Throughout the years, we’ve asked, “What is America?”
Finally, on the fateful day of May 6, 2018, Donald Glover answered.
In a single titled “This is America,” Glover, who adopted the pseudonym “Childish Gambino,” encapsulated America worlds away from the status quo of people-pleasing, consumer-oriented hip-hop.
Childish Gambino achieved this culmination through three key aspects of America that the lyrics and video together depicted. From a visual representation of the Charleston Church shooting by re-enacting the happenings, to verbally alluding to the shooting case of Stephon Clark, Glover explains the injustices of a common theme—America.
Namely, “This a celly (ha) / That’s a tool (yeah) / On my Kodak (woo, Black),” Glover writes. By juxtaposing to the difference between a cell-phone and a tool, Glover is alluding to Stephon Clark’s tragic death due to gun violence by police who assumed his iPhone was a weapon.
Subsequently, another notion of America appears: from an even broader lens, the irony of hip-hop is depicted. Amidst a background of gun violence, depicted racism, and blatant injustice, Glover grotesquely dances, his face contorted in joy. Indeed, he is a highlight of what hip-hop has become; while it started as a form of unity among the black community to express their experiences and suffering, capitalism entered. Here, hip-hop began to be commercialized. Indeed, individuals refused to make music with the sole motive of community and expression, chasing monetary gain and gradually ignoring the suffering of their community.
Hip-hop has, in truth, become a money-making and commercialized industry where music has lost its meaning, where artists who once made music for their community choose to ignore its cries.
Shockingly, Glover, who symbolizes these artists, takes part as the source of some of this suffering.
On a further focus of the happenings of “This is America,” racism is depicted in an even closer focal point. Indeed, the “Jim Crow Pose” is arguably identified in the opening scene of the piece.
This reference is a closer relation to the piece’s main topic of America. Indeed, racism has served as a historically extensive matter in the nation. Thus, by referencing Jim Crow, an ostentatious, racist black stereotype of the nineteenth century, Glover is highlighting the terrors of America’s inner-workings.
In the end, “This is America” is a call to action. It is a conspicuous plea uncovering the twisted capitalistic ways of the land of liberty.
By including matters such as racist black stereotypes, gun violence, police brutality, and coating each with a twist of irony, Glover depicts the monster that America has become.
Works Cited
Glover, Donald. “Childish Gambino – This Is America (Official Video).” YouTube, 5 May 2018, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY&ab_channel=ChildishGambinoVEVO.
The Original Jim Crow, digital image of cartographic material, Insider, accessed 30 June 2023, https://i.insider.com/5af20560434f3445008b45c4?width=750&format=jpeg&auto=webp.
Communicating Change 
This is amazing!
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