Racism as Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out by Aph Ko

Author:Aph Ko [Ko, Aph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: 9781590565964
Published: 2019-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

Peele demonstrates how white supremacy is maintained by anti-Black zoological attitudes and that a cornerstone of white supremacy is its fetishistic desire to consume the oppressed. He shows us a multidimensional white supremacy that reflects what Kim (2017) calls the “zoologo-racial order” (10). There is a rich history through which to track the consumptive desires of white supremacy as an exercise of colonial mastery and power:

Most . . . examples of consumption, on and off the plantation, range from the literal murder and eating of black persons to what we might think of as metaphoric acts. I refer to these metaphoric acts—which encompass starving, flesh-seasoning rituals, and sexual modes of consumption—variously as consumption, human consumption, metaphoric consumption, instance of social consumption, and even cannibalism. (Woodard 2014, 6)

Peele's usage of taxidermy as a white supremacist trope relies upon the literal and metaphorical act of consumption. Animals are stuffed and hang from the wall—frozen, eternal reminders of white supremacy's ruthlessness. The white people at the Armitages' also engage in re-stuffing the essences of Black people to bolster their own superiority and longevity.

Black people become mere epidermal shells for the ruling class. Our consciousnesses are ingested and metabolized in the bellies of white fantasies; our essences serve as fuel for the white cult members. This is the sunken place. After our souls are taken, all we have left are empty shells ripe for stuffing and a collection of limp muscles that we can no longer control. Taxidermied animals serve as racial signposts of what's to come for Black visitors to the town. Get Out is not just about Black people becoming “zombies,” as a lot of sources suggest. It's that there's a zoological component to this racial zombification, or what I introduced earlier as zoological witchcraft.

In Get Out, white supremacy is framed as a zoological witchcraft practice: the white people and the one Asian guest4 engage in racial rituals anchored to stripping the Black body of its essence and repurposing it to empower their own fantasies. When Chris tries to escape from the Armitage home at the end of the film, he quickly learns that Rose is a part of the cult and that part of her job was to lure him to the home under the guise of meeting her parents.

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