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Brendan Gleason
Dr. McLaughlin
Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric
12 October 2015
Racism on the College Campus: Whos at Fault?
The relationship between the African American race and the white race has made many
strides since the days of the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. Some people may even
believe that racism no longer exists; they believe that there is racial equality among the citizens
of the United States. But, even in the 21st century in the United States, racial prejudice and
racism still exist in society. One such place where racism commonly goes unnoticed is on the
college campus. In college, there arent teachers and parents all around the students, watching
every move they make and listening to every word they say. Rather, students are left to learn to
live on their own and make decisions about social interactions based on what they believe.
Justin Simiens film Dear White People follows a handful of unique main characters through
their everyday life on a fictional college campus, and the ways in which racism is present all
around them.
Simien uses satire as a major component of the way in which he calls the attention of his
viewers. Simien realizes that the issue of racism is very much still alive today, and understands
that there are many people at fault. In this situation, Simien is using his film as a rhetorical
strategy to assist advocacy (Herrick 17). Dear White People provides a voice for ideas
where Simien can express his beliefs of racism on college campuses, which makes it possible for
the viewers to gain adherence to the problems that are present today (Herrick 18). Simiens film
successfully uses the fictional Ivy League University by the name of Winchester to explore the

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ways in which students can be held accountable for the racial prejudice that is present on college
campuses in the 21st century.
In college, students are separated into many different groups throughout their college
experience. Some of these groups can be assigned without preference from the students, but
something that isnt directly assigned by university administrators at Winchester is housing
assignments. The students get to choose their housing assignments, and therefore the students
are forming their own groups through the choices of who lives in the same houses. The students
choose to abide by the stereotyping and form their housing groups based on the stereotypes they
live their lives by. The opening scene of Dear White People exhibits all of the different social
groups that have been formed by the students choice of their housing groups. There are the
houses with white students in them, and then there are different, separate houses with black
students in them, each living in their stereotypical world. In the opening scene, these
stereotypical groups are made very clear and the students are seen as being in very separated,
distinct groups. Simien uses special effects in those scenes to actually place the different social
groups into boxes, with a label next to each group. This film technique successfully shows how
separate each of these groups are and shows how every group is in their own box or their own
world which is different from the others, even though all the students go to the same university.
Through the separation of the students into distinct groups, the students of Winchester create a
culture of separation between the African American students and the white students, and that in
turn leads to a culture of racism. When the students are separated so distinctly and specifically, it
makes it very hard for these students to interact and build relationships with other students from
different social groups, which only widens the gap between the races and leads to stronger
stereotypical grouping.

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While introducing those distinct groups of students at Winchester, Simien shows the
students in almost a slow motion state, which gives viewers time to contemplate the image and
to question its significance (Lancioni 110). Using these slow camera movements (Lancioni
110) allows us, as viewers, to understand what Simien is trying to accomplish by showing these
different, separated groups of students. The viewers can see how the social groups differ, and
have the time to indulge into the further thinking of why Simien had the viewers spend the time
to look at those different groups. At that point the viewers can realize that the differing groups
are of high importance and that those groups established in the very beginning of the film set the
scene for battles between the social groups, and many instances of racism being present.
The president of the university, President Fletcher, tries to randomize the housing by
implementing a random housing act, but it does not work because the students just cant live
together. The students have gone through so much separation from one another, that when one of
the main characters, Lionel Higgins, a introverted, gay, African American student trying to find
his way, is placed in a white house with Kurt Fletcher, the extremely racist presidents son, he
physically can not bear to live there. There is so much anti segregation present on the campus
and the students bring a large majority of it.
While President Fletcher was working to try to randomize the housing, another one of the
main characters, Sam, a very confident, outgoing, rebellious young woman, is going against him
trying to keep the houses separated. Sam runs a petition to repeal the random housing act,
because she wants to bring black back, and a lot of the African American students are behind
her on it, going against President Fletcher as well. This is just another way in which the students
are afraid of breaking down the separation between the races and creating an environment were
everyone can live together.

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The stereotypes that are present in Dear White People are strongly expressed throughout
the film and consistently are present in the everyday lives of the students. They are the ones who
reinforce those stereotypes that people everywhere assume to be true of the different social
groups. It is almost as if the students embrace and appreciate those stereotypes, because it seems
as if they actually enjoy being exactly how people expect them to be. It makes it much easier for
the white students to be racist and torment the black students, when the black students act in the
exact way that the white students make them out to be. Even before the opening scene of Dear
White People, the stereotypes are already being enforced as the viewers watch the opening
credits. As those credits flash up on the screen, the background noise is that that correlates with
the typical black stereotype. The background noise plays hip hop and rap music that people
generally connect with the black race and the narrator mentions things such as crystal meth
addictions and fried chicken. While it might feel wrong to categorize those things with
African Americans, that is the way society has formed us as people and viewers, and Simien is
just reinforcing those stereotypes in the audiences mind as the film begins.
Later in the film, the students at one of the most popular white houses on campus, headed
by Kurt Fletcher, decide to host their annual Halloween party with the theme of having all the
white kids dress up as black students. The students show up to the party in ridiculous costumes,
with masks of black people on their faces and show their true racism towards black people. By
dressing up as black people, the white students are concretely establishing a division between the
white students and the African American students. It is almost as if the black students are a joke
to the white students, and they think its funny to dress up as black kids. The white students see
the black students almost as people of a different world, a world so different from their own that
they mock it for their own comedic relief.

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Simien created the film Dear White People to prove a point and convey his message. He
wanted people in the real world to realize that racism is still very much alive due to the actions of
students on college campuses around the country. But one thing that is true of movies is that
most of them are not real. They may be connected to a real world problem, but in a movie the
director can exaggerate whatever they need to in order to support their main claim. Many
viewers of Dear White People may watch the scene of the party, and see the ways in which
African American students are treated at times, and have a hard time believing that those things
actually happen. In a country that is rooted on freedom and equality, it may be easy for viewers
to believe that Simien is just using Winchester as an example to exaggerate the racial separation
in order to strongly show the problem of racism on college campuses. But at the end of the film,
along with the closing credits, pictures of parties at actual colleges in the United States are
shown where the students are dressed up as black people. As stated in The Rhetorical Situation,
every rhetorical situation contains a set of constraints (Bitzer 8). The constraint in Dear White
People is the film medium where there is no documentation of actual events. But Simien
successfully overcomes that constraint, and provides the viewer with a rhetorical situation that
has credibility and that the audience can successfully apply to their real life experiences. A
problem that may seem so distant to many viewers now seems so realistic and down to earth, due
to those real life pictures at the end of the film, along with the various scenes in the film that
Simien makes up to be as realistic as possible, in order to strengthen the credibility of his claim.
While it may seem difficult to imagine that racism does exist in the world we live in,
Justin Simiens film Dear White People uses a variety of rhetorical strategies, including a great
deal of satire, to portray the message that racism is very much alive on college campuses, in a
large part due to the actions of the students. The way the students separate themselves every day

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creates an environment that welcomes that racial prejudice that distinguishes the African
American race from the White race. And while administrators can attempt to desegregate the
groups that are formed by the students, ultimately, the power resides in the hands of the students,
which makes those separated social groups there to stay.

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Works Cited
Bitzer, Lloyd F. The Rhetorical Situation. Philosophy & Rhetoric. Vol. 1, No. 1. (Jan., 1968):
8. Print.
Dear White People. Dir. Justin Simien. Perf. Tyler James Williams, Tessa Thompson, Kyle
Gallner, Teyonah Parris, and Brandon P Bell. Lionsgate, 2014. Film.
Herrick, James A. An Overview of Rhetoric. The History and Theory of Rhetoric. 2nd ed.
Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2001. 17-18. Print.
Lancioni, Judith. The Rhetoric of the Frame: Revisioning Archival Photographs in the Civil
War. Western Journal of Communication (1996): 110. Print.