Childish Gambino’s “This is America” music video displays scenes referencing to racist events against colored people from the past until the present, showing the violence and fear colored people are subjected to in their daily lives. This music video shows the reality of what America is today.
*click on the image to see full scene*
This scene portrays Childish Gambino shooting a black person. However, to represent America’s racist history, he wears Confederate pants from the Civil War while posing as the Jim Crow character, which was used as the model for Jim Crow Laws that mimicked slaves and their culture.
Childish Gambino enters the scene smiling and dancing to the music the church choir is singing. However, he erases the smile as soon as he receives the gun and shoots the black church choir with a rifle, referencing to the Charleston mass shooting. In the Charleston mass shooting, a 21-year-old white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine African Americans during a prayer service on June 17, 2015. Roof has been sentenced to death.
By placing the main focus on the dance, Childish Gambino demonstrates that many people are distracted by other things especially through material goods and cannot see what is going on in the background, in which in this case, colored people are being chased and abused by white supremacists. Although social media is a leading factor to spreading awareness on racism, it is also a leading distractor to first world problems through the hot topic of celebrity news or the newest edition of Nike sneakers.
The ending scene of the music video shows Childish Gambino running away with an expression of fear, displaying that colored people have to run away from any form of danger despite not committing criminal actions simply because they are colored.