Reality in America

This is America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY

When this music video was released on YouTube I immediately associated it to what I had been learning in this Race in a Literature class. I was glad to have that background that helped me notice messages implemented within the video that I would have otherwise been oblivious too. First off, we see how Donald Glover also known as Childish Gambino sings about the brutal reality that it is living in the United States of America as a black person. Within the video we see gun violence killing black people. The first person who is killed is the man playing the guitar. You initially see his face but when he is shot his head is covered by a bag. He is shot in the head and then after words we see the body being dragged away and the gun being gently placed into a red cloth. This shows how people in America value guns more than black lives. 

The next scene that involves gun violence resembles the Charleston church shootings where a white supremacist killed nine black people. Within the video we also see an abundance of old run down vehicles. Usually cars in music videos are very expensive and flashy and I believe that these cars were explicitly chosen to show the kind of socioeconomic injustices and inequalities that black people have in America. At the end of the video Childish Gambino is frantically running away from a group of white people. This shows the extent that black people are discriminated against and the dangers of their lives being taken away due to police brutality.

By: Victoria R.