Dear White People

I think my name is spelled wrong.

Shit.

Yeah, they don't let me change those.

Guess I should put this on.

Oh, no, no, man. You're good.

There's nobody here.

Most people attend from home.

Then why am I here?

I make minimum wage, not decisions.

- Very helpful. - Hi!

Hi. Thank you so much for coming.

- Bye. - Have a good day.

- Hi. - That is the best. I love it.

- Thank you. - Hey!

Okay. Have a blessed day.

That one's my favorite.

So when are we getting Volume 4?

Good seeing you.

Nice mask.

- Lionel, I think you owe it... - I don't owe you a damn thing.

- - Locked,

for your protection.

Aw, fuck!

Code Yellow.

They found three cases of something called the Irish Flu on a train this afternoon.

Mayor ordered an hour-long bio lock.

Hour?

God, I wish bio lock was the made-up future-y thing it sounds like,

instead of the everyday reality under which we now live.

Yeah, but we have orgasms in pill form now.

So win some, lose some.

Y'all got some of those pills?

Huge vintage iPhone.

How very you.

Stuck together.

Like the good old days.

They weren't all bad, Lionel.

Our senior year was one for the books.

So why haven't you written one?

Your senior year.

Which you covered, in your...

documentary.

You know, I'm the one who should be pissed.

You stole my title.

It's fair use though. You stole my life.

I come in peace.

- I know why you haven't written Volume 4. - Don't.

La Salette Place was...

a beautiful book.

It was artful and...

I'm not here signing copies of La Salette Place.

Because no one bought any. Critics hated it.

If critics had to endure criticism of their craft,

maybe they'd be better at writing it.

Will you sign this too?

The world would prefer if I just...

churned out another nostalgic fantasy of our lives

that's exactly the same as the last one.

But also totally different, like a new Cheeto flavor.

Nigga, have you had a blue Cheeto?

Volume 4 basically writes itself.

If Volume 1 was the fallout from the blackface party,

and Volume 2, the ALT IVY stuff,

and Volume 3, the Moses Brown scandal,

then Volume 4 has gotta be...

The Varsity Show.

That corny sketch thing that Pastiche and Bechet House put on?

Yeah, isn't it like SNL but written by amateurs

and still better written?

It's sketches and Broadway-style musical numbers

about Winchester life put on by students.

Guys, every year for the past 150,

Winchester culture is toured around the country.

Columbia has a Varsity Show and so does Princeton.

It's a huge cultural institution.

That's typically absent of any Black culture.

Exactly.

That publisher dropped me, Sam.

- And took back their advance. - We'll do it independently.

I still have all my footage from that year.

We'll come up with the shape of it, and then...

you'll write the book.

- Hmm. - And I'll do a TV adaptation.

Why else would you upend my life?

If it didn't get you something made.

- Because I believe in you. - Oh.

And maybe because, yes...

I am sick of doing commercials for potato chips.

Just like you gotta be sick of signing books

you wrote ten years ago.

We were never as alive as we were that year.

Back when we weren't doing it for a gold star from the public,

or the critics, or the publishers, or the studios.

It was always a piece of cake.

Remember?

There's more in us.

Come on. It could be like how Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick

made 2001: A Space Odyssey, the movie and the book, side by side.

Now you're really pandering.

Guys, I know what you're thinking, it's the first day of my senior year too.

All of our Winchester dreams have been leading to Career Day.

Top recruiters swarming the campus.

And since white people have started caring about racism again,

we might actually be able to shame them into giving us some of what we deserve.

So why are we here?

I'm talking about more than just starting our careers.

I'm talking about building a legacy.

That's why I wanted to tell you guys first.

'Cause without your support...

I can't make this happen.

All the people in this room practically run AP House.

Except for Michael, who was just hanging out with Lionel.

And who refused to leave.

Look, it took a lot of politicking

- and some friends in very high places... -

...but for the first time in 50 years, Pastiche and Bechet House

are not running the Varsity Show, we are, with support from Fried Chicanery.

Can we go?

Don't you get it?

This is one of Winchester's oldest cultural institutions,

and they're letting us have it.

This thing is toured in schools across the country.

Just think of the uptick in Black student applications,

the performance, film, literary and political pipelines

that'll be created for us if we pull this off.

If we have...

a '90s musical but Black.

I hated musicals then, and I hate them now.

FYI, my adaptation will most definitely be a musical.

Are you proposing that we put on an all-Black '90s musical?

Because if so, I will spontaneously combust into glitter.

Exactly what I'm proposing.

- -

I had some in my pocket.

So AP will produce it, led by Fried Chicanery,

- and anyone can be in it. - And if we do it well,

they might let AP do it every year.

- The House could have its own institution. - Exactly.

We got Michael.

Joelle, we need your talent.

Coco, we need the support of CORE.

- Reggie, could BSU get behind this? -

Sam?

I'm busy getting my life started.

Maybe I wasn't making myself clear now.

I get it, Troy, it'll look great on your résumé,

but this is a big year for all of us.

- Hey. -

This isn't over.

No, it's not.

'Cause you're gonna vacuum all that glitter up.

- Hey. - Hey.

Did you see that they put Dear White People

on the Winchester homepage?

What? It's my dream to be celebrated by white people while I drag them.

Oof. Is it bad if I enjoy a confluence of white guilt and Black pride?

Well, it depends.

Were you aware that racism existed before this summer,

when the cops killed Sandra Taylor in a grocery store?

I can't stop seeing her face.

It's not like Sandra was the first, and she won't be the...

- How are people not getting this? - Troy,

I know for you '90s R&B is part of an elaborate townie mating ritual,

but does anyone else our age even listen to it?

- Yes. - Or is it just 30-year-olds

who write characters in our age group for TV?

Reginelle! Hey, where y'all been? Where y'all going?

We got this Silicon Valley at Winchester thing.

- We'll see what's popping. - He's so modest.

Reggie is being scouted by some of the top tech companies.

- Hey! - That's great!

The '90s were special. I'm telling you, it's gonna work. Promise.

- You okay? - Where are you headed?

Oh, we have a Hollywood at Winchester event.

I'm gonna have interviews and Gabe's screening the film we did last year.

Necessary Exposition.

It's the film 'zine he ran last year when he was a...

S-T-U-D-E-N-T.

I'm sorry. Uh, what was that?

I dropped out of school before I learned my ABCs.

- Good to see you too, Coco. - What? Nothing. Nothing's going on.

And that response gives us no reason to suspect there is.

- Coco, did you get an e-mail? - I did!

You did!

Somebody got their Lil Dicky tickets.

Come on, Shady. We're gonna be late.

You play piano?

I began my professional queer life as a gospel gay.

See, this is what I'm talking about. This music is in our DNA.

Oh.

Okay, uh, well, what song is this?

Does anyone know the words?

This is why Black folks are always late.

Remember how that felt?

Running around all year, pretending like our lives were a '90s musical.

Don't you want that feeling back?

What I want is to go home.