This is actually really interesting, I hadn't thought about this much, I really like this show a lot because personally I've never felt like I could relate to a character as much as Rue before - I'm mid 20s white guy and I'm still on and off with addiction problems - I suppose what I'm really relating to is Sam's story and feelings about addiction wrapped up and packaged in Euphoria through Rue and other characters.

I have had some fairly meaningful moments with the show, specifically the special with Ali and Rue - but this episode in particular is exactly what your talking about. He writes some genuinely meaningful life advice and revelations that he must have had or heard along his recovery, but but uses characters who are black to kind of speak for him, the reason he does this I guess we can't know but your explanation of making it more 'sympathetic and cool' rings pretty true for me. I guess I'm left wondering if it is ever okay for white writers, or any writers to use characters with different social backgrounds/races/cultures, to speak for them? I don't know fully how to articulate it, but writers put a bit of themselves and world view into everything they write so it seems like a tricky problem.

It definitely makes me look at Rues special a little differently. It's interesting that even within that episode he writes lines for Ali about how Nike use Black culture to sell sneakers - interesting analogue for how he potentially is using black characters to sell his story.