Ashley Ramirez
Janel Spencer
WRT 101S
3 October 2019
Rhetorical Analysis of “This Is America” by Childish Gambino
“This is America Don’t catch you slippin’ now Don’t catch you slippin’ now Look what I’m whippin’ now This is America (woo).”Rapper, Television Producer, Actor, and Comedian, Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino) has caused an uproar of controversy with his music video, “This Is America,” published on May 5, 2018. From Glover’s dancing to him shooting multiple people in his video he gives many subliminal messages that I believe everyone should pay attention to. In it, he addresses many topics including leadership, the impact of social media, and how much racism is still a huge problem in today’s society. He supports this claim effectively because he is a person of color, references real life occurrences, and uses an emotional tone to capture his audience’s attention.
Gambino is a person of color himself and if not for his fame he would most likely be racially profiled himself. His audience is more for younger, growing generations such as millennials, other people of color, and those with authority. The African-American and Mexican-American communities are seen as minority groups when in actuality they make a majority. People of color are often seen in a negative light since the days of the Mayflower, causing events such as segregation to come into play. Glover emphasizes on this in many parts of his video. He wants older generations to see that changes need to be made and tries to persuade the younger generation such as millennials that are becoming of age to vote to make those changes. Because he is a person of color and can closely relate to others of color, he recognizes that authorities such as the government and police forces have become corrupted and something needs to change.
Glover doesn’t let us forget about real life occurrences that have happened in the past that are still a problem to this day. In the beginning of the video a man is seen walking to a chair to play the guitar that is laying on it. As the video continues to zoom in more on Gambino himself, he dances closer to the man who is cut out during the zoomed in scene. Once Gambino stops behind the man that was once playing the guitar, the man is seen with a sack over his head. If paid close attention to, the man seems to resemble Tracy Martin the father of the late Trayvon Martin. Martin was a 17 year old high school student that was shot and killed by an off duty police officer back in 2012. George Zimmerman had seen Martin walking alone and called the police on suspicion of Martin assuming he had a gun and was in the neighborhood to commit illegal activity. When told to stay put and only to keep an eye on Martin’s movement’s from a distance by dispatchers, Zimmerman took matters into his own hands and started to begin an altercation with Martin leaving Martin no choice but to defend himself. After being shot by Zimmerman, Martin was found dead by police with only a cellphone, a can of Arizona Iced Tea, and a bag of skittles.This was the start of a major movement to expose how racial profiling needed to be acknowledged because it can cost an innocent life, even that of a child. Throughout the video Gambino is seen wearing pants resembling the pants belonging to the uniform of confederate soldiers. Many on the internet have pointed this out and as we know in history the confederate soldiers fought to keep slavery. Although slavery no longer exists today thanks to the Union army, Gambino is claiming that African Americans and people of color are still treated like degenerates today as they were back then. Although people of color have made a come up and have shown they can be more and do more in society since the end of slavery and segregation, Gambino is trying to persuade his audience that they are still seen as lesser being and deserving of less because the “white man” believes they are still superior. To add insult to injury, at the scene of Glover shooting the man resembling Tracy Martin in the back of his head, Glover is seen making an odd stance. At first you would think nothing of it because you might assume it is for humorous reasons, because as many fans know, Glover is a comedian. But when paid close attention to, a viewer of the video recognized his stance as the “Jim Crow” stance. Jim Crow was the name given to describe Africa Americans and given the embodiment of a dark skinned black man with tattered clothing and shoes. This figure was used mainly to humiliate black people to make them seem unfit to be integrated with white society . When used for entertainment, white actors covered themselves in dark paint to resemble a black person and it became known as “Black Face”. Jim Crow then became the name of the segregation laws. As I think to what is going on today, segregation seems to be a fad that is trying to make its way back into society.
“Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, tell somebody You go tell somebody Grandma told me Get your money, black man (get your money) Get your money, black man (get your money) Get your money, black man (get your, black man) Get your money, black man (get your, black man) Black man.” As this line is being sung by a very upbeat church choir in the video the tone gives you a false sense of comfort from the chaos in the previous scenes. But as this “happy” scene comes to an end Gambino is seen shooting down the choir. This is in reference to the Charleston church shooting that took place on June 17, 2015. Throughout the video you see Gambino lead a group of school children in a number of dances. He even uses popular viral dances and a special african dance called the gwara gwara that became popular with multiple celebrities using it. These scenes also seem to be upbeat and distract you from the events of crime and even death riding a white horse in the background, or as some believe is the biblical representation of the apocalypse. “This a celly (ha) That’s a tool (yeah).” As these lines are being sung the camera goes above Gambinos head showing a group of school kids sitting and standing watching over the chaos, and are recording the events with their phones. This is a representation of how social media has influenced today’s society. It is seen quite often throughout social media that when bad things are taking place many of us rather be behind the camera recording the events rather than doing something to help/ change/ or stop what is going wrong.
“This is America Don’t catch you slippin’ now Don’t catch you slippin’ now Look what I’m whippin’ now.” Even though the song is upbeat and catchy it pales in comparison to the video and when they are linked together and paid close attention to there can be many inferences made. Once you listen to the lyrics and not just the beat you can find the subliminal messages Glover presents to his many viewers.With so much going on around us in the world its clear there are a lot of changes that need to be made. Instead of going forward to make a better history we are going backwards in a more modern time. Technology has become more advanced than the people using it. Soon we’ll end up like the movie Wall-E with technology ruling us and humans not having anymore soft skills.
Works Cited
- https://genius.com/Childish-gambino-this-is-america-lyrics
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston_church_shooting
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_LIP7qguYw
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY
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