I haven’t forgotten Spike Lee’s School Daze, made in 1988, which took a look at the doings of black students on an HBCU campus during homecoming weekend. Coming to a theater near you on October 17, is a new film, also looking at black college students, but this time on a white campus.
Dear White People, “a satire about being a black face in a white place,” is a film offering from Justin Simien, who is making his directorial debut.
Winner of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival’s Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Talent, Dear White People is a sly, provocative satire of race relations in the age of Obama. Writer/director Justin Simien follows a group of African American students as they navigate campus life and racial politics at a predominantly white college in a sharp and funny feature film debut that earned him a spot on Variety’s annual “10 Directors to Watch.” When Dear White People screened at MOMA’s prestigious New Directors/New Films, the New York Times’ A.O. Scott wrote, “Seeming to draw equal measures of inspiration from Whit Stillman and Spike Lee, but with his own tart, elegant sensibility very much in control, Mr. Simien evokes familiar campus stereotypes only to smash them and rearrange the pieces.”
What I found interesting is the marketing being used, via social media, for the film, using a series of PSAs, which fall under the header of “The More You Know (About Black People),” which deal with stereotypes and racialized memes like food stamps, “black on black” crime, and “black-sounding” names.
Many of the youtube comments under each PSA/promo are predictable (and racist), though thumbs up currently seems to be beating thumbs down.
Though the film uses satire to address daily micro-aggressions faced by black students in a white campus setting, and the clearly “not-post racial”world we live in, the real world incidents on college campuses are no laughing matter. They are being documented by The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, with headlines like:
Soccer Player at Syracuse University Suspended After Racial Rant Captured on Video. Filed in Campus Racial Incidents on September 12, 2014
Racist Posters Appear on the Campus of York University in Toronto. Filed in Campus Racial Incidents on August 27, 2014
There are now websites available, offering advice to help young people of color cope with their campus experience.
College marks a time of firsts for many young people. First time away from home. First time doing laundry. First time using a credit card. And for students of color, the college years may include the first experiences with racism and racial alienation. This is especially a concern for minority students attending predominantly white colleges and universities. If these students grew up in diverse communities, living in a racially homogenous setting for the first time will prove challenging. Their classmates may view them through a stereotypical lens, ask culturally insensitive questions or have no idea what to make of them. Fortunately, students of color can take measures both before and during their university years to counter the racism awaiting them on college campuses.
My own liberal NYS campus has had a checkered history with “incidents”. Ofttimes white students are completely unaware of the uncomfortability faced by some students of color who have never dealt with white people in the neighborhoods or high schools they have come from. Being a first year student is hard. Being a first year student of color, is often far more difficult.
The issue is not simply black-white. Relationships between and among students of color from disparate ethnic backgrounds are often tense, or non-existent.
Colleges are supposed to prepare students for life in the adult world. Shouldn’t they also be helping prepare students to tackle real-world issues of racism, and examine issues of race and privilege?
This should not take place solely in the context of ethnic studies programs, or one “diversity” class.
Cross-posted from Black Kos
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