Gene Seymour challenged for most of his life by other black people as ` ` not black enough '' There 's also a gay nerd-outcast named Lionel , who wears a retrograde Afro hairstyle so big as to be compared to a weather system , listens to Mumford & Sons , loves Robert Altman movies and , as he puts it , `` is n't black enough '' for either the black or the white students . He says it 's as wounding as a racial epithet from white people . TV 's ` ` ' - ish '' and ` ` Dear White People '' ' are based on the challenge . Seymour : Both believe there as are many ways to be black as there are to be white , or brown .
Gene Seymour challenged for most of his life by other black people as ` ` not black enough '' He says it 's as wounding as a racial epithet from white people . TV 's ` ` ' - ish '' and ` ` Dear White People '' ' are based on the challenge . Seymour : Both believe there as are many ways to be black as there are to be white , or brown .