Student's Blog

  For this week’s blog post, I am going to flesh out and discuss what I am going to write for my final essay. I am choosing to write a compare and contrast essay between Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele, and The Destroyer, written by Victor LaVelle. Although one work is a movie and one work is a comic book, there are a lot of similarities and differences in the messages and themes regarding Black Horror.  First off, I am going to summarize each work and their main messages, and give some of my own thoughts. Get Out is one of the most amazing movies I have ever watched. The main takeaway message after watching the movie was the normalcy of modern racism and how Black Americans constantly face it through everyday interactions. More specifically, how racism manifests through the lens of liberalism, through the facade of politeness and wokeness. I also understood that Black Americans are taken advantage of for their bodies, their culture and their knowledge, while also showing ...

  For today’s blog post, I want to talk about the short story Destroyer by Victor LaVelle. I feel like the main message that the work was trying to convey is the types of violence that Black families face in the US. I thought that the concept of the story was super interesting in that it revolved around a Black woman scientist who brings her son back to life. I think it was super powerful to choose a mother as opposed to a father. Her son was innocently killed by police. Even though she was able to bring him back to life, there was a cost involved in doing so. When her son came back to life, he also came with extreme anger and strength, kind of like a monster. To me, this represented the cost that violence causes for Black families. The son becomes a real life representation of the abuse that Black families face. I think the resurrection and change of behavior and emotions also pushes forward the message of the results and effects/legacy of trauma. I think the choice of using polic...