The movie “Dear White People” brought up greater arguments and tensions surrounding racial inequality and injustices. Institutions, colleges, and other corporations have simply not been doing their part to make minority students feel welcome and included. The movie shows this statement perfectly. In this movie, the fictional Winchester University is an example of a school with a predominantly white student body that does not respect African American culture. The Halloween party at the end of the movie was when the African American students finally stood up for themselves and declared that they are not going to be racially profiled anymore.
A lot of the powerful messages that were portrayed in this film are incredibly applicable to colleges and college life today. For example our institution, the University of Richmond lacks heavily in integrating students of minorities. For the most part, people stick to their groups. In the movie the housing was certainly the worst and most segregated aspect of the University. While things are not still that bad today, it is an exaggerated example of the truth. To keep up with the recent times, this is something that definitely needs to be addressed. People need to realize that a lot of the time things they are doing or saying are offensive and cross the line. I hope our University and other Universities across the country can learn to integrate and include minorities better.
Today in class we learned that some of the actions that occurred in this movie, such as the party, actually did occur in real life. Knowing that the exaggerated parts of this movie are based on some truth makes me sick to my stomach. It is extremely important that universities really start implementing programs that promote inclusion. A large issue of today’s educational institutions is that they run like businesses, – they must act in a way that gets them the most donations from alumni and other donors. This is problematic because if donors don’t want programs that promote an increase in the discourse around diversity and inclusion, then it is that much harder to implement. Hopefully this changes.