How Get Out Made Me Hilariously Paranoid

Get Out is a surprise box office hit by Jordan Peele, that has grossed over $100 million dollars. If you have not seen the movie, STOP. DO NOT READ THIS POST. Go watch it first, then come back to this blog and any other blogs that reveal all of the Easter eggs in the movie. Then go watch it again. Since I saw the movie, certain things in pop culture seem suspicious to me now. Things that made perfect sense before, no longer add up. I feel as paranoid as a conspiracy theorist now.

Men In Black

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones starred in this sci-fi comedy along with appearances by Tony Shalhoub (Monk) and Vincent D'Onofrio. The basic premise is that aliens are hijacking human bodies and are walking around Earth in disguise. The MIB have to capture these "illegal aliens". Sometimes, humans see the MIB doing their job. In this case, the MIB use a pen-like device that flashes and clears the human's memory. Their memories are later reprogrammed to remember whatever the MIB planted into the person's head.

If you've seen Get Out, this almost seems like a foreshadowing. Strange people, take over the bodies of black people. However in this case, the flash of light doesn't make the inhabited person forget anything, it helps them remember. Still, they are hypnotized just the same. At which point, any requested thoughts or behaviors are transplanted into the victim's brain.


Spill the tea

This phrase is most commonly used to request more juicy gossip. But what if all this time, the black person being asked to spill the tea was in fact receiving a warning from another black person who was already victimized by those evil body snatchers?

Tea shops

Have you ever noticed how much white people LOVE tea? Like, they love it more than the people who made it in the first place. There are even stand alone tea shops that are as popular as Starbucks. They take a traditional herbal tea from a particular ethnic group or indigenous region and totally revamp it into something no one can resist. There is definitely something suspicious there.

And lets not ignore the fact that they invented tea parties. They had so many, they have to have special China to serve it with. There's an entire etiquette designed around tea, when to drink it, how many times to stir it, tapping the spoon before putting it on your saucer. Perhaps these are instructions for hypnotism.



Skeleton Key

Someone sort of ruined the movie Get Out for me by telling me it was just like a reverse Skeleton Key. Of course this was black people occupying white people with hoodoo, but the premise was basically the same. At the time Kate Hudson starred in the Skeleton Key, black people were still attempting to assimilate to white standards. Our skin prevented complete assimilation, so the idea of a black person becoming a white person against their will was particularly terrifying for a white person. With Get Out the tables were turned. White people wanted to become black people. Perhaps this movie was trying to tell us something.



Kardashians

No one is more guilty of robbing black people of their culture like any one of the Kardashian / Jenner Klan. (The "K" in "Klan" was intentional). Each time a Kardashian couples with a black man, they behave more black, having fully absorbed our culture. However, the black man they were once with, is left to become nothing more than a shell of himself. Lamar Odom wound up in a coma. Perhaps his transplant didn't take. With each new black man, their butts get bigger, their skin gets darker, they start cooking soul food, they have black babies. The Kardashians may be hiding in plain sight. This is not a drill.



Master Race

Show me a post about any set of twins where one is black and the other is white, and I'll show you a comment from a reader that says, "the only way to erase racism is to make more mixed kids." It's the creepiest thing I've ever heard. White people who choose a black mate for the sole purpose of genetic engineering may as well have been a scene in the Get Out movie. If no one can fully claim black or white, no one can be labeled inferior or superior. Which was the focus behind the body snatching in the movie.


This entire post is merely a joke I came up with when a Hotep friend of mine got melodramatic about the movie. Just in case he's right about any of this, I want you all to know that you can count on me to be a friend like Rod. I hope you enjoyed my geeky sense of humor. 

Woman Work by Maya Angelou

Woman Work

I've got the children to tend
The clothes to mend
The floor to mop
The food to shop
Then the chicken to fry
The baby to dry
I got company to feed
The garden to weed
I've got shirts to press
The tots to dress
The cane to be cut
I gotta clean up this hut
Then see about the sick
And the cotton to pick.

Shine on me, sunshine
Rain on me, rain
Fall softly, dewdrops
And cool my brow again.

Storm, blow me from here
With your fiercest wind
Let me float across the sky
'Til I can rest again.

Fall gently, snowflakes
Cover me with white
Cold icy kisses and
Let me rest tonight.

Sun, rain, curving sky
Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone
Star shine, moon glow
You're all that I can call my own.

Xfinity vs. AT&T Uverse

Last Friday I made the switch from AT&T Uverse 300 to Xfinity Double Play. There were two reasons why I left AT&T after over 10 years as a customer. The first was realizing that paying over $200 to watch tv, have a phone I never use, and to surf the internet was an act of insanity. The second reason was the substandard customer service. After surveying my friends, the consensus became clear, Xfinity had better rates, better customer service, and faster internet. I was apprehensive about switching companies. I am a person who doesn't like to change once I've made myself comfortable. Yet, I was no longer comfortable with my provider. I had to remind myself that I don't owe loyalty to a company. That is a privilege reserved for humans. If a company has high rates and poor service, I should find another as quickly as possible. So I made the call to Xfinity. 

Customer Service

As I said before, customer service is one of only two reasons I left AT&T Uverse. I live in California. The call center hours changed from 6am-10pm, to 7am-8pm, to 8am-6pm. The wait to speak to a representative averaged 8 minutes per call. I tracked my hold times. This was an unintentional practice that I started once my husband began working as a call center supervisor for a health exchange. At one point I was able to speak to a representative located in the United States. I should state for the record that I am xenophobic in the sense that I don't like strange people but not in the sense that I dislike foreigners. I truly don't care where a representative is, or what type of accent he or she has, so long as we can understand each other and my concern is resolved. This was not the case for AT&T Uverse. All of my calls were routed outside of the country to people who could not understand what I was saying. I understood their accents. They did not understand my California accent. The first 5-7 minutes of every call involved me repeating the pronunciation of my name several times, along with my account number, Uverse phone number, the last 4 digits of my social security number and my 4 digit passcode. Bear in mind, all of this information had already been entered into the automated system. Almost every call resulted in a statement credit due to representative error or flat out rudeness. I was yelled at, cursed at, and hung up on several times. Imagine my frustration having to call back and speak to a voice activated system, only to be routed to the wrong department before finally being transferred to the right place. 

Xfinity customer service was the polar opposite. The first thing I noticed was that I could schedule a call back. There's no waiting on hold. There also isn't an annoying voice activated system that refused to allow me to key in my responses. There was a human, available at a convenient time, who understood what I said the first time and never once mispronounced my name. 

Installation

Uverse installation was free the first time I had it. However, when I moved into my new house, I had to pay $99. The technician was scheduled to arrive from 1pm to 4pm. At 6:42pm he had not arrived, nor had he called to inform me that he was running late. I had to go through the customer service, voice activated maze to reach a representative. She flatly responded, "Your technician has until 8pm to arrive." That was it. No explanation, no offer to locate the technician, no apology, no credit for the time I had to sit there. The technician arrived at 8pm on the dot and didn't leave until 9:30pm. I had already been up since 5am that morning. In the end, he needed to schedule a second appointment to complete the installation because he couldn't see what he was doing in the dark. After one month of technician appointments, my phone, internet and cable finally worked properly. I was given a one month statement credit due to being without services for a month. 

Xfinity installation was $89. Unlike Uverse, I was allowed to break up the cost over my billing cycles. My technician arrival time was between 1-4pm as well. If he was late, I would receive a $20 credit. My technician arrived at 2pm and left my house by 3pm. My services have worked flawlessly. 

Cost and Quality of Service

I found that both Xfinity and Uverse were equal in prices. Xfinity offered less channels for the same price. I also had to drop the home phone to keep my monthly rates as close to $100 as possible. With Uverse, I could have phone internet and cable for about $150. My Xfinity Double Play is about $120. Having a home phone wasn't worth the extra $30. It should be stated for the record that the Uverse price is only with a special discount. The actual price would be about $190 a month, $213 with tax, for what I received in the Xfinity Double Play. But again, I would have more channels. 

Let's talk about those channels. The channels I lost were channels I didn't even know I had. So I don't miss them. I do however miss having Cartoon Network West and AMC West. Having Cartoon Network West means that my children can watch a cartoon that normally comes on while they're at school, just before leaving for school in the morning. This is because the channel is on eastern standard time. I am a die hard fan of The Walking Dead. I don't like waiting until 9pm pst to watch. With AMC West, I watched at 6pm with the east coast. I don't have that option with Xfinity Double Play. Majority of my channels are sports channels I will never watch until football season. So, not only am I getting less channels for the price, but also, the channels I have are channels I don't watch. There is a balance to this. Shows that were not available to me on Uverse On Demand are available on Xfinity. I didn't need the apps I downloaded to watch past episodes of Underground or Supernatural because they were all On Demand, unlike on Uverse. This makes up for the fact that there is absolutely nothing to watch in my Xfinity channel line up. Still, I may downgrade to just internet only this summer. 

Then there's the quality. The first thing I noticed about my cable was that it made my eyes hurt. The first time I got an HD tv, my eyes hurt becuase I wasn't used to the high resolution. That happened again with my Xfinity HD channels. Shows I had seen at least 5 times each episode, looked almost like they were in 3D. I was paying an extra $10 per month for lower quality HD channels with Uverse. After the first day or so, my eyes adjusted to the higher quality Xfinity HD channels. Almost every channel I had was in HD. This was not the case with Uverse.  

Even the Xfinity equipment is of a higher quality. I love being able to talk to my remote. It is larger than the Uverse remote but also simpler. Xfinity turned my smart tv into an even smarter tv. Everything is streamlined. When I needed start over with programming my DVR since all of my recordings left with my Uverse DVR, all I had to do was speak the name of the show and press "ok". This was such a time saver. Also, my children are less likely to alter a setting on the tv by pressing the wrong buttons, which happened frequently with my Uverse remote. My 6 year old can record her PowerPuff Girls without waking me up in the morning. 

Conclusion

There are only 3 downsides to Xfinity. The first, I can't preview the shows in the guide. I have to change the channel first to see if the show is on a commercial break or to see if this is a channel I am even subscribed to. Uverse allows a preview of what's on the channel before you click "ok". Tis keeps you from channel hopping because every choice you make lands you on a commercial break or an unsubscribed channel. The second, wifi that is supposed to be available outside of the home, isn't really available in my area. When it is available, the signal is so weak it's pointless to try. The third is that I am getting fewer channels for the same price. 

None of those issues are enough to send me back to Uverse. They offer stellar customer service, streamlined technology, higher quality HD channels and internet speeds. For an example of the frustrations I faced as a UVerse customer, follow me on Twitter, and see for yourself the tweets I posted while enthralled in poor customer service.