History Series / DearWhitePeople

* LimaSyndrome: Al [[ParodiedTrope falls in love with Sorbet, Kelsey's dog]], after kidnapping her. Sorbet escapes the first chance she gs.

* LimaSyndrome: Al [[ParodiedTrope falls in love with Sorbet, Kelsey's dog]], after kidnapping her. Sorbet escapes the first chance she gets.

* BrickJoke: Clifton is constantly heating up Hot Pockets. In the Season 2 finale, it’s revealed [[spoiler:that Clinton caused the fire of Davis dorm when microwaving a Hot Pocket.]]

* TokenMinority: Ikumi, an Asian-American student, joins the A-P crew in the middle of Season 1. She is PutOnTheBus in Season 2.

** Lionel, who becomes increasingly fixated on Winchester’s [[SecretCircleOfSecrets secret societies]], complete with a [[StringTheory stringed bulletin board]]. The finale reveal shows that he might be ProperlyParanoid.

* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: Played with [[spoiler: with Coco. She is deeply conflicted about the decision, but ultimately decides to have one. But when she goes to the abortion clinic with Kelsey, she decides against it, leaves Winchester, ultimately becomes a lawyer, and raises her daughter (with Troy’s apparent help), who herself gets into Winchester. But it’s then revealed to be DaydreamSurprise, and Coco instead goes through with the abortion. She obliquely refers to the abortion throughout the rest of Season 2, but it’s not shown how much it truly affected her.]]

* WalkAndTalk: Lampshaed and discussed by Joelle

* BreakThemByTalking: Sam comes ready with a speech to tell off Rikki Carter, but Rikki completely disarms her by telling Sam that her radio “character” great and her morals only matter as an attention-grabbing and moneymaking device. Sam is left speechless and says afterwards that she may be done with “Dear White People.”

** Silvio is a gay Mexican [[spoiler: who has secretly become an alt-right Twitter troll, because of what he sees as Sam’s suppression of free speech on campus.]]

* IronicName: Sam ''White'' identifies strongly as being black.

** Silvo, Lionel's editor, specifically mentions that he's mixed Italian and Mexican-American.

* NWordPrivileges: This is the cause of Reggie's fight with a white student, the latter having said the word in repeating the lyrics of a rap song. Sam later also tells Gabe she'll say it, but he can't, though light-heartedly.

* {{Parody}}: The black students watch a show called ''Defamation'' which is clearly one of ''{{Series/Scandal}}''.

* WeUsedToBeFriends: Episode four reveals that Sam and Coco were once friends, since initially rooming together, but had a falling out after racial issues came between them. Later they reconcile somewhat.

* CallBack: In Episode 6, Sam questions Dean Fairbanks if he'd be as indifferent to Troy if he were on the receiving end of police brutality just like Reggie in the previous episode, to which he responds, "He won't, because I raised him." [[spoiler: In the finale during the protest, when Troy snaps at the revelation of the Hancocks (predominantly white endorsers against affirmative action and safe spaces for minorities) bribing AP House to stay quiet while realizing he ''is'' a puppet as Sam and Coco jabbed at and shatters a door window, he is quickly arrested. As he resists, one of the officers proceeds to draw his gun before Dean Fairbanks rushes outside to the scene, tearfully pleading for the officers to not shoot Troy.]]

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Coco in Episode 6 reveals [[spoiler:she grew up on Chicago's South Side and watched friends and family get shot and killed,]] [[SurvivorsGuilt harboring the feeling that she could've done something to save them.]]
* ADateWithRosiePalms: Lionel in Episode 2 to the sounds of Troy screwing the women he has over [[spoiler: one of them turning out to be Coco in Episode 3]] - [[spoiler: he manages to "go all the way" in the end of the episode]].
** Sam does in this in season two premiere to while fantasizing being with Gabe, only to have [[CaughtWithYourPantsDown Joelle walk in on her.]]

* FriendsWithBenefits: Sam and Gabe's relationship, although he'd like more.

* NotSoDifferent: Rikki Carter tries to deliver one to Sam. Made all the more ironic that [[CastingGag Rikki's actress Tessa Thompson formerly played Sam in the film.]]

* NotSoDifferent: Rikki Carter tries to deliver one to Sam. Made all the more ironic that Rikki's actress Tessa Thompson formerly played Sam in the film.

* DecoyProtagonist: Sam is this. While her rhetoric is both insightful and inciteful, she accomplishes very little of substance compared to Lionel, who plays pivotal roles multiple times.

** Subverted in season two with Reggie trying to hack [=AltIvy's=]'s Twitter account, requiring him to create a complex dictionary attack program that takes hours to work, then ultimately fails due to [[RealityEnsues the account being protected by two-factor verification.]]

** Season 2, the reveal of [=AltIvy's=] profile page on [[spoiler:Silvo's computer screen.]]

** Season 2, the reveal of AltIvy's profile page on [[spoiler:Silvo's computer screen.]]

* LemonyNarrator: Giancarlo Esposito serves as one, humorously commenting about the events and issues of the story.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Kurt in the film was a JerkAss who frequently expressed racist and homophobic statements with pride. In the series version, while still a huge dick and the originator behind the blackface party, his overt racism and and homophobia is absent and [[EveryoneHasStandards is just as horrified as everyone else]] by [[spoiler: the campus police pulling a gun on Reggie at the party]]. He also tries to reach out to Sam to work together on a statement against the incident and in the Season 1 finale, delivers a ArmorPiercingQuestion to her about the effectiveness of her outrage-driven tactics.

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Sam is a rude black nationalist with an obvious chip on her shoulder against white people.

* ThePasswordIsAlwaysSwordfish: Sam is able to break easily into ''Pastiche'''s Facebook page because their password is ''pastiche''.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Kurt in the film was a JerkAss who frequently expressed racist and homophobic statements with pride. In the series version, while still the originator behind the blackface party and a dick, his overt racism and and homophobia is absent and [[EveryoneHasStandards is just as horrified as everyone else]] by [[spoiler: the campus police pulling a gun on Reggie at the party]]. He also tries to reach out to Sam to work together on a statement against the incident and in the Season 1 finale, delivers a ArmorPiercingQuestion to her about the effectiveness of her outrage-driven tactics.
* AdaptationalVillainy: In the film, Troy's father, though a bit of a ControlFreak in making sure his son cultivates a respectable image while ignoring what Troy actually wants, was a ReasonableAuthorityFigure in his role as Dean and sympathetic to Sam's insecurity about her identity. Here, he's a DeanBitterman who's more antagonistic to Sam and more concerned about appeasing wealthy donors than listening to the students.

* AuthorTract: When Reggie, Joelle, Lionel, and their friends' rant on ''Film/DjangoUnchained'' and how it portrays black people in stereotypical ways it more or less echoes Justin Simien's own public statements on the film, [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall especially since the camera is angled in such a way so it appears they're talking directly to the viewer.]]

* EverythingIsRacist: The central premise of the show.

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Sam is a rude black nationalist who despises white people. Though according to her own definition she is not a "racist," she is unapologetically racially prejudiced, spouting bigotry that would get a white person branded a neo Nazi. Ultimately, she perpetuates stereotypes about black people and white people.

* ConditionedToAcceptHorror: Backstory events for both Coco and Lionel indicate that the black students are not self-segregating but being segregated by the university itself and they have either not noticed or have come to accept it.

** [[spoiler:Combined with IdiotBall when [[TokenMinority Ikumi]], who will be seen in this episode and never again, complains that a movie with Asians in it hasn't been released since ''Film/CrouchingTigerHiddenDragon'', completely ignoring the fact that Hong Kong movie industry hasn't exactly stopped making movies. The two film majors, Sam and Gabe, are notably absent.]]

* PyrrhicVictory: In order to expose the racism on campus [[spoiler:Sam]] chooses to encourage the racism on campus.

* WritersCannotDoMath: Winchester College is an Ivy League school with an annual budget of around $14 billion and about 240 black students who are paying about $59,000 a year to go to a school that sets aside one building just for them. And while the Dean puts down public institutions, for comparison, Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey has around 39,500 non-white students, 5000 of which are black, one dorm devoted to special interest students, and an entire sub-college and campus that opened in the 1960's in order to cater to minorities. This, on a yearly budget not even a third of Winchesters ($4.4 billion) with students paying an average somewhere between $32000 and $48000 a year attend. For other comparisons, Harvards budget is $4.5 billion, Yale's is $3.6 billion, Standford's is $5.9 billion, and Princeton's is $2 billion.