During an interview with Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino, the creator of This is America, he is asked to “explain what’s happening during the video.” Gambino simply replies with, “No, I feel like it’s not my place to say that,” leaving the video up for interpretation. He implies that defining the meaning of the song would defeat its purpose, as the true value and theme of the song is derived from the variation in interpretations and what viewers choose to focus on. This is America, an artistic masterpiece released in 2018, used film and lyrics to portray a hard-hitting message about the frightening reality of the black experience in America and how it’s masked by the media’s portrayal of black Americans. Throughout his career, Gambino has been known for his symbolism in complex discography and visual genius, making this one of his hit singles, considering its dire message and ability to spark a national conversation.

This is America’s music video includes examples of the historical injustices  against black Americans, and how these problems continue to shape cultural interactions and portrayals in the media. Through his unapologetic realism, Gambino differentiates himself from most previous portrayals of the black experience, which were tailored to please the white gaze, which “traps black people in white imaginations,” according to the Guardian. These portrayals are typically one-dimensional representations of black people with limited AAVE, or African American Vernacular English, as they are versions tailored for a white audience to easily consume and interpret. By contrast, Gambino uses layered lyrics and symbolism to display the hidden duality of black American experiences and expose the faults of the white gaze through simultaneously portraying two versions of black America–one for the white gaze and one for black Americans–to differentiate between media portrayals and black American realities.

Throughout the video, Gambino constantly juxtaposes the euphoria and fear that intertwine to create a joyful yet tense environment to represent the tension of being black in America. As the video begins, viewers are greeted by a seemingly uplifting rhythm. The video pans to a black man with a bag tied over his head, and Gambino executes him with a gun, striking a pose that resembles the stance of Jim Crow, the historic cartoon that is an exaggerated and racist black stereotype. By ridiculing the stereotypes embedded in the past of America, Gambino builds tension by referencing the racist history of this country against an upbeat tune. Further along, Gambino continues to use exaggerated movements and comedic facial expressions to mock the caricature-like depiction of the black panethnicity frequently seen in media, which disrespects and taunts black culture.

Similarly, in Helen Zia’s piece ‘Gangsters, Gooks, Geishas, and Geeks,’ she outlines how Asian communities have been marginalized in the media, as “life mimicked myth as the actors were boxed into the well-behaved, ‘model minority’ role” (Zia 123). Zia refers to the stereotypes to which the Asian community has been confined, and the same principle applies to black characters, who are frequently portrayed in a cartoonish and offensive manner. Through embodying a variety of racialized stereotypes–the personable entertainer who dances, the racist stereotype that is Jim Crow, and the aggressor who is violent and unhinged–Gambino critiques how black people are confined to a set of generalized stereotypes in media, stripping them of their humanity.

The dehumanization of black Americans is shown when a church choir is joyfully singing, and Gambino pulls out a gun and shoots them all. His startling action stands as a symbol for the lives lost in church and targeted black shootings, such as those in Charleston and Sutherland Springs. However, the camera does not linger on this shot for more than a second, denying viewers time to process the sinister rampage. The abrupt violence followed by little time to process is representative of the little media coverage regarding injustices inflicted upon the black community. Following that, Gambino and the dancers perform a viral dance, the shoot, as people around them use their phones to film them. On the surface, this is a statement regarding the growing influence of social media. However, on a deeper level, it stands for the commodification and appropriation of various aspects of black culture–AAVE, hip-hop music, and dance moves–using technology to spread it to society. Through these two examples, Gambino shows white America’s selective awareness: black culture is commodified and consumed, yet the tragic aspects of the black reality are suppressed.

Since black culture is commodified and stereotyped in the mainstream, a divide is created between black people and their representation, resulting in two distinct views of the black experiences, which Gambino demonstrates through his multi-layered lyrics. For instance, while Gambino continues to dance, he says, in a quieter, more ominous voice, “this a celly, that’s a tool.” While observing cultural commodification, this lyric seems Gambino’s take on how technology is a tool with which black culture is spread and stereotyped so easily, but there is a more petrifying idea beneath the surface.

When interpreting this phrase with AAVE, in which speakers commonly refer to guns and weapons as “tools” and phones as a “celly,” the entire phrase has a different meaning. All too frequently in interactions with the police, black people are seen reaching for something benign like their license or cell phone, which officers mistake for a gun due to racial biases. This line then refers to the unacceptable instances of police brutality in America in which people like Stephon Clark were killed due to a racially biased officer misjudging their actions, wrongfully taking their lives. Gambino revisits the issue of police brutality when he raps, “don’t catch you slippin’ now,” warning black people of the fatal consequences which follow making a mistake while being black in America. In this way, Gambino demonstrates how the white gaze distills the black experience into a singular glorified narrative, while black Americans carry the burden of knowing and recognizing a more violent reality.

The white narrative of the black experience is shown through a group of dancers who follow Gambino, and they are the only people in the video never involved in the violence. As Gambino kills black people and performs appropriated black dances and culture, Gambino symbolizes America. The black dancers follow him and remain unharmed, representing how black artists, mainstream public figures, and celebrities are glorified and spotlighted, reaping the benefits of America while the rest of the black population is neglected and mistreated in the background, the American reality. This idea of a whitewashed narrative is discussed in linguist Rosina Lippi-Green’s article ‘Teaching Children How to Discriminate,’ discussing the impacts of media on children’s sociocultural perceptions. Lippi-Green explains that the media’s goal “seems to be to evoke other cultures only in so far as they will mesh with the expectations of an American audience…done by assimilation and objectification” (Lippi-Green 9).

The portrayal of this whitewashed narrative is done by erasing the remainder of black culture and glorifying the black figures who fit traditional American expectations and culture. In one particular scene, Gambino teases the rap music video trope of posing with expensive cars by standing on top of an average-looking car and dancing, representing the contrast between portrayal in media and the socioeconomic realities for many black people. Additionally, Gambino raps, “Get your money, black man,” referencing the capitalist nature of the American Dream, and how it contrasts to the lack of economic opportunity for black Americans in reality. This line encapsulates the disparity between the highlights and realities of the black experience as seen throughout the video–that is, the difference between the whitewashed narrative of blackness being superfluous abundance and the socioeconomic inequality faced by many black Americans in reality.

Caricaturing black people, commodifying black culture, and reshaping the narrative of blackness makes it easy for mainstream society to devalue black lives, demonstrated when Gambino’s charismatic dancing abruptly shifts to violence. In the background of the frames of Gambino dancing enthusiastically, chaos builds throughout the video as people riot and kill each other, while Gambino uses his performance as a facade, something nicer to focus on instead.

When shots are fired, bodies are carelessly and mercilessly dragged away or ignored, while the weapons used are treated delicately, referencing the skewed American values which prioritize wealth and assets over black lives. A similar idea is explored in The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, a book by George Lipsitz describing the concept of entitled white supremacists protecting their generational wealth and benefiting from structural inequality. Lipsitz argues that “white supremacy is usually less a matter of direct, referential, and snarling contempt and more a system for protecting the privileges of whites by denying communities of color opportunities for asset accumulation” (Lipsitz 8).

While whites protect their wealth and weapons, the realities and struggles of black lives are concealed by the media, the visual effect which Gambino was able to portray through drawing attention towards his dancing instead of the violence. He implies that we focus on the whitewashed black narrative because the true reality is too uncomfortable and terrifying for us to face. As the video concludes, the tension climaxes into a frightening scene of Gambino sprinting away from the chaos behind him, snapping out of America’s spell of falsely promised freedoms and desperately trying to escape after witnessing and realizing the harsh realities of black experiences in this country.

As the music video gained popularity, viewers had a plethora of interpretations of the symbols and references in the video and Gambino’s message behind them. On the surface, the music video seems to be merely a statement about the black American experience. But digging deeper, we see how it stands for the idea that the media continually covers up the injustices which black people face by adopting and appropriating black culture and putting black celebrities on a pedestal, while the rest of black America suffers. In an NPR analysis of Gambino’s piece, hip-hop journalist Rodney Carmichael believes Gambino puts out the “concerns of black folk… who are voiceless in this world… in a way where it’s as challenging to his audience as it is to those outside on a mass scale.”

Although some critics like Carmichael understand Gambino’s references, other interpretations of the video by the Huffington Post and Insider expose the faults of the white gaze, as they focus on Gambino’s attention-grabbing dancing rather than his deeper message about America. Gambino’s ability to secretly resonate with a black audience and expose the faults of media coverage of black issues through distracting critics from the black reality shown in his video makes this piece incredibly self-aware. When some critics focus the conversation on his mannerisms, they lose sight of the message that Gambino intentionally distracts them from: how American society covers up horrors of the black American experience, and in doing so themselves, critics are complicit in keeping Americans unaware, ignorant, and desensitized to reality.

Throughout the video, it is apparent that Gambino created a song intended to be interpreted by black people, as the silent background references, AAVE dialect, and ultra-realistic imagery create dual meanings hidden to the white gaze. He uses juxtaposition not only to demonstrate the tension of the black experience, but also to show how white-dominated media covers up black realities. With this layered and complex video, Gambino pushed the needle forward by addressing incomplete stereotypes in black representation and contrasted that with the de facto struggles which black people continue to face despite civil rights legislation. Contrary to previous depictions and attempts to address America’s racist past and present conditions, This is America was Gambino’s refreshing and self-aware depiction of the black experience created by a black man intended for a black audience to interpret, compounding the impact of his message through the balance he strikes between honesty and facades, allowing viewers to reflect on their own perspectives, knowledge, and privilege.

Works Cited

Cornish, Audie, and Monika Evstatieva. “Donald Glover’s ‘This Is America’ Holds Ugly Truths To Be Self-Evident.” NPR, NPR, 7 May 2018, http://www.npr.org/2018/05/07/609150167/donald-glovers-this-is-america-holds-ugly-truths-to-%20be-self-evident.

Lippi-Green, Rosina. Teaching Children How to Discriminate, 1997.

Lipsitz, George. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness. Temple University Press, 2006.

Miller, Hayley. “Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ Video, Explained.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 15 May 2018, www.huffpost.com/entry/childish-gambino-this-is-america_n_5af05c12e4b041fd2d28d8e.

Shamsian, Jacob. “24 Things You May Have Missed in Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ Music Video.” Insider, Insider, 24 Oct. 2018, www.insider.com/this-is-america-music-video-meaning-references-childish-gambino-donald-glover-2018-5#the-ending-of-the-video-draws-comparisons-to-get-out-25.

Vliet, Chris Van, director. Donald Glover Doesn’t Want To Explain “This Is America” Music Video. Youtube, 11 May 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLL6gpy00WE.

– Tanvi Garneni