Childish Gambino (alter ego of Donald Glover) has come up with a jaw-dropping video that captures black America’s frustration, fear and loathing of racism in America. The song, that debuted May 5, 2018 on Saturday Night Live, and the accompanying video “This is America” is a triumphant return to the hip-hop arena for Glover, and if you haven’t sat up and taken notice yet, you should. The video is rich with symbolism and literary references of historical racism that take us through the violent history of racism in America — its past and present while leaving us with either little or too much hope for the future.
The video begins with a side shot of a weathered acoustic guitar in an equally weathered and sparse chair. The next shot is a man playing the guitar with a shirtless and slightly out-of-focus Gambino's back to him over the strains of the refrain “we just wanna party.” Gambino starts dancing in a sort of odd staccato body roll making faces that uncomfortably remind us of minstrelsy and blackface. Next thing you know, Gambino pulls a gun out of the back of his pants and shoots a hooded figure sitting on the chair where the guitar player used to be. Is it the guitarist? Is it a execution victim? Is it a KKK member? Is it a figure that is a pastiche of all three? It’s hard to tell, but the violence is jarring. It is at this point we hear Gambino’s voice for the first time as he says, “This is America.”
Gambino raps while alternating between serious and really disturbing and distorted faces, all the while dancing shirtless, which is a metaphor for the wall-to-wall coverage of black death and black bodies that mainstream America seems to ravenously consume.
One of the more disturbing parts of the video is a shot of the choir of 10 singing gleefully before Gambino enters dancing, takes an automatic and kills them all. The video moves right along without a hitch after this mass murder, much like the country did after white supremacist Dylan entered a black church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015 and murdered nine black people and non-fatally injured one in their house of worship in hopes of inciting a race war.
With each frame, the chaos grows and with each tragic scene, Gambino dances harder, smiles bigger and makes even more disturbing faces. There are police cars, dancers, cars on fire and madness through it all.
Later, Gambino is joined with what appeara to be South African students smilingly dancing the Gwara Gwara South African dance through the pain. If any group can understand and relate to the racial situation in America, it is black South Africans. Glover uses this to great effect in the video. The South African female dancers are wearing what appear to be very long, very European wigs. This is likely not an accident, but a statement on coping mechanisms in the face of untenable violence and racism. And as the chaos increases, so does the number of dancers, but never enough to stage a coup against the system.
Suddenly the music stops, Gambino lights a joint and the music restarts with the refrain of, “black man, get your money.” He is no longer surrounded by chaos, but countless older cars and calm. This doesn’t last long. The next frame is Gambino running for his life through a narrow tunnel. The lighting is so dark that all you can see at first are a pair of terrified eyes and his teeth. This, too, is intentional harkening back to the demeaning, Sambo-like representations of black people in Americana art. As Gambino runs, we wait to see who is chasing him. It is never clear. The pursuers never come into full focus. The only thing that is clear is that they are white. Or are they? And with that the video ends.
This video is a powerful statement on the condition of blackness in America, and it is clear that a lot of care and research went into the powerful imagery. The rap itself is passable. If not for the video, it would be forgettable. But this is not about the rap, it is about the message. In that way, “This is America” delivers in a huge, thought provoking way that is needed right now.
With its themes of racism, racist violence, minstrelsy, blackface, coping mechanisms and being hunted, it is a sadly accurate synopsis for blackness in America. Also, the video is exactly 4:04 long. 404 is the area code for Atlanta, which (co)incidentally is the name of Glover’s wildly successful television show.
Well played, Donald. Well played.
