What does it mean to be white? Watch the groundbreaking 1-hour MTV special White People, followed by a talkback with Define American founder Jose Antonio Vargas, who produced and directed the film, and other special guests. Together, they explore how the film holds up five years later, confronting white supremacy, where white people fit in the Movement for Black Lives, and more.
Take a deeper dive with our White People Discussion Guide.
Soraya Nadia McDonald is the award-winning cultural critic for The Undefeated, ESPN’s premiere platform covering race, sports, and culture. She writes about film, television, and the arts. She is the 2020 winner of the George Jean Nathan prize for dramatic criticism, a 2020 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism, and the runner-up for the 2019 Vernon Jarrett Medal for outstanding reporting on black life.
Soraya is a contributing editor for Film Comment and has contributed criticism to Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Her essay “‘Believe Me’ Means Believing That Black Women Are People” was published in the 2020 anthology Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World.
Soraya was a 2018 Eugene O’Neill National Critics Institute fellow and she is a member of the New York Drama Critics’ Circle and Television Critics Association.
Wesley Lowery is a correspondent for “60 in 6,” a 60 Minutes spinoff on the mobile app Quibi. Prior to joining CBS News, he was a national correspondent for the Washington Post, where he primarily covered issues of race and justice. He has twice been a member of teams awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and his work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and Sports Illustrated.
Lucas Nydam (he/him) is an educator in Bellingham, WA. Connect with Lucas on Instagram at @lucasnyny.
Megan Red Shirt-Shaw (Oglala Lakota) is a Ph.D student in Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development with a focus on Higher Education and a minor in American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. Prior to her Ph.D program, she worked in undergraduate admissions, college access, and college counseling. She is the founder of Natives In America, on online literary publication for Native youth.
Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and Tony-nominated producer. A leading voice for the human rights of immigrants, he founded the non-profit media and culture organization Define American, named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company. His best-selling memoir, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, was published by HarperCollins in 2018. Most recently, he co-produced Heidi Schreck’s acclaimed Broadway play What the Constitution Means to Me, which was nominated for two 2019 Tony awards, including “Best Play.” Read more.
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