Review of Dear White People (2014) by Bonnie S — 24 Jul 2015

The visual aesthetics of this film as a whole is incredible, from art to photography. I felt a bit puzzled by the vintage feeling in a contemporary narrative and I think it's beautiful, because it is obviously a way to take you back to that past that still is in the present, even though most people would like to turn a blind eye to these issues. The decoupage was alright and the only time I felt bothered by the script was right at the end - I felt like some pauses and dialogues were unnecessarily extended, when they shouldn't have been. I really enjoyed William's acting.

As for the message of this film, it's very complex to discuss it, because it conflicts with me ideologically.

I believe the point of this film was "to hold a mirror up to the audience", as one of the characters advised the filmmaker character to do, rather than an attempt to spread a racist discourse by black people against white people. Throughout the film I found myself both disagreeing and agreeing with it. The reason why I liked this film is because I felt conflicted on my own views about the matter and I personally enjoy films that are this broad in content precisely because it gives me a chance to think about matters I will never fully understand. Putting myself in the position of a black person is not practical to even begin to discuss this matter, so I'd rather just give my opinion on a white person's perspective, instead.

As a white person, I grew up going to school with two black people - not in my class, but in the whole school. I was already in high school and had a black girl in my class (she was the first person I ever considered to be "my best friend", by the way) and the other black person in my school had just been enrolled in middle school. At the time, it made me wonder if it was a matter of being able to pay or if the school once every 7 years allowed a black student to attend it to fill in a quota. I'm still not sure, but it could be both. The same that happened in school (having 2 black people in the entire school), under my experience as a white person, kept happening after I graduated. The black people I've known intimately and cared for, other than the one I met in high school, were my house maids and still are my house maids.

Later in my life, there was this time I was on Facebook and decided going through my friends list to see what was the percentage of black people I had on there. It was less than 1%. Upon realizing this, I couldn't help but to honestly wonder "where the hell do they go? what is it that they do? why don't I know them?"; I started wondering why that was and it wasn't because I wasn't friendly towards people in general, it was simply because I never had a chance to be around more than one black person in my life at a time. And even though there is no segregation as there used to be in the beginning of the century, there still is segregation, disguised as inclusion. Segregation starts economically, then intellectually, then culturally and the government is to blame here.

And I say that because a white person will always have the upper hand and distinguish themselves from the rest if you deny a black person of having quality education. Because of this they are not going to grow intellectually as much as the white person did and what happens after that will inevitably be mistaken as part of their culture, when it is not a cultural trait, it is a social one, brought by the government, and we will part ways and lead different lives because of the unequal opportunities given to each of us.

Therefore, I can see why it's easier to ask for benefits than to actually change the root of the problem, and that's precisely the part I differ with the discourse at the beginning of this film when someone says "Try bringing up welfare!" - I am agaisnt such benefits, but only because they are not changing the situation, rather this works as putting a band-aid in a bullet hole, while subsidizing people for failure. But I do understand why they would need that and it is because white people as a whole don't do their parts in helping black people achieve social and economic equality, so if they try to change that alone the right way, they can't win, if we don't become aware of their issues and empathize with them, enough to say "enough".

I know that white people have latent feelings in them that they are better than black people. I can't deny that, as most white people try to. But I also know that most black people think the same, because of the same circumstances why a white person would think so: the government makes them feel that way. On one side you have pride and on the other side you have resentment and it is tough being able to co-exist with those barriers in place that purposefully turn us against each other in a way it supports government corruption, inaction and under productivity, by distracting us from the real problem. And that is exactly the conflict shown in this film.

Although I don't have the fascination with being black, or acting black, or talking black to a black person, even for one day, as those kids at the Halloween party, I find it appalling that these parties actually happened the way they did, because the latent feeling inside of us that we are better is very real and none of that is a matter to be made fun of. And because black people know this and feel the same way, they obviously get offended. It's not an innocent homage or a joke.

I never considered myself to be racist, if I'm being honest with myself, but at the same time I never considered myself not to be, because of that feeling of "superiority" the government manipulates us to have since we are born because it is unfair. I always viewed racism as something that involved hatred and verbal mistreatment, and I never felt that hatred in my heart towards a different race, but racism is not just that. Racism is also that latent feeling we are "better", privileged, because of government incapacity to govern for the people, regardless of their color: from equal opportunity, to quality education and to the minimum wage - a system that is purposely flawed like this to make us feel superior and make them feel inferior.

However, I don't agree with socialist discourses in this film, nor do I think any race should victimize themselves. Black people shouldn't demand something from white people. White people should demand from white people the rights of black people, and pressure the government to do things such as better education, inclusion of different races in white suburbs, to eradicate minimum wage and put an end to subsidizing their failure, instead sitting back and allowing black people resorting to deny themselves the right of equality through hand-outs according to the color of their skin, instead of actual equal treatment, that in the end, only make them out to be "inferior", and what seems to be like a victory when they get something like that, is only allowed to happen by the system because it enables government to further perpetuate the notion we are different and we always will be, thus finding ourselves as we are today, in this state of occult racism.