Dear White People is back and season three is better than ever. Compared to previous seasons, this season goes into more depth with the main characters: Sam White (Logan Browning), Gabe (John Patrick Amedori), Joelle Brooks (Ashley Blaine Featherson), Reggie Green (Marque Richardson), Colandrea “Coco” Conners (Antoinette Robertson), and Lionel Higgins (DeRon Horton).
The season frames its situational narratives around the characters growing up and changing. These situations open doors to larger issues such as white privilege, idolship, and so much more. Picking up where last season left off, Sam and Lionel investigate a secret society regarding Winchester’s past “secret” group called “The Order of X,” which involved the most influential and important black students at Winchester years ago. The two become so frustrated with the endless struggles of activism and tracking down the Order that they give up and resolve to change. Sam quits her eponymous “Dear White People” and Lionel quits The New Independent, the grassroots publication that he was so anxious to start.
Simultaneously, the arrival of Professor Moses Brown, who was an alumnus of Winchester University, creates a thread that weaves throughout the season. Reggie, a previous victim of police brutality, forms a bond with Professor Brown. Even though Brown is the main character that this season is developed around, we also get introduced to another new character: Coco’s alter ego — played by actress and model Ryan Destiny — who manifests when Coco is at her most anxious and insecure while she attempts to gain a fellowship. Kurt finds himself tokenized on the writing staff of the controversial comedy magazine Pastiche and Gabe struggles to balance work and school life when he needs to come up with large sums of money to shoot his thesis film.
Overall, this show is important for everyone and anyone, of any race, ethnicity, background, sexual orientation, identity and etc, to take the time to watch. Many people don’t get to see the perspective of people of color within a predominately-white institution, or PWI. Having a show that exemplifies that particular situation is revelatory; most of the time, college campuses act as smaller societies that are sort of isolated from the real world. This show is a representation of what I have experienced, heard and witnessed so far here at IC. With these, people of color acknowledging and witnessing a reality at an Ivy League and a PWI is the same way that I once more, experience and witness here at IC.