Recently, problems of white supremacy and other racism problems have became more prevalent in America. Neo-Nazis and other white supremacist groups have become more widespread after Trump’s win in the 2016 presidential election. According to a Washington Post analysis of global terrorism, “violence by white supremacist groups has risen since Obama and surged since Trump has taken the office”. Another problem that became bigger than ever recently is mass shooting. Mass shooting such as the Las Vegas Shooting in 2017 has shown us that current gun laws aren’t enough and needs to change. This song brings to attention two of the biggest problems in America, gun control and racism specifically against African Americans.
In a response to all this, Childish Gambino released a song, “This is America”, to portray what America is like. In his music video, there is a lot of references and symbolism to help us understand what America is truly like. Donald Glover shows that racism is still alive in America and how big gun violence is. In the first minute, we see Gambino shoot an African American male as he has a bag over his head. After he shoots the man, he walks away like nothing happened. This may represent how when an African American is unlawfully killed or convicted, the public just pretends like nothing happened and treats it like no big deal. After the shot, the lyrics are immediately “This is America”.
Soon after, Gambino is shown to massacre an African and American Church Choir with an assault rifle. This is a reference to the tragic 2015 massacre in Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The tragedy left nine dead. After this, Gambino again says “This is America” to show the true nature of this country and the problems with it. Also, in the first scene after Gambino shoots the man, another man shows up with a red cloth to take the gun away in. This symbolize how Americans value their guns and the Second Amendment. He implies that a stricter gun control will be hard to attain.
Throughout the music video, we can see that the sole focus is of Gambino. He is also looking happy, relaxed, and carefree as he dances and laughs amidst the commotion around him. All the violence and chaos that is happening around him are only in the peripheral of the shot and the camera doesn’t focus on them at all. They are all basically a blur. This is representing America. It shows how the majority don’t want to focus on the racial problems and just blur them out. They only focus on the happy and relaxing things in their lives. It shows the problem of how some people tend to be ignorant and believe that racism isn’t alive in America. The lyric “This is America” is repeated to show the reality of this country shown throughout the music video.
William Robin has wrote about how Colin Kaepernick used the Star Spangled Banner to basically protest against the racism that is widespread in America. Childish Gambino also uses his song “This is America” to show the masses of America the reality that racism is well alive in this country. I think using music to spread around a message is very effective. Even though Colin Kaepernick’s use of the Star Spangled Banner was very controversial, it made an impression on a lot of people and spread the message around. These two examples show how using a song can be very impactful and stick for a longer time. They both brought to light a closer inspection of racism and a need a change in gun control laws in America.
Hello,
I really liked how your blogpost was clear and straight to the point! It was easy to understand the information you included, and I also was able to see where you stand on the issue, which I think is something that distinguishes a blogpost from an informative article. You included a good amount of information while still keeping it personal enough. I also thought you used visuals very well; all of the included images were directly related to the surrounding text and helped better my understanding of your writing.
A small thing I thought you could have included to enhance your (already very good) blogpost would be a small section (or even just a few sentences) that zoom out and talk about what this says about the relationship between music and politics in general. Since your writing was very specific I thought this would be a nice touch to round out the overall blogpost, but good job, I really enjoyed reading it!
– K Lee Morris