Blackness, whiteness, queerness, feminism, and more are plumbed in a literate, street-smart swirl of provocative notions and dialogue, and Simien's master stroke is his benevolent willfulness to give every character the floor.
For a first-time feature filmmaker, gay black director Justin Simien understands this astonishingly well, and in Dear White People, he uses the idea-laden setting of a (moderately) multi-cultured Ivy League campus as a playground to explore nearly every facet of contemporary identity.
In modern American culture, labels have become both a toxin and a necessity, dangerously boxing people in while giving them a much-needed niche in society.