(upbeat music)
- It wasn't that bad.
Was it that bad, babe? - Yes.
- No. - Yes.
If your girlfriend was saying it was that bad,
you know it was that bad.
- Don't make me the deciding factor, Evan.
- What? You tell it how it is, Kalia. You're like Oprah.
Plus, that was a compliment, Milo.
You do absolutely nothing before the 10 year reunion,
you'll always be remembered
as the kid that face-planted at graduation.
- I can think of worse things, honestly.
Try 20 years of student loan debt.
Colleges today care way more about diversity quotas
than they do about actual talent.
Plus, you don't need a real degree to study film, so.
- Yeah, well most people do actually have a portfolio
when they apply to film school, so.
- You can talk once you can explain what the literal fuck
a liberal arts degree is in one sentence.
- I literally can't. - Okay, sure,
but can we hear from someone who can't afford to have
a college advisor help out with their essay?
- He didn't write it for me,
he just gave me a solid outline.
- [Axel] All right, let's go with Kalia.
- Um. - Exactly.
- Wait, no, I think it's, like, writing,
with psych.
- It's like philosophy and literature,
it's the groundworks of the social sciences,
especially at Wesleyan. - Lucky you.
- Aw, Case. - No no no, no being sad.
- It's fine. My dad's happy.
Plus he says if I try liking psychology,
he'll consider letting me reapply to RISD next year, so.
- We all know it's bullshit you didn't get it.
- Didn't know it was such a burden to go to MIT.
- Don't be mean, she's just sensitive.
- And it doesn't say anything
about your talent anyway, okay, trust me.
Hey, next year just say
you're half black on your application, easy in.
- Honestly, I'd do anything to not have to sit
through a fucking brain and cognitive science class.
Can I borrow some of your concealer
for the application picture?
(all laughing)
- So you think blackface is gonna get you into college?
- She was just joking, relax.
No need to bite her head off about it, Kalia.
- Yeah, she was just kidding, baby.
- When do you start at the academy?
Your dad must be so proud.
Three generations. - Next month.
Yeah, it's whatever to me, just something to fall back on,
but yeah, he's pretty psyched.
- You're a shoe-in for the academy.
You can live off your parents till you're 23 to save up.
And by the time Kalia comes home from school,
you can afford to buy a condo
to raise your half black babies in.
- Axel's just bitter that you didn't have to apply
to any schools, yet somehow still have viable options.
- You are so lucky that I didn't want to be a cop, Evan.
I'd have way too much fun with a state mandated weapon.
- Wait, where's HBCU? I thought you were going to DC.
- It's not a school, it's an acronym.
Historically black colleges and universities.
- Oh. - Howard is in DC.
- Wait, so it's like all black people? Like, only?
- Yeah. - Damn, aren't you nervous?
- About going to a school with all black people?
- No, well, I just mean like personality-wise.
I know there's, like, not a lot of black in this town, but,
you're like the whitest black girl I've ever met.
(all laughing)
- Guilty as charged!
(relaxing music)
- [Milo] Figured we may need something
a little stronger than beer.
- Yes! I haven't had a drink since March.
- Oh shit, you were dorming, right?
- No, my parents bought me a place,
but they made me come home anyway.
- Of course they did.
How I've missed you, Evan.
- You guys remote now?
- Yeah, and it's shit.
- Do you guys think you'll be back in the fall?
- Hopefully. - No clue.
- Yeah, my school's the same. - Oh yeah, how is that?
Howard's, like, a really great school.
Chadwick Boseman went there, Jordan Peele
had a private screening there, it's like legit.
- Jordan Peele makes Howard legit?
Toni Morrison went there.
- Yeah, she loves Howard,
but clearly she missed me too much.
- Oh, one of my favorite professors actually went there too.
- Oh, no way. What's his name?
- Honestly I can never pronounce it,
but it starts with an O.
I just call him Doctor, he's a PhD guy.
- Mm.
- Yeah, and he's gay too, married with kids and everything.
I reached out to him like two weeks ago
just to stand in solidarity.
Just like a quick email to say that I'm with you or whatever
then he didn't respond.
- Oh, wow.
- Like, I don't know if it was too much.
Was it too much?
I wanted him to understand that I get it.
I mean, he's gay and African American,
and one of the only black professors in the whole department
and he just is still holding class after the...
- The public execution?
- Oh god. - What? Am I wrong?
Yeah, it's tragic, but at the end of the day
at least there's finally something happening.
- It's not like that just happened, though, Axel.
A man was killed in broad daylight.
Business are currently being destroyed,
peoples' livelihoods.
- Sure, it's terrible that he died,
but how much do you want to bet that there will be
an actual change in the way shit's run in Minneapolis
at least by the end of the year?
- Oh yes, I am sure, but at what cost?
- I don't know, Evan, maybe the cost of pigs
and the benefit of actual people.
- Pigs?
- Guys, can we please not do this?
- Your little liberal arts degree
isn't gonna make anyone in this country any fucking freer.
Rioting is, looting is, setting shit on fire.
- 'Cause you're out there on the front lines, Axel?
- I would be if I was back on my meds,
or else I may literally punch a cop, officer.
You really want to fight with me?
That's rich.
Speaking of rich, have you written a check yet, Evan?
- I have been signing petitions and using
all of my social media platforms to spread awareness.
- Guys, stop.
This shit is literally everywhere right now,
and we're all super overwhelmed,
so why don't we just cup pong?
(ball rattling)
- Cup pong.
- Cup pong?
- I know, baby, but not while everyone's here.
Let's just play, okay?
- Okay, who knows who Saartjie Baartman is?
No one? Wow.
She was a South African 18th century woman
who was essentially exploited by some handlers
who wanted to profit off her body
by putting her on exhibit as traveling freak show act.
- Did you see Axel's Instagram story?
- [Professor] She died in 1810, but wasn't buried.
- I unfollowed Axel months ago.
Milo, I'm in class. - Which one?
- [Kalia] It's a black women's history class.
- Which one of Axel's stories?
- Fucking all of it,
just him talking shit about Biden and white liberals.
- Then what does that make him?
Ignore it, Milo.
You know it's all just a way for him to jab at Evan.
- He put anarchist in his bio.
- Baby, unfollow them, both of them, honestly.
It clearly bothers you.
- Kalia, I'm not gonna unfollow them, that's petty.
- It's not petty, they suck.
- Not for you, but for me it would look petty
'cause then I'd get a text asking why,
and just bullshit.
Plus it's not like I'm hanging out with them,
I'm just keeping tabs.
Casey, you still follow them,
and does that mean you fuck with them?
- I mean, I don't know.
I hang out with them sometimes,
but it's not like I agree with everything that they do.
- You still hang out with Evan and Axel?
- Separately, but yeah, sometimes.
- And you don't see anything wrong with that?
- I don't know, I just don't like burning bridges.
- So just to clarify,
we both cut them off because we acknowledged
the shit they said was fucking problematic,
but you don't feel that way?
- No, I think it was problematic.
- But what, you don't care?
- No, I just don't think I interpreted the situation
the same way you did.
- So what happened just wasn't racist enough
for you to actually consider it racist?
- Just because something made you uncomfortable, Kalia,
doesn't mean it's racist.
(relaxing music)
(Casey sobbing)
I tried my best to manage the situation,
and I wish you wouldn't fucking scream
and be so aggressive at me.
Like, what the fuck, Kalia?
You know I'm having a hard time with my dad
and all this COVID bullshit and I'm just sorry
I can't be perfect like you.
- Do you want me to get you some water? Tissues?
- No.
Do you think you could just drop me at home, Milo, please?
- Sure, Case, no problem.
She's sensitive.
- [Professor] For nearly 200 years.
All this to emphasize how historically the black female body
in western eyes is seen as primitive and animalistic.
Baartman's agency was a threat,
but her presence was sold as a luxury.
She was able to enter this rich white spaces,
but only ever as a subservient,
and that's because standard society was reliant on it,
reliant on the yielding
of her body and her mind and her freedom,
reliant on her submission.
(Milo grunting)
- It's a shitty year, if you ask me.
- Yeah, I can't believe you survived it.
- All right, let's clean this up.
Could you open the window for some ventilation?
- [Kalia] Wait, no, why?
- Don't be mad.
- Milo, no.
- What? I didn't even say anything.
- Don't play with me, Milo. You invited them?
- Kalia, it's been months. Let's give them a chance.
- Give them a chance to what?
- Baby, we've been cooped up here for months.
They're the only friends we have,
and it's just one night.
- So you've just decided that I have to be okay with them?
- No, I just don't think we have to be okay with them
to get drunk with them.
Evan and Axel follow each other.
All three of them hang out together. They're chill.
Why are you getting so worked up about this?
- Why am, why am...
Milo, I feel like I'm reasonably mad.
These aren't the people I want to spend my first moments
of the fucking new year with.
- These are our friends. - These are your friends.
- Don't be like that, Kalia. - No, Milo, don't be dense.
These are your friends, they have always been your friends,
and I was always your girlfriend who was there.
- And you waited until now to tell me you felt like this?
- Would you have cared if I had?
We've been together almost two years,
and you clearly prioritize other peoples' comfort over mine,
so does it even matter? - Of course it matters,
because clearly we've been living
in two very different worlds.
- Well clearly we have.
- I can't keep doing this.
I can't keep having this conversation with you.
- Neither can I.
- So now you're leaving? - I can't do this, Milo.
- You can't do what? What am I doing?
- Exactly what they were doing.
You're doing exactly what they were doing.
You're not listening,
you're not hearing me, you're not seeing me.
- Baby, what? - Don't be condescending.
- I'm not being condescending,
I think you're being irrational.
How could you compare me to them?
- I know, baby, just not while everyone's here.
Be nice to Casey, she's sensitive.
- Jesus, Kalia, you spend one year at an HBCU
and now you take everything so goddamn seriously.
- Milo, you're literally in the process
of becoming a third generation pig.
- The force is all I have left.
You and the force, that's it.
No social life, no friends, just you.
What does it say that I'd give up
my only fucking friends for you?
- That...
That right there is the problem.
If you knew it was wrong,
if you truly disagreed with the shit they said and did,
if you truly thought that those three
were ill intentioned
and performative and racist,
you would be giving them up for you, not...
Not for me.
(footsteps clunking)
(tense music)