African Americans' Discrimination And Get Out'S Portrayal In Society

 Racism has been around for many years and till this day it still exists, a lot of the times African-American people are portrayed negatively in Hollywood films which affects the way people see African-American people. We, humans, tend to naturally prejudice any person we meet based on the stereotypes we know, these stereotypes are formed in the movies we watch which portray African-American people to be dangerous, domestic workers, and not educated. How African-Americans were treated in the past, how they are portrayed in films like the film “Get Out”, and how people treat them now has created stereotypes that we humans believe in and it created racism against African-Americans.

Racism began in North America in 1619 where Africans were sent to America and were involuntarily enslaved, slavery ended in 1863 after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation but racism has never ended. African-Americans were still treated differently even after slavery ended, in the first half of the 20th century African-American women increasingly became domestic workers and it all started because of the prominent figure of the mammy also known as Mauma Mollie, the mammy figure arose during the Reconstruction Era which was a time period after the American Civil War and the end of slavery. The mammy is an African-American woman who was enslaved to work in a White American household, she was known for being loyal to the family and was happy to served them, “The image of the mammy becomes essential in the early 20th century to justify an unequal racial order in the South and as an apology for slavery, with its assumption that African Americans were content to serve white families” (The Historical Roots of American).

African-American women were not content to serve white families because it was not treated as a real job, their duties consisted of cleaning the house, preparing meals, and taking care of their owner kids while not getting paid because it was assumed that the work they did was out of love and being framed by the white families that they were “one of family” and that they didn’t need to get paid for the work they did, unlike the mammy she was happy to serve the white family and saw the white family as her own and the children she nursed described her as a “second mother”. Although the popular stereotype of the mammy was clear for many white Americans, the history of the African American domestic workers tells a different story, many African-Americans did not enjoy being domestic workers and they wanted people to recognize that it was labour and that they weren’t getting paid. The stereotype of the mammy has created this idea that African-American are supposed to work as domestic workers which impacted the way people see African-Americans and created this untrue stereotype now. The stereotypes that are created in the past has given people the idea that all African-Americans should work as domestic workers and that created racism against African-American people.

The stereotypes that were created in the past have impacted African-American greatly because in the past African-American were put into slavery and were domestic workers it gave the idea of directors and producers that’s how they should portray African-American in Hollywood films which have made a big impact on the African-American community. For example, in the movie “Get out” which is about a young African-American named Chris who is in a relationship with a white woman named Rose, their relationship starts getting serious which means it was time for Chris to meet Rose’s parents the Armitage’s, Rose’s mother is a psychiatrist who specializes in hypnosis while Rose’s father is neurosurgeon.

When Chris goes to visit the Armitage’s he notices that the family is surrounded by only African-American servants, which then soon he realizes that this family is hiding something and that he was going to become one of the servants. This film is produced by an African-American producer named Jordan Peele, he felt the need to produce a film that shows how racism still exists till this day since a lot of the films that are produced don’t clearly show the racism against African-Americans but do show the stereotypes of of African-Americans making people believe these stereotypes shown are true. In the film “Get Out” African-Americans were hypnotized into being servants for the white family, they were turned into servants simply because of their race which clearly depicts the racism that happens in our world, because African-Americans worked as domestic workers and were slaves in the past it, some white people still believe that they should still be doing that no matter how much time has changed. The producer was trying to show how racism still existed but in a unique way, which is in a horror movie and to raise awareness that these type of things happen. We often don’t see movies that talk about racism as much as we see how they are negatively portrayed through untrue stereotypes such as being in a gang, not educated, domestic workers, etc. These stereotypes are formed in the films we watch making us believe they are true, although stereotypes can be true sometimes for an individual it is not true for a whole group of people. The stereotypes shown in films create an untrue image of how we should treat African-Americans which leads to racism and makes people treat African-Americans unfairly.

Based on the stereotypes that were formed in the past and how African-Americans were portrayed in films it has affected African-Americans greatly and how they are treated in society. Aside of the stereotype of African-Americans being domestic workers and not educated, they are also stereotyped for being dangerous and are in a gang this very stereotype is shown a lot in films making it seem that all African-Americans are dangerous which reflects on how they are treated by society and the police. News headlines about African-Americans all have a similar pattern to them which is when African-American person is minding there own business while being in a public place and they are approached by a white police officer or a white person and get questioned on what they are doing and their right to be there.

This situation always ends up badly because the African-American either ends up being in jail or most likely dead, based on statistics, “Half of the whites say they have “a great deal of confidence” in the police to gain the trust of those they serve compared with only 22 percent of blacks. Whites are much more likely than blacks or Latinos to say their experience with the police has been “mostly good.” (Racial Divide in Attitudes Towards the Police). In many cases, African-Americans are unarmed and innocent when they get shot by the police and they are most likely to be very young, victims such as Trayvon Martin who was 17 years old, Tamir Rice was 12, and Michael Brown was 18 were all teens when they were shot. The case of these young teens were all very similar, Trayvon Martin was shot by a white man who was painter and claimed that he shot Trayvon Martin as self-defence when he was just visiting a friend, as for Tamir Rice he was shot by a police officer for playing with a toy gun, and lastly Micheal Brown was shot by a white police officer who claimed that Brown was not listening to the police officer when he had his hands raised and obeyed the white police officer and did not do anything, Brown was shot brutally by the police officer and only got sentenced two years in jail while Brown didn’t get to live his life.

These three cases are among many other similar cases in which African-Americans end up dead for something they didn’t do or for not doing anything at all while the white men go on living their life. One reason why these hate crimes always happen is due to white supremacist are afraid and frustrated in losing their power to African-Americans and therefore they try to get rid of them by killing them, making them into slaves/domestic workers, and for treating them unfairly. It is known that when Barack Obama became a president many white people were frustrated by the fact that an African-American man has become their leader which is why he was elected off and Donald Trump who is a white man became a president, white people were afraid of losing their power and they gained it by electing a white man who treats African-Americans unfairly due to stereotypes that are formed in the past and stereotypes shown in films creating racism against African-Americans and being treated differently.

In conclusion, racism will always be an issue in our world and if It weren’t for stereotypes racism could have not existed or it would be less of an issue now. Stereotypes are a big part of how we treat people, based on stereotypes that were formed in the past and how they are portrayed in Hollywood films such as the movie “Get Out” all affect the way society treats them and how we humans prejudice them creating racism against African-Americans. The film “Get Out” is where we get the picture of how the world works and our place in it, the ideology race that is shown in this film promotes the racism against African-Americans and how till this day it still exists in our world.