The Theme Of Racism In Jordan Peele's Film 'Get Out'

Jordan Peele brilliantly outlines the intricacies of today’s racism in his film, Get Out. Through the eyes of Chris Washington, we are shown the current ways in which American society devalues Black lives, thus revealing the dishonesty in claiming that America is “post-racial.” Modern American racism rarely takes the form of slavery or attempted genocide. Racial inequality today is far more complex in its motives and appearance. Even liberally minded people often perpetuate the racism they attempt to combat. This adds much difficulty when trying to discern whether a situation or thought process is racially coded or problematic. Racism is now so subtle and pervasive in American culture that it takes lengthy and exhausting conversations to reveal

The status quo of America is founded upon an exultation of whiteness. Emblematic of this ideology is the Armitage family’s “reassurance” to Chris in saying that he has, “been chosen because of the physical advantages you've enjoyed your entire lifetime. With your natural gifts and our determination, we could both be part of something greater. Something perfect” (Peele, 2017). They see white intelligence as something to be preserved through the physical exertion of a Black body. This frame of thinking is evident in many perceptions of race. I have certainly heard many comments about the “superiority” of the Black body, coupled with a sense of remorse over a “lack of intelligence” in the Black brain. In an interview with Cara Buckley, we see this scene speaks to Peele’s own fears as a Black man, “the fear of being viewed as your race but not as a human being. The fears of abandoning your roots and stepping out of your blackness… The fears of your own neglect of your race” (Buckley and Peele, 2017). The Armitage family did not care about Chris as a person, they only cared about his blackness and how they could profit from it. His talents are not recognized as a mark of his individuality but as something inherent to blackness specifically, thus erasing Chris, and replacing him with what whiteness declares him to

Her death was a slow, painful, and preventable. Chris blames himself for her death, telling Rose that "There was time, but nobody was looking for her" (Peele, 2017). We as the audience must ask, why didn’t anyone look for her? The answer likely boils down to her race and the systems she existed in not caring for her life as a Black person. This offers a grim perspective on the state of modern racism in its many forms, but it does not project a message of hopelessness. Just as Chris manages to escape the Armitage home, we too can abandon our own self destructive patterns of discrimination. Racism is not an inevitability, nor is it an unavoidable pattern. There is still time to get out of these patterns of