The Time I Was Lowkey Scared of White People

Get Out was a terrific film. You couldn’t make a series out of it, and there are multiple plot holes, but it is a tremendous film nevertheless. Why? Simple. It actually got me involved, mentally and perhaps even emotionally. The film had me so involved that, for the next two weeks, I was lowkey scared of white people.

I’m not going to tell you  exactly what happened in the thriller (’cause you should go watch it yourself…seriously), but there were many things that had me on the edge of my seat. Due to my growing up in a town with an extremely low amount of minorities (less than 1% just the year prior), my ex-girlfriend being white, and other such factors, I was a bit invested into the main character from the get-go. I cared about his well-being. And because I cared about his well-being, I found myself yelling instructions to him in my head.

Now allow me to preface what I thought by telling you that I don’t typically curse. Just a personal preference. If you haven’t known me for at least three years, the (extremely high) odds are that you’ve never heard me utter a cuss word. (That is, unless you count damn and hell. I don’t think those are cuss words. Damn is short for damnation, which is a thing, and hell is a place. Regardless, I don’t say these words often either.) In some ways, I pride myself on it. Prior to watching Get Out, I’d even gotten to the point where I couldn’t say a curse word in my head. If I were reading something that had a curse word, my brain would automatically insert a substitute such as fudge or snapdragons. (Yes, I say snapdragons instead of the s-word. Deal with it.) And if I’m extremely upset, I might say motherlover (’cause, well, a motherf***** is technically a motherlover, so…).

But when watching Get Out, all that went out the window.

Image result for get out the sunken place

Scared for my man’s life, I found myself yelling in my head what others in the movie theatre where shouting at the screen: Run! Run motherlover, run! Get the f*** outta there! Get out! They. Gone. KILL. YOU. Run! No, don’t do it. No, forget about her! Save yourself! Save your motherloving self fool! She don’t give a s*** about you! What the f*** are you doing?! You know better than that! Where’s your motherloving spider-sense bruh?! You a fool! Just get the f*** outta there. Get out!!!

…Did I mention that this movie got me emotionally involved?

Anyway, when I walked out of the movie theatre and back into white Minnesota…I was freaked. I kept whipping my head this way and that as my dad and I walked back to the car, my hands still tingling and my heart still racing. So many of the movie’s images were (and some still are) ingrained in my mind. Going to school the next two weeks, basketball practice and games, church, and everything in between, I felt even more uncomfortable than usual among white people. Which meant I was uncomfortable everywhere but my own home. Everywhere else, though I knew everything was fine, that what happened in the movie wouldn’t happen to me, etc., I still kept my distance from white people whenever possible.

I was just lowkey scared of ’em. For two whole weeks, I was lowkey scared of white people.

I’m all good now, but I haven’t seen Get Out since. I want to, but I can’t afford it. I know the results will be similar, and being lowkey scared of white people can be quite a hindrance (think about it).

Anyway, that’s the end of the story. If you haven’t already, you should go watch Get Out. But, uh, if it’s your first time doing so…it might be best for you to watch it with other minorities or white people depending on your ethnicity. I’m just saying…you know, for safety.

Until next time.

– JP

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2 Comments

  1. I think we’ve all be lowkey scared of some group. When I was a resident advisor in the 90s, I had an Asian and a Haitian resident who were both lowkey scared of the leadership team for the Asian and Haitian clubs, respectively. They thought they’d get called out for not being Asian or Haitian enough for the group. I sat with them in tears in my room over this.

    Sometimes it’s a movie. Sometimes it’s a song. But as I read your blog today, I thought about 1 Peter 5:8. We can be lowkey scared of benign things that won’t hurt us at all. We can be scared of another race when it’s really the ignorance or darkness within someone of our own race is truly to be feared. Racism has myriad layers within each of us, sometimes not because of ourselves, but a frustration in not understanding the choices of another.

    Like any type of darkness, it needs light, discussion. It’s the start toward understanding. Racism is a fear like any other. Fear of spiders. Fear of ketchup. Fear of driving in the rain. Fear is a lack of understanding or giving more power to something than it should possess. And fear has one antidote: faith.

    1 Peter says Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour [with a movie, a teacher, a test, an injury, a weather forecast or a diagnosis]. Resist him, standing firm in the faith because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings [in their own minds, hearts, theaters, classrooms, doctor offices].

    I wonder what would happen…what kind of conversations could occur…what kind of deep friendships could be forged…if people we have lowkey faith to overcome their fears?

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