Analysis Of Music Video 'This Is America'

Only about 2 weeks ago, Donald Glover (Childish Gambino) released a controversial and culturally influenced music video “This is America”. The video satirically demonstrates the injustices that African Americans have suffered, including innuendos that date back to slavery all the way up to the present maltreatment of African Americans in 2018. The video was an attempt to confront the issues and send a message about the incessant discrimination which blacks have experienced all their life. Glover had known that this would become an incredibly popular and controversial source all throughout the country, and took it upon himself as his “duty in the face of injustice,” just like Ernest J. Gaines has written about the defiance of old African American

Gil comes home to console his father about Beau’s death, knowing that Fix is planning some sort of revenge on the old men in Marshall. Knowing his father, he understands how far Fix is willing to go, but he is determined to change his father's mind and he cries “‘Papa, I want to be an All- American at LSU. I have a good chance - Cal and me. The first time ever, black and white, in the Deep South. I can’t make it without Cal, Papa. I depend on him Every time, I take the ball, I depend on his block, or his faking somebody out of my way. I depend on him, Papa, every moment I’m on the field’…. ‘I couldn’t make All- American, Papa, if I was involved in something against the law,’”(138). Gil often repeats the phrase “I depend on [him]”, which accentuates how critical playing at LSU is for Gil. He attempts to stop his father not only for his sake, but because of his friend Cal as well, who is African American. Gil who is younger has a better understanding of the mistreatment of Blacks, therefore the use of his repetition not only helps emphasize his case, but the case of African Americans as well. By sharing his opinion, about how strongly he feels about playing, he tried to evoke sympathy within his father and the readers using pathos and to conveys how important LSU and Cal are to him. Through the potent sense of pathos he establishes the opposition against his father’s original beliefs of being unjust to African Americans. Gil tries to bring attention to them by talking about the importance of his future and unlawful ways in which Fix is trying to take revenge for Beau and with his persistent persuasion about LSU Gil also attempts to alter Fix’s views. With this, Gaines is able to spread the message of the importance to not only about fighting the law, but confronting other people’s beliefs as well. However, Fix still refuses to listen to his