Media Analysis Of This Is America

Being born Black in America is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. Black people in North America have been subjected to cruel and unusual treatment for centuries now at the hands of white America. Only in recent media has this treatment begun to receive some traction. More specifically, American media recently has taken note of this treatment directed towards its Black citizens. It is no surprise that in the age of media literacy, people are turning to music to express their grievances with society, this paper will examine one of those instances. In this media analysis, I articulate that This is America by Childish Gambino uses a strong beat and repetitive lyricism to outline the struggles of being Black in America. I draw

Get your money, Black man (get your money). Get your money Black man” (Gambino, 2018). These lyrics are the ending to the song and this mantra is stated over and over again as the everlasting final impression of this strong piece of media. Racial capitalism is a concept that reframes the history of capitalism as based on the removal of social and economic value from people of marginalized racial groups. This concept asserts that racialized exploitation and capital accumulation are mutually reinforcing. It’s the idea that racial capitalism created the modern world system, through slavery, colonialism, and genocide because the development, organization, and expansion of capitalist society pursued racial directions (Stirrett, 2023). In other words, the deep-rooted societal factors enabling a Black man from being able to “go get his money”. In linking this ideology to these lyrics, you must understand the addition of the word Black man to the sentence above. It is intended to be a call out, an acknowledgment, something to grab your attention and let the target audience know that they (Black Americans) are capable and are going to “get their money”. Whether that means physically retrieving what has been stolen from them, or metaphorically by advancing a means to reclaim all forms of riches. In exploring the metaphorical meaning of the lyrics, The Long Emancipation; Moving Toward Black Freedom by Walcott further extrapolates this idea. Walcott argues that post-slavery and post-coloniality, Black people globally have yet to experience freedom. Arguing that Black people remain in a situation of emancipation; a continued means of unfreedom rather than freedom. Defining freedom as “ways of being human in the world that exist beyond the realm of the juridical and that allow for bodily sovereignty. I argue that freedom marks an individual and a collective de- sire to be in common and in difference in a world that is nonhierarchical and nonviolent” (Walcott,