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Jordan Peele’s Thirties Were Insane—and He’s Just Getting Started
The actor/writer/director turned sketch comedy into a test bed for groundbreaking horror. Now, he heads into his next decade armed with the power to match his talent.
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
By the time Get Out hit theaters in the early months of 2017, I was beyond ready to escape Connecticut. I had lived there for more than two years at that point, initially brought there by a partner’s job. I’d had a hard time adjusting, in part because it was difficult for me to process the very particular type of racial tension and discomfort that would often arise in New Haven, where I lived and worked. Racism wears many masks, as do the microaggressions it spawns. In the Midwest—where I came from—the racism was familiar to me. It was easy to point out and easy to avoid — or at least easy to brace myself for if I couldn’t move out of its way.
The racism I encountered in Connecticut was often harder to decipher. The people who performed a type of well-meaning interest in racial justice and liberation were the same people who seemed to be unaware of the Black folks and people of color in their…
