Is THIS America?

Donald McKinley Glover Jr, profusely known for his stage name, Childish Gambino, is anchoring worldwide attention and some apprehension after debuting his music video This is America on Saturday, May 5th during SNL.

Attaining more than 50 million views in the past three days, This is America in singularly the best protest song and music video of our time. Donald takes the role of an activist portraying both America and the role of a black man caught between the conflict. The video has metaphors and portrays race and gun violence all around America’s society. Here is a breakdown of the video.

Gambino Himself

In the first scene, you see Gambino standing, only wearing some gray pants which could be a symbol for the confederate uniform. He also has no shirt and two golden chains on his neck, which is symbolic to his most natural state and the way he only cares about only showing the good things.

The First Bullet Gambino opens up with a soulfully uplifting guitar tune as he raps along in a gospel tone about his desire to party and go along and get his paycheck, while in the video he dances dramatically and changes facial expressions, and proceeds to shoot a man with a hood covering his head. He then becomes the personalization of Jim Crow through the stance he takes.

Red Cloth When the man is shot, Gambino hands a well-dressed man the gun he used to shoot the hooded man and the gun is wrapped around a red cloth. This alludes to the fact that America seems to praise guns more than its people, while we see the man being dragged off. Gambino proceeds to smile and dance the murder off as if a black body isn’t worth the media attention.

The Chaos Gambino keeps dancing as the people behind him commit violent acts against one another, yet the focus remains on him and the kids dancing around him. The group of kids are meant to symbolize the media as it only keeps trying to love on from the chaotic to the entertainment as the world burns around them. Or it could also characterize a coping mechanism of just moving though each and every day by being ignorant and moving on with society. But my theory, Gambino symbolizes America, the closer the group of kids are and the more they obey and go along with society’s changes, the easier it will be for them to survive and the group of kids is the only group that’s safe and protected, this only because of the fact that they’re close to America.

The Choir Gambino proceeds with his imagery, as he walks into a room in which a gospel group is singing. He’s tossed an AK with which he proceeds to shoot down the 10 person choir. Undoubtedly this alludes to the Charlottesville shooting in which Dylan Roof, opened fire inside a church and killed nine people, all of which were black.

White Horse As Gambino entices the audience with his dramatized dance, a hooded figure on a white horse is seen on the background, which in theory could representing the hypocrisy of the white race. The theory is, the white horse represents the white race, predominantly conservative and predominantly Christian, the hypocrisy is that the Bible talks of nothing but equality and nothing more than that. Yet the horseman, represents the plague and death of the coming apocalypse.

The Cars He proceeds to get on a car as he pulls out a joint out of his pocket, yet the cars are not our generation, they’re slightly 80s and the 90s. These proceeds to allude to society’s stalemate on race and gun violence and how nothing seems to change, and it probably won’t any time soon. A girl is seen sitting on top of one of the cars, she’s meant to characterize lady America, the Statue of Liberty, as she sees society and the abomination of human life, yet there’s nothing to do but hope for the best.

End Scene In the end, we see Gambino running through darkness as he’s chased by white people, he’s desperately trying to get away with the look of distress and helplessness. Gambino is representing America, he’s been discovered and can no longer hide away from the pain and the suffering of his own race.

These are only my theories, and the ones I see in this video so far. You watch it and decide for yourself the real meaning behind it. Is this America?

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