On Saturday, Childish Gambino, also known as Donald Glover for his government name that he uses for acting purposes, dropped a song and video titled “This Is America” and let me tell ya….it was needed.
He starts off the video, topless, dancing then BOOM, he shoots a guy with a pillow case covered over his head, in the head. But the way he shoots him is in the stance with one leg stretched in an angle and the other bent slightly. After researching, that stance that he shot the guy in, was part of a Jim Crow caricature dance. Jim Crow is the practice of segregating black people. With him doing that stance, he wants to show that Jim Crow is still I a thing in America, hence “This Is America” title; the lyrics are “Don’t Catching You Slippin Up.”
He goes on doing a bunch of trendy dances, with students dressed in uniforms. The dancing was going on in front of us but did you pat attention to the craziness happening behind the dancing? NOPE, that was the point. Dancing could be used as a distraction in America to distract us from what’s really going on. That could be social media in a sense too.
Next scene is a black choir singing, Gambino comes out and shoots them, hinting at the 2015 Charleston Church shooting. Self explanatory message.
You see a burning car and a police car with sirens on, people around, and a person on a horse
Gambino continues to dance again with the school kids but in the background, You see a burning car and a police car with sirens on, people around, and a person on a horse. He lifts his hand up acting as if his hand is a gun, then everyone disappears, he lights a blunt. Then the guy he shot with the pillow case over his head, is playing the guitar. Gambino then hops on a car, one of many that are portrayed in the video, and dances until the video goes black. As the video is zooming out, you see SZA sitting on the car. After the video goes black, he is seen running fast because there are people chasing him, then the video ends.
Every time I watched this video, I saw something new. How I perceived this video is this, Americans shoots and kills innocent people, but distracts us from some of those stories by people dancing or new trends on social media. Overall, I like the video, Childish Gambino is good for creating music that makes us sit back and listen.
What are your thoughts?? Comment them and check out the video below!
CREDIT: YOUTUBE.com
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