Yall Just Don't Like Black Women

This is America

by Jasmine 

This is America, Childish Gambino aka Donald Glover's, music video is all that people have been talking about for the past few weeks. Apparently, the video is revolutionary. A remarkable social commentary on the state of America. I watched the video and quite frankly, I'm unimpressed. If anything, I found the video, as well as the lyrics, ingenuine and hypocritical. Let's be honest, the song needs the video. Without it, This is Americais just repetitive mumble rap with some adlibs but I'm no music critic so what do I know.

Gambino's career started popping my freshman year of high school and I tried to like him but I just couldn't. I guess lyrics that fetishize Asian women and jokes about only dating "the black girls of every race" just aren't appealing to me. But I can't lie, his verse on Chance the Rapper's Favorite Song is bearable.

Anyway, I feel like Donald Glover is one of those weirdo alternative black guys who have internalized white supremacy and anti-blackness. The kind who love anime and hate black women because it was the black girls who wouldn't give them the time of day in middle school. Newsflash, black girls weren't checking for you because you were musty with no shape up, anime had nothing to do with it. Those alternative dorky black girls exist too, you've just been brainwashed by the whites.

The This is Americavideo and its reception has rubbed me the wrong way for several reasons. For one, I feel like Gambino is just now coming into his blackness and using it for monetary gain, which I have a problem with. He has Atlanta, a super black show, and Redbone, the blackest feeling song he's ever made. What do these two have in common? They're extremely successful. Glover got an Emmy for an episode he directed and a Grammy for Redbone. It is very clear that that being woke is trendy now so why not put "stay woke" in a chorus and make a few dollars. Or, how about make an episode about an argument over race and gender, then gain critical acclaim. His work, although relevant, doesn't feel genuine when you look at his older material but people can evolve, I guess.

What else do the show and song have in common? Colorism. In both, Glover/Gambino's lover is light skin, the most desirable and accepted version of a black woman by mainstream media. It appears that the only time Glover is surrounded by black women is when he wants to get his message across or play into the stereotype of who dark skin women are. Just look at the Champagne Papiepisode ofAtlantawhere the only dark skin woman on the show had an attitude the entire time and cursed out a white woman for dating a black guy. She was loud and even did the stereotypical neck roll. In his music videos, black women are absent but I guess that's hip hop. This is Americais filled with darker women, which is pretty common when an artist wants to make a statement. Here's the thing, black women aren't some prop you get to use when convenient then discard because you don't value us in your everyday life.

Another issue I have with the video is the use of black trauma and violence for shock value. Seeing black people gunned down on television has become a norm, unfortunately. Executing a black man or murdering the choir was insensitive and if anything, plays into the rhetoric of black on black crime. I think killing all those people was ineffective if gun control is what's on Gambino's agenda. If he really wanted to make a statement he should've murdered a bunch of white kids since that's the only time the nation seems to care about gun violence. A black guy killing white people would've had the whole country ready to repeal the second amendment. I'm just saying.

Now let's get into this whole "dancing in the middle of chaos" thing. I think Gambino is trying to say that as a culture, we're too focused on the latest dance moves rather than what's going on around us. This is stupid. I can't stand it when people act like being up on pop culture and the news are mutually exclusive. Let's stop acting like I can't Shoot and follow what's going on with Trump and Jerusalem. And another thing, if people stopped paying attention to social media, there'd be no Childish Gambino. Maybe he could've touched on the fact that black people use memes and dance moves as coping mechanisms rather than being so critical.

It is very clear to me that, like Donald Glover, yall just don't like black women. This is America, as well as Joyner Lucas' I'm Not Racistand everything about Kendrick Lamar, have dominated the conversation, leaving black women out of the narrative that is the black experience thus creating a single story where black men are the only ones who are oppressed. Creators like Janelle Monae, Lena Waithe, Solange, and Issa Rae are doing so much with their work. Whether its discussing the queer black experience, or touching on violence, depression, and micro aggressions, black women are and have always been creating revolutionary art to generate change, yall just like to wait for a black man to do so.

All in all, I am very unimpressed with This is America, which is just a video used to capitalize off black death while hiding behind the guise of advocating for gun control. The wise philosopher Quavious once said, "Walk it like I talk it," meaning actions support words. So, all I ask of Donald Glover is to take his new found blackness and become involved. Do something with your art beside creating a dialogue.