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Get Out Op-Ed: “It’s Fine.”

Get Out Op-Ed: “It’s Fine.”

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By: TaLynn Kel

[SPOILER ALERT: This article assumes you’ve seen the movie]

I wasn’t going to see this movie. The trailers creeped me out and I knew I wouldn’t be able to manage the experience, but then I started reading essays about it. I read Son of Baldwin’s “Get the Fuck Outta Here: A Dialogue on Jordan Peele’s GET OUT,” which completely piqued my interest. Another favorite essay is “What Becky Gotta Do to Get Murked? White Womanhood in Jordan Peele’s Get Out” which gets into the role white womanhood played in the movie. Both were great and are the standouts of the 20+ items I read about this movie. I decided to go to see how I would respond to it. I honestly didn’t expect a lot. I was wrong.

Get Out fucked me up.

My very first reaction to the movie was “meh.” Seriously. I came out unimpressed and cold. What I didn’t realize was that the movie bothered me so much, I had detached from my emotions to get through it. I often talk about how difficult it is to deal with the micro and macro-aggressions of interacting with white people. It’s emotionally taxing. It’s painful. And it’s a part of my marriage. It has improved exponentially, but it’s something I control in my personal life as much as possible. Watching a movie full of them, and full of the casual lies white people tell black people to keep them comfortable as they mine them for the parts they want was overwhelming. They all feed into each other so seamlessly, that yes, the entire movie was a fucking terrible experience showing me the many ways I’ve made myself vulnerable to white people by telling myself “it’s fine.”

And afterward, I went home to my white husband and told myself — again — it’s fine. But it wasn’t.

I was and continue to be shaken by this experience, which took me back to the time I realized this man, who cries at the pain of animals, has trouble empathizing with black people. This man, who cannot watch violent anime without getting sad, struggled to see that Trayvon Martin was stalked and murdered. He still struggles to humanize black people. And while he continues to confront this and work to change it, it’s shocking to realize it continues to be an issue. And as I sleep next to him every night, I am betting my life on him being an exception.

And I tell myself “it’s fine.”

Get Out reminded me of last time I spent Christmas with him and his family, with whom I no longer interact. We drove to Flori-Bama and I was the only black person I saw for three days. His friends were sharing a vacation house with another family, who never spoke to me. I fielded questions from white children who’d never seen a black person prior to that week. His mother told me how hard it was to find “black X-mas décor,” a child asked me why I was called “black” if I’m “brown,” and I sat trying to engage but disengage because it was uncomfortable as hell. I still don’t know exactly where we visited and if I’d lost my phone, I’d have been fucked. My only safety net was that it was my car and I had the keys.

And I told myself it was “fine.”

Early in our relationship, I constantly put myself in these environments. His friends live outside Atlanta, where I see less and less black people. Where we currently live is so diverse black people, Asian-Americans, Middle Easterners, latinx, etc. — with so many different shades and experiences everywhere. Yet, when we’d visit his friends, suddenly I’d find myself surrounded by only white people. Every time I went to their homes, I was afraid. They lived in Forsyth County, a place I’d been told was a sundown town that had been featured on an episode of Oprah in 1987. I remember expressing apprehension to my S.O. and he scoffed. At the time, the only way he would have believed me would have been if something happened.

And I told myself that it was “fine.”

Yesterday, I sat with my S.O. and told him this relationship isn’t healthy for him. Because I’m not fine. I don’t feel safe. Despite the seven years we’ve been together, I still sit and wait and watch for the moment where he’ll say the indefensible thing. I am waiting for him to say or do something so racist I can’t ignore it nor explain it away. The thing that we can’t talk about enough to clear the air. And what Get Out showed me was that I let the racism minefield get too close to my home. When a mine goes off (oh, and it’s going to go off), I’m going to take heavy damage.

And I’m scared. I’m scared that my S.O. is Rose the liar, trickster. The psychopath who happily leads black people to their demise. I am afraid I am still not human enough to him and we just haven’t found the right catalyst for his racism to bloom. I stay in this relationship wondering if and when there will be a big reveal.

And, because I have empathy, I know this is not fair to him.

How can I ask someone to continue to prove he’s different? To continue to show me over and over again that he is confronting and dealing with his racism? How can that dynamic be an integral part of a healthy relationship? How can I keep asking and expecting this?

But this is the price of being with me. This is what I need to stay in this relationship because I still don’t feel safe. He is not black and because of that, I do not trust him with all my blackness. I’m starting to think that the most I can do is trust him not to physically attack me for it. And still, I’m not sure.

We talk about it. He tells me that all he can do is continue being who he is, keep learning, and keep supporting me. I asked him if it hurts and he said it does. But, he says, that it’s his problem and he’s figuring it out too. And I’m worth the work. He loves me.

I love him, too. It’s hard. Sometimes it feels too hard. I didn’t think a movie could make me feel this way. I didn’t think that we still had all this work to do. But it did and we do. We always do.

I don’t know how people look at all these interracial relationships and think theirs is safe. I don’t know how I live, breathe, and shout my wholeness into the face of someone conditioned to think I’m not as whole as him. But I do. And I fight the urge to apologize for being me because I have the right to be me. And he has the choice to stay and live with it or to leave. But my choice to stay is dangerous. I’d be a liar if I said it wasn’t.

But I tell myself that “it’s fine.”

I write about my marriage a lot. Feel free to check it out.

My Husband’s Unconscious Racism Nearly Destroyed Our Marriage
Why I Cut My Racist In-Laws Out Of My Life
I Promised My White Husband The Space To Fuck Up On Racism And It Hurts Like Hell
The Danger Of Unchallenged Racism In Interracial Relationships

 

TaLynn Kel is a writer and an avid participant in the Atlanta cosplay scene. You will find her at various Atlanta conventions in costume and participating on panels about cosplay. She is also a guest writer for Black Girl NerdsThe Establishment, and Huffington Post.

You can follow her on her site, Breaking Normal, or on FacebookTwitterInstagram, MediumYouTube, and Tumblr.


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View Comments (6)
  • Thank you for writing this.
    I saw Get Out, in an upscale, diverse NYC suburb. The audience was about 60% Black, including me. You could hear and see the nods of affirmation among us during the film. And when the lights came up, the White folks looked ashen – a mix of guilt and fear.
    I am your fan forever.

  • This doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship. I’m not sure how you can continue with that level of mistrust. But I’ve never been married so maybe it’s common for married people to feel that way about each other on different things.

  • This is a great piece. Incredibly personal and emotional. I’ve never dated a white person before but I have dated interracially and I felt some of this.

  • I saw this on the north side of Chicago at 10:30 AM, with about 25 people in the theater, the majority of who were white. Literally thought I was being set up. Terrifying lol.

  • I am also married to a White man, but haven’t seen Get Out yet. When we first met, my husband told me that racism was dead and I asked him what world was he living in because I want to live there. The problem was that he lived in a bubble. After sitting him down and explaining to him his ignorance, he got it. i have always gotten along with his family and i will admit I didn’t think I would since his mother and her family live in Maine. On the other hand when I first met his dad he lived in South Carolina we got along fine, he was always nice to me and never had a problem introducing me as his daughter in law. Well, his father later married a woman from a small town in Virginia and it started out ok, but he started making racist comments about President Obama. Once he proudly announced that he voted for Trump, I told my husband his dad was no longer welcomed in our home and he agreed. I haven’t actually told his dad how I feel, but my husband really went off on him after he posted on Facebook about his vote, which he later deleted, which I guess he thought would make difference.

    I am so glad that my husband was opened enough to listen and process everything I was telling him in the beginning of our relationship or we would not be married.

  • Wow, thank you for sharing this. I’m afraid if I watch this movie I’ll have the same kind of reaction you eventually did. I’m not in an interracial relationship, but I have liberal white friends. I’ve accepted that many of them will never fully get it. But I also have a lot of resentment and anger over white apathy and the urge to “nobody” us out of American culture. It’s as pervasive and unnoticed as oxygen. So many things we take for granted will never change unless it’s pointed out and illustrated, however so I’m glad Jordan Peele did it. Will definitely make plans to see it.

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