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Megan K. Crowley
Dr. Erin Dietel-McLaughlin
Writing & Rhetoric 13300
12 October 2015
How Dear White People Uses Rhetoric Through Social Media During The Obama Era to
Demonstrate Racial Tensions in a University:
Racism has been an issue in America for as long as Americans have remembered. Dear
White People is a 2014 American satire film, directed by Justin Simien set in the 21st century at a
university campus. Like many universities, Winchester has its own social groups, but the thing
that people do not realize is that it is black people versus white people. The films
protagonist, Sam White, is characterized as an angry black chick because she thinks
white people have white privilege, which she deems as unfair. Sam is also one of the mains
characters in this film. Cocoanother main characteris almost like Sams enemy, because she
is black, but she wants to be a white person. Another key character is Lionel, a black homosexual
student. He works at the university newspaper. All of these three characters never actually have a
one-on-one conversation, but they all cross paths. One of the main themes in the movie is racism
in social media, and how social media plays into it, through radio shows, YouTube channels,
emails, text messages, and any kind of social media you can imagine. Dear White People takes a
different approach on how Americans feel on their race in the 21st century. Simien uses media as
a form of rhetoric to show the racial tensions at universities.
In Dear White People, Sam hides behind the microphone in her radio show. Sam is a
student at Winchester University and media arts major. She has her own radio show called Dear
White People, and during her show she puts down white people. New York Times film

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critic A.O. Scott argues that the film uses Dear White People to call out the
hypocrisies, blind spots and micro-aggressions that African-Americans experience in their daily
encounters with well-meaning Caucasians(Scott 1). Sam is trying to make people aware of the
racial tensions not only in the university but also in America as a whole by using her radio show.
Behind the microphone, she seems really happy and confident, and she does not care what
people think about her. In the opening scene, she speaks into the microphone Dear white people,
the minimum requirement of black friends to not seem racist has just been raised to two. What
she is saying at first may seem comical, but when you understand what she is saying, you realize
that she is not trying to be comical. It is almost as though she is being sarcastic. If Sam were to
say that face-to-face with someone, it would be a lot clearer, because the viewer would be able to
see her facial expression and body language. Another way she is trying to get people to
understand racism is an independent student film for one of her classes. In the film, she very
much puts down white people saying that the only kind of racism is white people putting down
black people. This becomes apparent when she says, Dear white people, the minimum
requirement of black friends needed to not seem racist has just been raised to two. Sorry, but
your weed man, Tyrone, does not count. Throughout the film, Sam changes her approach to
activism. She wants to do good for the black community, she just doesnt know how to execute
it, and she is nervous about that. By the time she makes another film at the end of Dear White
People, she has realized that she cannot take on the major problem about race by herself. She
wants to take racism on, but she realizes that the students at Winchester University cannot take
on the world with one person fighting for black people. Although she seems like a very happy
person, on the inside, shes just trying to figure out where her life is going to take her. She was
nominated to be the black house president, and as she is giving her speech, the camera pans

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down behind her back, and you can see you playing with her hands. Judith Lancioni says in her
work, Singling out an individual by [framing]a close-up invites viewers to speculate on the
ways of seeing and thinking about the subjects (Lancioni 112). The technique that Siemien is
using is very effective to the viewer to understand more about Sams personality. Sam is not only
nervous about the speech, but she is also nervous about possibly being president. This gives the
audience a closer insight to her true feelings and maybe her tough attitude. Her sarcastic tone is
becoming more and more like a faade. Some people may wonder why she is hesitant about
becoming the president of the house, because people think she is the all-empowered black
woman. In reality, she is just trying to figure her own identity: is she black, white or she
somewhere in between. Sam tries to do that within her radio show.
Coco uses her YouTube channel to express another part of her that you would not see if
you knew her in person. She tries to act like a black person, and in her YouTube videos she talks
in a stereotypically black way, with her vernacular and the way she talks. Her real personality
comes out at the end at the black people party. She overhears white people putting down black
people, and you can tell by her facial expressions that she is extremely offended with it. But the
next minute, she sees Sam, and she says, They spend millions of dollars on their lips, their tans,
their asses, Jay Z tickets, because they want to be like us. And they got to be for a night. Im not
about to go out into the streets in protest of a fucking Halloween party. Coco has a double
personality. On the one hand, she is okay with white people wanting to be like us, but on the
other hand, she is offended when people talk bad about black culture. Even at the end of the
movie, you do not know which personality she really has because within her own culture she
tries to lessen her blackness. When Coco is around other cultures she makes sure she emulates

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the stereotypes of the black culture. This is acceptable for her to do because she lives it, but it is
not acceptable for other people to do it.
Using text messages it gives the viewer more of an insight of the dual personalities
people have because there is one persona the characters in the film present to the outside world,
in the other you get a gimps into what they are really thinking on the inside. Simien uses text
messages on the screen as a way to draw the viewer into the story a little bit more. When we see
what a character is typing in a text or email, we, in a sense, are in their mind. Lionel overhears
the fight between Sam and Kurt. He texts his editor and tells him that he has an idea for a story
that he can write. Later on in the film, we see him talking about his idea with his editor, but we
would not know what they were talking about if it wasnt for this text message. In a way, it acts
like a plot filler, but it is interesting the way it shows up on the screen when it comes up word by
word as it is leaving his fingertips. This is another example of social media at its finest in the 21st
century. We can see what Lionel is thinking as he is texting it. In this way, we can go deeper into
the storyline.
When a character receives a text or email from someone else in the film, that use of social
media acts as another character. Lionel is working on homework, and an email pops up on his
computer from a male love interest saying how much he misses him and when is he going to see
him again. What is interesting in the film is that we never actually see his face or hear from him
again. It is just that one moment of emailing. He is only in the movie because it lets the audience
know Lionel homosexual. This is interesting in the film not only from the characters point of
view, but also in the use of social media. It shows that in todays day and age people can not only
be friends but can also be in a relationship without having met them face-to-face. In the 1950s,
people would send mail to each other without maybe knowing each other, but it is not the same

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as social media now. Today, you can find out everything about someone on his or her profile
page. In theory, Lionel has never met him personally but has emailed. Because we never see him
face-to-face, the email is a representation of Lionels love interest.
Dear White People has no connection to an actual story or actual events, but the film
shows that it is about a common issue by portraying the use of real social media during the
credits. Some viewers may have thought that the story of the movie hadnt actually happened,
and that the problem in reality is not as dramatic as Simien makes it out to be. What most people
assume is that any movie based on a true story is not really what happened. In Hollywood,
theyre trying to make money, and the story is not that interesting. Some of the facts are not
necessarily made up, but they are heavily exaggerated to make the viewer more enthralled in the
movie. At the end, when the credits are rolling in Dear White People, Simien starts to show reallife images from different kinds of social media that had a black party, and this is a technique
he uses to show the viewer that intensity of the movie is not so far from reality. This makes the
viewer understand what the whole movie is trying to convey.
Having the pictures at the end of the movie makes the movie more powerful and
meaningful than if they were at the beginning. Simiens decision to put the images at the end of
the movie instead of the beginning makes it really powerful. It gives the viewer more a more
intense idea about what college campuses are really like in America. The film is not meant to
horrify you in any way, it is just meant to let you know the issues that social media and racism
have. The other thing that it does at the end of the movie is that it allows you to watch the movie
without another story in your head. The image is on screen is on screen for the perfect amount of
time. As Lancioni wrote in her article, The more time viewers spend moving through the
illusionary depths of the image, the more significance that image takes on (Lancioni 110). The

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images at the end of the film show that it actually does happen, and not just at Winchester
University, but also at every kind of university.
While Dear White People is entertaining, it also has some educational value by way of media. It
teaches young adults how they should not act in ways that they can relate to. Some of the
characters in Dear White People use social media as a way of portraying racism in the university.
The movie tells us that it is okay to have healthy discussions about race, but do not do in in a
way that is hurtful to people. It tells us not use it as a way to put people down. Because social
media is so accessible to high school and college students, there is really no way to avoid it. In
her article, Lancioni says, the visual object invites certain responses and discourages others.
Thiscan lead viewersto the world beyond the text (6). The way that the viewer watches a
film or a TV show, whatever the media might be, has to relate somehow to him or her. The
audience is college students, and the movie is set on a university campus. As Herrick mentions in
his book, Rhetoric is planned with some audience in mindthis imagined audience is the only
audience present when a message is actually being crafted, and it often guides the inventional
process in important ways (Herrick 8). College students are very selfish, so if the message does
not feel right to them, they are not going to hear but not listen to it. They might not even hear it,
because they think the message does not pertain to them at all.
Dear White People uses social media to expose racism. Simien uses social media in order
to integrate race into the film by YouTube, Facebook, email, and text messages. Social media is
important in the film because we get the inside scoopthe characters thoughts and intuitions.
Social media can have either a positive or a negative connotation. The negative connotation is
obviously racism, but the positive connotation is what Simien is using to raise awareness about
racism and make people think about it more. Social media can definitely be used for good.

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Works Cited
Dear White People. Dir. Justin Simien. Lionsgate, 2014. Film.
Herrick, James A. An Overview of Rhetoric. 2nd 2001 ed. London: Routledge, 1996. Print.
Lancioni, Judith. "The Rhetoric of the Frame." Western Journal of Communication (1996): 106+.
Print.
Scott, A. O. "Advanced Course in Diversity Dear White People, about Racial Hypocrisy at a
College." New York Times 16 Oct. 2014: 1. New York Times. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/17/movies/dear-white-people-about-racial-hypocrisyat-a-college.html>.