Victimization/Shock Value
Childish Gambino, Malcolm X, Gill Scott Heron, Nina Simone, etc have all brought up the victimization of African Americans in their art forms to bring attention to the injustices that African Americans are facing in their everyday lives that the mainstream media would otherwise look over.
In Childish Gambino's "This is America" he uses a plethora of detailed symbolism, violence and action to gain and keep the viewers attention. At first glance the video may seem like nothing more than pure chaos but when you slow it down and think about the different scenes the messages are clear. Gambino's pants are even the same four button style as those of the confederate army of the United States. Gambino does this to symbolize how African Americans are still suffering of victimization due to racism in America. In the beginning of the music video Gambino is wildly dancing and striking poses reminiscent of the depiction of the anti-black character Jim Crow that was used by racists to depict African Americans as animalistic, stupid and inhumane. While Gambino strikes this pose he acts in harmony with these racist depictions savagely murdering a black man execution style. Gambino is expressing through this video how America still has these same racist ideologies in the current day.
After Gambino murders the man, his gun is promptly and carefully escorted away by a man with a red cloth. This red cloth depicts how republican states often value their gun rights over the equality of African Americans and prevention of victimization of African Americans in their respective states.
Next, Gambino can be seen mowing down an all African American church choir alluding to the massacre orchestrated by white supremacist Dylann Roof in South Carolina at a predominantly African American church. Once again a man comes to retrieve the weapon in a red cloth not batting an eye at the bodies laid slain across the floor.
Furthermore, as the front and center of the video continuously features smiling African American faces performing African cultural dances with not a care in the world chaos is amidst the background. In the scene above a man commits suicide and the dancing and joyful tone of dancers continues. This represents how the media will enjoy the fruits of black culture and black arts but continues to let injustices, prejudice and racism occur everyday against African Americans.
Finally, Gambino features a white horse with a black grim reaper esque figure galloping ahead of a police car. This is symbolic of the police murders in America against African Americans as the galloping white horse with the grim reaper esque figure alludes to the biblical story in verse 6:8 in The Book of Revelations where death sits on a pale horse and following the death is Hell. Again, as these symbols of the most extreme violence and death are shown the dancers continue to keep their joyful and energetic tone to symbolize how through all this violence the media only cares about enjoying the music and dancing from the black arts community not their safety and equality.
The symbolism in this video from Childish Gambino is a succession of the symbolism black artists like Malcolm X, Gill Scott Heron and Amiri Baraka used in their songs and speeches. The most powerful piece of the shock value used by these artists is the shocking things like police murdering African Americans, African Americans being singled out and gunned down, placing African American children into slums surrounded by drug addiction, crime, gang violence, etc and expecting them to prosper in the United States is nothing more than a daily experience for many African Americans. These older Black Arts Artists are the reason for progression in limiting prejudices, injustices and racism in the United States and laid the stepping stones for artists like Childish Gambino to continue this progression through their arts in modern America.