Discrimination against minority

Over many centuries, white supremacy has continued to expand its force, using systemic discrimination and practicing violence against non-white people. In both Canada and the United States, white colonizers have been treating Indigenous people and Black people unfairly, believing that their own race is superior. From taking control over Indigenous people’s ancestral lands, and dehumanizing practices of slavery towards Black people, oppression and inequality against them are still persistent through our societies today. Throughout this blog, the discriminatory experiences in Desmond Cole’s writing The Skin We’re in and Jordan Peele’s movie Get Out will be discussed. 

The horror-thriller movie Get Out portrays manipulation and dominance against Black people through the themes of racial exploitation, and psychological control and manipulation. The Armitage Family uses young Black people’s body to transfer the consciousness of a White person, for their own benefit. The Armitage family represents a perfect illustration of how the white community have been brainwashing and exploiting black people. Rose Armitage is acting as if she really loves Chris Washington, by giving him affection and being the only person to who Chris can express his discomfort and unease of being with Rose’s family. What Chris does not realize is that he is being completely isolated from potential safety and sources for help, so he has no other choice than trusting and be dependent on Rose. Even after Chris realizes that there is something wrong going on with the Armitage family, he still trusts Rose since he thinks that their love is real. Rose’s manipulative actions are for example, being the only one that listens and tries to help Chris by comforting him, showing her love to Chris, and accepting to run away together from the Armitage house. In addition, hypnotizing black individual and transplanting white people’s brain is an ongoing historic form of exploitation and black labor, as well as contemporary discrimination and assimilation. White people buying black individual’s body is a tradition in the movie Get Out, and this action shows how white people are seeing black people as objects or animals. Overall, this movie is a powerful representative of modern racism, in which it reveals both individual and systemic level. 

In Desmond Cole’s book The Skin We’re In, he reveals his and other’s discriminative experiences as Black individuals in Toronto. He first mentions the incident on New Year’s Eve of 2016, where Toronto police attacked an art gallery of a black man called John Samuels. The police broke the glass window and attacked John with a taser. For many years, the police have been attacking and arresting black people for no reason, so Cole was not surprised by this happening: “The police are just doing their job: a central responsibility of policing has always been to discipline Black people on behalf of the ruling class” (Cole 4). This statement shows how those police’s duty is not to protect and treat equally all individuals, no matter their races, but rather to benefit of their power as police to enforce discriminatory ruling and laws, targeting black community. Cole also mentions how he felt marginalized and have been aware of the injustice towards himself because of his skin color since he was in primary. He realizes that his skin color has become something to laugh about. For example, while Cole was watching TV with friends when he was still very young, every time a Black person appeared on the screen one of his friends was shouting: “Hey, that looks like you!” (15). His friend making comparison between the Black person on the screen and Cole himself, implies that all Black people look the same, which is a form of racial stereotype and microaggression. I think that Cole wanted to highlight the fact that racial stereotypes and microaggressions could be in everyday interaction, even among friends. Cole draws parallels between the experience of black people and Indigenous people in North America, emphasizing both of their history of racism: “My ancestors and the Indigenous people who signed the Treaty 7 have a critical common experience: both were oppressed by a group whose legacy is so unquestioned today that we usually don’t even name it” (13). Through personal anecdotes and history of discrimination and oppression, Cole reveals the nature of racism in North America, interconnecting Black and Indigenous people’s victim journey.

In conclusion, even though racism is less practiced nowadays, there are still present systemically or in a more discreet way. These two examples, The Skin We’re in and Get Out, showed us a more evident type of discrimination against minority. 

Cole, Desmond. “‘negro frolicks (January).'” The Skin We’re In, Doubleday Canada, 2020, pp. 1-17
Peele, Jordan, et al. Get Out. Universal Pictures, 2017.