Get Out: Illustration of the Enduring yet Elusive Psychology of Slavery Dennis Odhiambo College

As James Baldwin asserts, “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them”, highlighting the recurring notion through history in that humanity is incapable to detach or learn from their past in order to create a newer future. Humanity holds onto particular ideas and repeats these mistakes instilled in them through past occurrences. In the film Get Out, director Jordan Peele expresses the idea of modern slavery and systemic racism through the satirical portrayal of racial exploitation and suppression. The film focuses on Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) and his strange encounters through a weekend with his white girlfriend’s family, the Armitages, in upstate New York. The bizarre encounters with the groundskeeper and the maid unravel a complex scheme involving hypnosis and brain surgery, which are aimed at prolonging the lives of weak white people in the bodies of robust black people. By manipulating their black victims into the “sunken place” to allow for the transfer. Bearing in mind accounts in history, the notion that drove white abolitionists were not necessarily that all races are equal. But rather the mortification and repulsion towards the dehumanizing nature of slavery by the so-called civilized...