Kyle Gallner as Kurt Fletcher, the male white privileged son of the president (played by Peter Syvertson) who seems untouchable even in the blatant face of wrongdoing.

Teyonah Parris as Coco Conners, the south side of Chicago girl who wants to be famous even if it means changing who she is and where she is from.

Tyler James Williams as Lionel Higgins, who is the student that just doesn’t seem to fit into any clique regardless of who he hangs around and eventually finds himself as a catalyst for change.

Brandon P. Bell as Troy Fairbanks who lives in his father’s shadow (played by Dennis Haysbert) Dean Fairbanks in trying to be ‘better’ than the Fletchers.

This movie of course brought to mind the quality of Spike Lee’s early works including Do the Right Thing and School Daze in the style and tone that quite frankly hasn’t been seen SINCE Spike was doing movies that make people think about society and everyone’s perceived place in it. The topics in this movie ranging from cultural (mis) appropriation, white privilege, Gay rights, relationships between blacks and non blacks, drug usage, tokenism along with a host of other topics, were deftly handled in the just under 2 hrs of running time and it never over stayed its welcome.

Simien did an excellent job in symbolism overt and otherwise in showing a movie that tells America, racism hasn’t disappeared, it’s simply changed in how it’s dealt with (and ignored) in the 21^st century. While I am on the subject of symbolism, there is one scene that stands out when Sam, with all of her revolutionary bluster, still manages to wear a headscarf of the American flag. Your miles may vary on how you interpret that image.

The manner in how the characters were presented in my opinion was also well handled because each of the main players also never presented as ‘saints’ or 1 dimensional. For all of the bluster of Sam White being the next Angela Davis, we see that she has underlying identity and hypocrisy issues, meanwhile Coco’s identity issues were very obvious as that she wanted the best of both worlds but never quite fit in just as Troy wanted to be something else than what his father wanted and tried to find ways to rebel and not be the pawn. And poor Lionel, just wanted to fit in, somewhere. I really enjoyed the fact that even though there were characters you wanted to ‘root’ for, eventually you knew that the other shoe would drop and would make you reconsider. However, the point is, there are people in this movie we can identify with, whether we know people like this or if this is who we are, we have interacted with people like this, often.

Simien found many ways to not only remind some of us what life was (and in many ways still) like in undergrad but real life as in today. Many of us, want to be the voice of something bigger but are afraid to take that next step, others of us want to fit in or be left alone to figure it out, and in many cased, some just don’t give a damn about people except the bottom line which is the almighty dollar. Although a lot of what happened on screen made me laugh, it still hurts deep inside that Simien, holds a huge mirror and says look at yourself America, in nearly every scene. Even with the predictable crescendo of a finale that you saw coming, the surprise of it all is, it’s no surprise that some people in this day and age still act the way that they do and STILL continue on their merry way because, any situation they get into, they can get out of with no fear of punishment.

If there was any small complaint that I did have, it would be that while I applaud the character development and interaction, what about classes? There were two brief scenes with any of the characters in class and I thought it would have been fitting to have more than two brief scenes with classroom interaction. But I forgive that for the simple fact of what I said earlier, that this movie transcends the college experience.

This movie is still about real life, how we treat each other when it comes to intersecting cultures and what we do when in the face of making a step to change the status quo. Even when some issues are resolved, just as in reality,  there are underlying issues waiting to rear their ugly heads because just as we do now, we toss a band aid on issues until ‘the next time’.

This movie will make some very uncomfortable as did Spike’s early works but the message is still needed. Not a lot has changed in 25 years and and this film tells us that we need to remember that.

Sincerely,

Aitch Cee

4.5 out of 5 stars.