Blog 3 – The Life of the Black Man.

Blackness is a threat to society. The idea of free blacks expressing themselves has been something that society under white supremacy that has shaped the world is afraid of. A world where the color of your skin forces you to be on guard for an inevitable attack. A society where the rules that dictate society apply differently to you and only you. When the police decide that they will enforce laws they do not usually do or question you when the situation does not call for it. It is something that every black person has faced, no matter if you’re a child or a full-blown adult. Be it accidental or purposeful attacks from someone you believed you could trust or someone who society said was there for your safety. 

Police brutality is real. It is a global thing; every country has its stories about it. It is natural for this to happen, give anyone enough power to rule over the people and they will abuse it.  Here in North America, police brutality is associated with the plight of the minorities that live in the white-dominated society. Every interaction with the police is a game of sorts. How do I act as respectfully as possible? Every action is seen through the lens of making sure the police officer does not sense the slightest hint of aggression. In Get Out by Jordan Peele, there is few interactions the police that the main character Chris Washington faces. After his girlfriend Rose Armitage hits a deer while driving, they call the police to report the situation. Naturally, the driver of the car Rose, is questioned. The police proceed to ask Chris for a piece of identification and will likely question him too. He does not think about if it is right or wrong, he simply complies. He knows the possible consequences of even questioning the police authority. John Samuels is a man from Toronto, Ontario, who owns an art gallery. On New Years Eve in 2016, he was a victim of police brutality. After a police officer had seized the cashbox, he asked for the reasoning and was promptly tackled to the ground and beaten. This is the fear every black person has when talking to a police officer. The fear that if I even question their action, that you’ll be punished. That is why Chris does not think twice about giving the police officer his I.D, because he just wants to be safe. Obviously, Rose in her position of privilege can call out the officer on his wrongdoing. This is not the last time the presence of the police is used in Get Out.  “The Skin We Are in” mentions that whiteness is something treated like it does not exist, the privileges surrounding are fantasies. This is why at the end of the film, when the police arrive after Chris had escaped the Armitage household, it is a scary moment. It is a moment that you know will not end well for our protagonist. Because he is a black man, and he is going against whiteness. Rose calls out to police officers, knowing and weaponizing her whiteness. Thankfully for Chris, it was his friend Rod, a TSA agent, who came to save him.  

Black boys and girls in the Western world are aware of the role race plays in their lives. It is the small moments that non-black people would not even realize. It does not even necessarily from racist people. Microaggression does not come with malice in them. A scene in “Get Out” has Chris having a conversation with Rose’s father Dean Armitage. In the conversation, Dean mentions that he would have voted for in Obama for a third term if it was allowed. It is something that you may hear from other white people at times. But know that it is not said out of malice. But it always felt slightly weird to hear. It feels like just because I am black you assume I like Obama. It sounds like someone trying to convince they truly like black people and aren’t racist. Believing that voting for Obama a black man would exempt them from being racist. While participating and supporting institution that put black people down. In Dean’s case, he runs an operation that exclusively kidnaps and robs black people of free will.  

Desmond Cole talks about a story from his childhood. His experience of learning blackness in 1^st grade. He talks about drawing pencils and how the beige pinkish crayons would be called skin-colored referencing it like appearance to fair skin individuals. Those pencils would be worn out completely while the tree-trunk brown that was like his skin were fine. It’s a small thing that would make you feel slightly excluded. That skin-coloured pencil does not fit you, so why is it called that way? Why can’t you call the tree-trunk brown one-skin coloured as well? You can bring this back to Get Out. During the party hosted by the Armitage’s, Chris finds himself as the only black man at it. Not only was he a city boy now in a small town but he was also black, surrounded in a sea of old white people who may not have the greatest opinion on him because of that. You can tell that Chris kind of feels standoffish in his conversations that are filled with unnoticed racism. He only becomes himself when he sees Andre a black man at the party. But he is instantly weirded out at his old-money white way of speaking or even Georgina’s absent knowledge of simple slang words like “snitch.” 

Blackness itself is something that every single black person born in the Western world is aware of. The way you operate in life is determined by it. The different manner of speech and your decision making is determined because of it. You do not want to seem like a threat, because it could only be used as a weapon to ruin you.