WORDS BY SHAWN CEE
A recent topic of discussion has been the Childish Gambino ‘This Is America’ music video. I Have to say, I was blown away. Not only is the song amazing but the music is so layered and descriptive that it makes it hard not to come away with an above average interpretation of the scenes that occur through. With the introduction to this visual piece aside, we can detail the moments that make this piece so strong, artistically, and socially. From the very beginning, the audience gets a strong, artistic reference toward the character ‘Jim Crow’. Gambino stands in an awkward pose, synonymous to the Jim crow character, while in the process of shooting an unarmed black man in the back of the head. Jim Crow is a fictional character that in this video can easily be paralleled today’s artists, to distract black people from issues affecting them daily. This character was used to entertain slaves and currently we put black entertainers on the same pedestal that the slaves put the character of Jim Crow. 209
While this character entertained slaves, what he was presented as was a symbol against black people as to why they were not deserving of equal treatment. Jim Crow was essentially used against black people to portray them in a negative light, to therefore remain segregated. This character was used to distract slaves from the fact that they were indeed ‘slaves’. In the same way Childish Gambino is portraying himself as being an artist who is being used to distract us from the tragic events that take place in the background.
