This is America By Donald Glover: A Piece of Art or Propaganda?
I get it...I get it...I get it...
The video “This is America,” by Childish Gambino is disturbing, alarming and brilliant all at the same time. The video starts with Childish Gambino—a Bojangle like caricature moving to the beat of a guitar in a snake-like fashion. Music is played by a black man strumming the guitar. At first the beat of the music is happy, uplifting, almost inspiring, but then the tune changes. It becomes deep and dark. The black man now has a burlap sack on his head and a noose around his neck. Gambino shoots the man, point-blank in the head. Then, he carefully hands the gun to a black boy, who swaddles the gun in a red garment. The body is dragged away and Gambino continues his dance as if nothing happened.
The beat of the music returns to the happy go-lucky tune and a group of black boys and girls, dressed in preppy uniforms, start to follow Gambino like he’s the Pied Piper. In the background things are happening, but they don’t seem to notice or care. Eventually Gambino enters a red door and finds a church choir. with all black members. The choir is draped in robes, singing gayly like happy black folks. You know the type that fasted and prayed for the Mercy of God? Black folks that believed they’ve finally overcome in America. But like before, the music switches to that deep, disturbing beat. A boy hands Gambino an automatic rifle. BAM! Blood spews everywhere. Gambino shoots the entire choir. He hands the assault refile off to another black boy that wraps it in a red garment. Hostility from the crowd is captured, the absence of God eerily evident.
No emotions are shown by Gambino or the kids, when the melody changes again, they continue to dance around in the same happy fashion. All the while the backdrop becomes saturated with violent scenes. Chaos and riots and people running about with wrangled arms and horrid faces amid utter madness. Things become increasing out of hand and absurd: a car is aflame and a white horse trots around. Gambino and the kids are seemingly oblivious to everything that is happening around them. Some of the kids even use their cell phones to capture everything that’s taking place, as if they’re numb to the violence and the mayhem.
Like a music round, the chorus of “This is America,” is repeated until—just like that--the music stops. Gambino lights a blunt and takes a hit. After a few seconds, the music starts again he’s standing on a car and a bunch of outdated cars are spread-out before him, like Christ stood on the mountain top, with all the world before him (might be too much). Ultimately in the final clip of the video Gambino is running down a long hallway, like a slave.
I read and listened to several commentaries that said, “This is America,” is about gun violence—a referendum on guns in America. I read some place where the video was highlighting gun violence and drug addiction. But after watching the video, over and over, I’m not convinced that’s the message.
It’s true the very first scene in the video is a black man being shot in the head. I can see how many would interpret that as an image about black on black crime. And the clip does raise the question of gun control in America. But the church shooting made me think otherwise. As the majority of the random acts of gun violence, such as the one committed in Charleston, were committed by white men—but Gambino (clearly black) fires the assault weapon, Besides that, there’s also the juxtaposition of the images such as, the black man with a burlap sack over his head and a noose around his neck. This image is symbolic to something more. If the view was just about gun violence, why cover up the man’s head and take the time to apply the noose? In my opinion, these images in this video are used to demonstrate the crude and violent dismantling of the black man and his psyche.
In so many ways this video reminds me of Jean-Michel Basquat’s paintings. There’s something disjointed, yet tangible and true and sad about the message. Originally, I wasn’t sure what to make of the video. I went back and forth watching the video and listening to the lyrics. After a time, I concluded this video depicts the way African American men and women have been systematically violated since the days of slavery, Jim Crow and Civil Rights. It also addresses the way American ideology indoctrinates African American Youth in the American Matrix, creating black boys and girls in its own image and likeness, (i.e. a generation of children consumed with social media and images of themselves).
Gambino doesn’t recognize this until he hits the blunt. When the music stops and he takes a drag his eyes are opened. He’s enlightened. He recognizes the trap when he stand atop the red car and starts to think outside of the box. He finally sees America for what America really is, a place where people are bred by an economic system whose only motivation is greed. Consumption. Black Americans have been programmed to buy into this matrix, our minds have been brainwashed. Fact or fiction there’s some truth in that idea.
The reality is disturbing and begs the question, is there any way to escape? Is there a way to get out of the Matrix? Trying to escape the American ideology is difficult. So, begins the chase of the black man, like the black slave that ran away in the brush of the black night, with wide-white eyes and sweat dripping down his black chest and back, as he desperately tries to escape his oppressor.
This video is brilliant because it asks the question is this the picture of America?—or is Glover trying to uses violent images to make a point about gun violence?