Dear White People – Volume 2: Chapter III

By: Malasha Parker

Lionel (DeRon Horton) is standing in front of his mirror trying to figure out his style while he discusses it with Troy (Brandon Bell). They do a flashback of the protest incident when Lionel outed all of the undergoings of the Hancock name. It also happened to be the same night that Silvio (D.J. Blickenstaff) kissed hm. There is a retelling by the narrator of the history in 1924 when William Landis published an article in The Bugle about the underworld of Ivy League societies. In 1965, Donald Hancock founded the Winchester Independent which carried a different narrative. He retells the events of the previous weeks of the outing of Hancock.

As Lionel strolls through Instagram, he pictures himself blending into certain groups and into groups in old published papers. When Silvio wakes up, they talk about how they were supposed to hang out, but Silvio got too drunk to remember anything. After realizing that Lionel thought it was a date, they get ready to go out for Pride parties. Lionel goes into his bathroom to get ready and starts talking to Troy. They asks Troy to go out with them and he decides he needs to, so the three head to a dorm party. They meet a few of Silvio’s friends and Lionel watches as he gets left alone with Troy, while Silvio goes off with another guy. He doesn’t look happhy about it, but Troy encourages him to not stand around just waiting for Silvio to come back. Troy spot a girl and leaves to talk to her and the Lionel decides to find someone too. Lionel starts chatting it up a new guy but to his dismay, this black guy doesn’t date other black guys. He leaves and Lionel is left alone once again.

George (Brandon Alter) invites him to join them and Lionel tries to join in on the fun, but awkwardly navigates into the conversation. While they talk he sees Silvio and Troy walking around with their respective others. They start to discuss AltIvyW who has been sending messages to Sam. One of the guys says that everything he says is a joke, but Lionel diagrees. Lionel defends her and says that maybe she doesn’t take it as a joke. Silvio plays around the conversation and says that they should leave. At first, Lionel isn’t so keen on the idea, but he eventually decides that he is ready to go. They decide to leave after that and head to the studio space where another Pride party is taking place. They see Kelsey (Nia Jervier) and Coco (Antoinette Robertson) right before Silvio decides to leave again.

Lionel runs into Brooke (Courtney Sauls) where she berates him over how what Lionel did affected her and Silvio in a bad way. No one wants to let her write for them but before she she gets distracted. As she leaves because her song comes on, Lionel spots Sam (Logan Browning) in the studio. He joins her where she introduces him to some new people. They have a whole conversation on the use of “problematic” and appropriation. Students want people to stop using problematic and they three on the couch feel a certain way about it. They ask Lionel about his feelings on it and he awkwardly stumbles in the conversation. Once they start talking amongst themselves, Lionel starts talking to Sam. Sam gets an alert from AltIvyW when Silvio joins them. He asks Lionel if he wants to go somewhere else and Lionel agrees, but starts talking to Sam again. When Silvio jumps back in, they finally leave the party.

On their way to their next stop, Lionel voices how he feels about Silvio leaving him all night and brings up the kiss. Silvio says that he kisses everybody like it’s no big deal to him. Lionel walks off, but not before Silvio kisses him again. When they get to another party, Silvio leaves him once more and Lionel starts talking to another guy by the name of Wesley (Rudy Martinez). Silvio comes back and Lionel expresses his grievances about Silvio leaving again and decides that it’s his time to leave the conversation. He asks Silvio what it is that they are doing and Lionel says that he’s getting punished for what he did– the Hancock incident. Silvio says that he doesn’t know how he feels about him but they’re in different places right now and the downfall of his paper is destructive to his future. It was more than just a bad fallout for Silvio. Lionel says that there is so much more going on to be talked about and Silvio says he’ll think about getting things off the ground. They part ways and Lionel goes back to Armstrong-Parker. After a small run-in with Coco, he receives a notification from Wesley. He smirks into the camera.