Imagery of "outsider within" phenomenon

    This image is a snapshot from the movie Get Out. The scene depicts a white family(albeit with one Black guest) being served by one of their many household servants, all of whom happen to be Black. Despite the white members of the family clearly and regularly acting as if she, and Black people in general, are inferior to them, they constantly exclaim throughout the film that the servant, Georgina, is "part of the family." I believe that these imagery is a prime illustration of Patricia Hill Collins's outsider from within idea, as Collins notes that Black women in these servitude environments get to experience a firsthand account of the inner workings of an affluent white household, while also clearly being an outsider due to their skin color. These dynamics, according to Collins, are responsible for the construction of Black feminist thought literature. Collins would likely argue that the Black woman in the photograph here should think critically about their own self-definition, which is the idea of giving oneself an identify that exists outside of the external stereotypes placed on them by those who hold more advantageous positioning in society. Self-valuation, as defined by Collins, is a way for Black women to replace the existing perceptions about them with authentic images of what it means to be a Black woman. Imagery, such as the one used in this blog post, serve to control Black women and box them into a laborious identity. These incorrect perceptions and stereotypes about Black women dehumanize them, and when Black women fight to change the oppressive narratives assigned to them, they are seen as overly assertive and further negative assumptions are made about Black women. As Collins notes, Black women often fall victim to "interlocking oppression", which is the idea of them suffering not only from racism, but also sexism. The woman in the image was often used as a sex slave in the film, essentially making her "the mule" of the white man. Collins writes how the white and Black woman are both oppressed by the white man, but the Black woman simultaneously deals with racism.