Identity Development Assignment: Dear White People
Dear White People is an interesting film following several characters within Winchester University. The movie follows the everyday life of the main characters and how they come to terms with their own identity. By the end of the film a big fight erupts, caused by a “blackface” party. The two other characters I chose to discuss other than Lionel Higgins are Samantha White and Coco Connors. These characters appeared to me as some of the more critical characters in this film.
In the beginning of the film Lionel Higgins was very unsure about his identity. He was not able to identify with any specific racial group. Even though his skin was black, he listened to “Mumford and Sons” and too intimidated
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She begins in the Pre-Encounter Stage. She has a belief that the “white man” is out to get her. In the Encounter Stage, she is confronted by Kurt in the dining hall where he rants about how difficult it is for white students since black students are taking up all the spots due to affirmative action. In the Immersion/Emersion stage she cheats on her boyfriend with Reggie, only because Reggie was black and her boyfriend Gabe was not. In the final stage of Internalization, she was able to talk out her problems with Gabe on the bridge.
I am applying the R/CID model to Coco Connors. In the beginning she was in the Conformity Stage. She did not want to be considered a woman from the “Hood” when she was being interviewed. She reaches the Dissonance Stage when she sees Samantha gaining lots of viewers on the internet. Coco ends the movie on the Integrative Awareness Stage. She thought that the white people dressed in black face did so only because they wanted to to cool for once, even if they didn’t care about “Harriet MotherF---king