Former lecturer brings identity, diverse team to ‘Dear White People’

Stephanie Allain worked as a studio executive at Columbia Pictures for seven years. But when she entered the conference room at work, people asked her to bring them coffee as if she were an assistant.

Though Allain, who previously taught producing in the entertainment studies department at UCLA Extension, no longer works at Columbia Pictures and is now a producer, she continues to face microaggressions regularly because of her race, she said.

It was Allain’s experience and identity as a person of color that formed the foundation of her career in cinema. After working on a number of films dealing with the issue of discrimination, Allain took on the role of executive producer for Netflix’s new original series, “Dear White People,” which premiered April 28. The show, based on the 2014 film of the same name, was shot primarily on the UCLA campus, at multiple locations including Kerckhoff Hall and Bruin Walk. The 10-episode show focuses on the lives of university students of different backgrounds as they deal with discrimination and identity on campus.

Although the plot of the series is largely similar to that of the film, Allain said the show’s extended format allows audiences to delve into the details of each character.

“The movie started the conversation,” Allain said. “The series allowed it to continue.”

“Dear White People” takes place at Winchester University, a fictitious and predominantly white, prestigious college on the East Coast. The classic architecture and lack of palm trees at the UCLA campus offered just the look the team was seeking.

To ensure that racism and microaggressions in “Dear White People” are portrayed in an authentic way, everybody on the writing team was either a person of color, a woman or a member of the LGBTQ community, Allain said.

“It has to start with the writers,” Allain said. “You have to have a room that is representative of the people you’re talking about. You can’t have a room full of white people writing about black people or colored people or gay people.”

A personal experience of one of the writers, Jack Moore, made it into the script of “Dear White People” in the second episode. An on-screen hook-up that makes a character realize his sexual identity is inspired by a threesome that Moore was a part of at while attending New York University. Moore said that participating in that threesome was the first step toward him becoming in touch with and accepting his bisexuality.

Like Moore, other writers also brought their own life experiences to the table and tied them to discriminatory events that were actually happening around the world, such as cases of innocent black men being shot by the police, enabling them to build a script that is true to the obstacles they face in real life.

“If you’re a person of color, you know (about racial microaggressions),” Allain said. “It’s part of the fabric of America. We’re living in a racist country that was founded on slavery, and it was never really dealt with.”

Allain’s identity as a person of color shaped her entire film career, she said. Though she has been producing her own content for 15 years now, she has produced films for multiple writer-directors of color including Robert Rodriguez and Justin Simien.

She realized early on she was in an advantageous position to help filmmakers tell stories about people of color, she said. The same notion that led her to to produce the 2014 film also led her to produce the 2017 Netflix show.

“We give voice to all of these stories so that people understand what it’s like to walk in our shoes,” Allain said. “That’s the only way we’re going to change the culture – to confront it, to give voice to it and to engage in dialogue and conversation.”

UCLA alumnus and “Dear White People” actor Erich Lane shares Allain’s belief that conversation is an essential step toward dealing with discrimination.

Lane plays Clifton, a student and protest organizer at Winchester University, and believes “Dear White People” effectively portrays forms of racism that are both blatant and subtle.

Discriminatory acts that occur on-screen include moments like a blackface party, where students arrived dressed as Nicki Minaj or gangsters. But the show also includes instances of racism that are not as glaring, he said, like a scene where the protagonist Samantha White, a woman of color and played by Logan Browning, is in a history lesson. The teacher asks if anyone in the class would like to lead a discussion on slavery in America, and all eyes fall upon her.

Since communities of color face interactions like this in real life, Lane said it is his duty to be an active part of the movement towards equality.

“As a person of the white community, I need to listen and also take action and be there for all the struggles that people are going through,” Lane said.

Lane said though progress has been made toward a more equal America, there is still a long way to go. His hope for the show is the creation of a more peaceful understanding of where other people are coming from.

“(I hope students) really learn to put themselves in another person’s position, even if it’s just for the 30 minutes of the episode,” Lane said. “I hope they do it longer than that, because I think that’s something that people should constantly be doing.”

Kosi Ogbuli, a first-year neuroscience and an African-American student, has been watching “Dear White People” since its release and is currently on the last episode.

A scene that Ogbuli thought captured discrimination particularly well occurs when a police officer shows up at a party and holds a black student at gunpoint. Ogbuli said he has faced microaggressions at UCLA, one such instance being when he was asked to speak to incoming freshmen about whether or not he belonged at UCLA.

Ogbuli said “Dear White People” is a precise reflection of microaggressions faced by college students on campus.

“It encapsulates every aspect of being a minority, both the good and the bad,” Ogbuli said. “It was shocking how accurate it was. Even microaggresion in our community that is often perpetuated by the greater community of campus life is very accurately depicted in the show.”

In a world where characters constantly draw lines between white and black communities, Allain said the purpose of the show is not to create these lines, but to blur and erase them.

“We’re all operating out of social constructs of racism and identity,” Allain said. “The most important thing I think as a young person is to be proud of who you are and come from an authentic point of view.”