Dear White People

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About

Dear White People is 2014 comedy-drama film discussing various race-related issues at an Ivy League college from the perspective of African American students. Following the announcement of a Netflix original series in February 2017, an online boycott was launched by those who argued the show was promoting anti-white attitudes.

History

On October 17th, 2014, the film Dear White People was released, which focused on racial tensions experienced by African Americans at an Ivy League college.

Netflix Show

On February 8th, 2017, Netflix released an announcement trailer for the upcoming series (shown below). Within 48 hours, the YouTube upload gained over 2.1 million views, 268,000 dislikes and 25,000 likes.

That day, the keywords "Dear White People" became a trending topic on Twitter after various users accused the show of being "anti-white," with some promoting a boycott against Netflix (shown below).

Meanwhile, two "fuck white people" Tweets posted by Dear White People head writer Jack Moore in November 2016 began circulating online as well, leading many to accuse him of racism.^[1]^[4] Also on February 8th, a post about the controversy reached the front page of /r/subredditdrama,^[5] gathering upwards of 3,100 votes (84% upvoted) and 1,300 comments in 48 hours.

Additionally, Dear White People actress Logan Browning tweeted a response to the controversy, claiming that the show "is not anti-any race" (shown below).^[6]

The following day, Dear White People creator Justin Simien insisted that he was not causing a racial divide in an interview with Indiewire:^[3]

"I’m not the first artist to use a misnomer as a title and I reject any notion of ‘causing a divide’ simply by stating that one exists. Which is my role as artist. To state what is."

Also on February 9th, YouTuber Philip DeFranco posted a video responding to the controversy, in which he argued that the 2014 film was not anti-white and that the controversy was likely due to marketing failure (shown below). Within 24 hours, the video gained over 787,000 views and 19,400 comments.