Selected Comments From LyricalHub's Vlog Post - "The REAL Meaning of Childish Gambino's Video "This Is America"

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part II of a two part pancocojams series that focuses on the official video of Childish Gambino's 2018 Hip Hop composition "This Is America".

This post showcases 's YouTube vlog (video blog) about the official video of Childish Gambino's 2018 Hip Hop composition "This Is America". Selected comments from this vlog are included in this post. Note that this vlog shows only a few photographic scenes from that video and those scenes don't focus on the graphic violence that is shown in that song's official video.

This is only one of a number of videos that provide some explanations about the official video of Childish Gambino's "This Is America".

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/05/childish-gambino-this-is-america-video.html for Part I of this pancocojams series. Part I showcases the official video of Childish Gambino's "This Is America". The lyrics for this song and notes about genuis.com.'s video and lyrics are also included in this post.

genuis.com's page about Childish Gambino's "This Is America" also provides some notes about that video.

Part II showcases a vlog about Childish Gambino's "This Is America" with particular focus on the official video of that 2018 Hip Hop composition. Selected comments from that vlog's discussion thread are included in this post.

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The content of this post is presented for socio-cultural purposes and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to Childish Gambino (Donald Glover, Jr.) for his creative legacy. Thanks also to LyricalHub and others for sharing explanations about Childish Gambino's "This Is America" Hip Hop composition and its official video.

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SHOWCASE VIDEO: The REAL Meaning of Childish Gambino - This Is America Will Shock You!



LyricalHub, Published on May 7, 2018
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Here are some comments from this video log, with numbers assigned for referencing purposes only. All of these comments were published between May 7 and May 9, 2018. I've included additional explanatory notes for certain terms that are mentioned in some of these comments.

[UPDATE: Additional comments added May 10, 2019.]

1. One of One
"This videos great man. I picked up everything you did as far as messages go except for the end where Gambino is running away from something. To me it seemed like he and everyone else was running away from the darkness behind them. I think ultimately the message was something like.. the scene of America is guns & gun control taking precedence over the lives taken by law enforcement & civilians alike - Americans are glued to entertainment & allow themselves to be distracted by anything pop culture (especially black pop culture) - if we don't wake up soon, there will be no America & we'll have to face this darkness we've been running from. But we won't be able to outrun it if we let it get to that point. Anyway, awesome video again man. Hope to see more."


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2. Corrine Lewis
"i love everyone’s deeper interpretation of it especially yours."

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3. Chico Williams
"Everything on point, definitely the meaning behind the video shout out to Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino showing the life going on today"

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4. Katie Johnson
"for some reason hearing you say "i don't wanna get too political" while analyzing this video was just too ironic"

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5. NIKKI NIKKI NIKKI
"I felt like everything was ok if he kept dancing (tap dancing ) but as soon as he stopped is when "America" starter started chasing him.."
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6. Hannah Stern
"I didn't catch that but your analysis is perfection!!!"

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7. Ishmael
"NIKKI NIKKI NIKKI I missed that. Excellent observation. There was so much going on that that went completely over my head."

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8. Mont 3000
"NIKKI NIKKI NIKKI I would say buck dancing but yeah."
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from https://www.ncpedia.org/buck-dancing "Buck dancing is a folk dance that originated among African Americans during the era of slavery. It was largely associated with the North Carolina Piedmont and, later, with the blues. The original buck dance, or "buck and wing," referred to a specific step performed by solo dancers, usually men; today the term encompasses a broad variety of improvisational dance steps."...

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9. Kai Mendez
"Great point👌🏾"

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10. Paige Washington
"Get it boo! You brought it together for me"

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11. Paige Washington
"Now tell me why the joint first. Enlightenment? Then he stops dancing? Lol makes sense now"
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In this comment the word "joint" refers to the point in the video when the character played by Childish Gambino stops to smoke "marijuana" ("reefer").

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12. Mia England
"Paige Washington when he pauses he does it for 17 seconds for the 17 victims of the parkland shooting"

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13. Kassie S
"Yes! I didn't think about that. Spot on."

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14. sweety sweet
"Why is he shirtless"

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15. ToneBeMe
"To represent the slaves"

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16. Natasha Burton
"Filming from the back a lot shows that America benefitting from the work from the backs of slaves .. it’s why he’s shirtless throughout"

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17. Mutima H
"Jim crow stance and i think some of the dancing is referencing "slavery of the mind".
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Read the note under #21 for information about "Jim Crow" and "Jim Crow laws".

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18. Jairus Poellnitz
"what about the pants aren’t they confrederate army pants"
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"Confederate pants" refer to the style of pants that soldiers in the Confederate army wore during the United States Civil War (Apr 12, 1861 – May 13, 1865). Although some people disagree, the general consensus is that the main reason why the Confederate army fought the Union army was to maintain their way of life, and in particular to maintain slavery.

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19. Hannah Stern
"VERY interesting, but I think they may be more referencing the light coloured clothes that slaves would have worn in the fields. That's why he's not wearing a shirt, I think. But I'm interested in your interpretations."

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20. John Leonardi
"1 day ago
I took it as slavery as well.
This is a very powerful video that will be studied for future generations"

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21. Jordan Chappell
"To be honest his pants reminded me of the style of pants that were commonly worn around the era that the jim crowe laws were around."
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"Jim Crow laws"= "Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. Enacted by white Democratic-dominated state legislatures in the late 19th century after the Reconstruction period, these laws continued to be enforced until 1965. They mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in the states of the former Confederate States of America, starting in the 1870s and 1880s, and upheld by the United States Supreme Court's "separate but equal" doctrine for African Americans."... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

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22. Courtney-Ann W.
"I think some of the dances done by the students refer to the sarafina movie"

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23. Edna.M.M.
"Courtney-Ann W. I was thinking that as well. I think people have forgotten about that movie (more like a documentary tbh)"

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24. wilhelmina tetteh
"Courtney-Ann W. yeah. I think So too"
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Here's information about the Sarafina Broadway show and movie:
"Sarafina! is a South African musical by Mbongeni Ngema depicting students involved in the Soweto Riots, in opposition to apartheid. It was also adapted into a 1992 film starring Whoopi Goldberg and Leleti Khumalo. Sarafina! premiered on Broadway on 28 January 1988, at the Cort Theatre, and closed on 2 July 1989, after 597 performances and 11 previews. The musical was conceived and directed by Mbongeni Ngema, who also wrote the book, music, and lyrics. The play was first presented at The Market Theatre, Johannesburg, South Africa, in June 1987. The cast included Leleti Khumalo as Sarafina.

Leleti Khumalo received a Tony Award nomination, Best Featured Actress in a Musical, as well as a NAACP Image Award for her Broadway theatre portrayal of the title character. The production was also nominated for the Tony Award for: Best Musical, Best Original Score, Best Choreography, and Best Direction of a Musical.

The show presents a school uprising similar to the Soweto uprising on 16 June 1976. A narrator introduces several characters among them the schoolgirl activist Sarafina. Things get out of control when policemen shoot several pupils at the school. Nevertheless, the musical ends with a cheerful farewell show of pupils leaving school, which takes most of the second act." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarafina!_(musical)
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The students in the Sarafina Broadway show and movie wore uniforms just as the students in Childish Gambino's "This Is America" video did.

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25. Alyse Underwood
"It's being said that, the man playing the guitar is Trevon Martin's dad."

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26. Corrine Lewis
"Alyse Underwood ty that’s what i’ve been wondering kinda the most amongst all other things"

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27. Benzi Musiq
"If this is true this video just went another level of deepness. Wow"
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According to this CNN article- https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/08/entertainment/trayvon-martin-father-this-america/index.html - the man near the beginning of Childish Gambino's "This Is America" video is "Calvin C. Winbush II, a Los Angeles-based actor and musician who goes by "Calvin the Second" professionally" and not Trayvon Martin's father.

However, I think that it's likely that that actor/musician was chosen for that part because he closely resembles Trayvon Martin's father.

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28. Michelle Wright
"I noticed all the symbolic hints he gave us. This was powerful. Wake up America"

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29. SnoopDogg6110
"The 80s 90s car with LAPD symbolizes the 1992 LA riots with chaos and looting."
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"LAPD" = Los Angeles Police Department; "LA" = Los Angeles (California)

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30. BluDrop5
"SnoopDogg6110 Good one!"

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31. Bridgette smith
"what about the jim crow pose he did in the beginning. Edit : nevermind commented to early.. Thought you were gonna go in order"

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32. Yağız Saidoğlu
"The people around him was symbolising the children I think. They are following him without any question."

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33. BSWs Wxrld
"There was a part when he was dancing he said I’m so faded, I on Gucci , I’m so pretty( or something close to that). I think he’s saying we’re so focused on bein pretty, wearing Gucci and being faded rather than the issue that occurs and permeates in society today."

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34. Kennett Rivera
"This is speculations not the real meaning"

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35. TheZombifiedFairy
"The real meaning is unknown to all but Mr. Glover until he explains. Until then it is art and art has many interpretations, and this is one of them."

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36. Lizzy V
"Why is he shirtless?"

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37. Hot Potato
"Lizzy V I believe it's a reference to slavery, and it also might tie into the exploatation/fear of the African American body"
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Read the comments presented earlier in this compilation about this subject. I included examples from both of these two sub-threads to show how YouTube commenters often repeat the same questions, perhaps because they don't read comments that were published before theirs.

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38. sam mayne
"Distraction as well."
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One of the early comments by LyricalHub (this embedded video's blogger) is that the dancing in Childish Gambino's video served to distract viewers from all the other things that were occurring in that video.

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39. Erin McMahon
"What about his eyes getting really big?"

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40. Azizi Powell
Showing wide eyed, bulging eyed Black people is a characteristic of Black minstrelsy, Broadway, and Black movie industry’s racially demeaning “coon caricature”. One Black actor who epitomized that coon caricature had the stage name “Stepin Fetchit”. Here’s an excerpt from https://ferris.edu/jimcrow/coon/ :
[Stepin] “Fetchit became identified in the popular imagination as a dialect-speaking, slump-shouldered, slack-jawed character who walked, talked, and apparently thought in slow motion. The Fetchit character overcame this lethargy only when he thought that a ghost or some nameless terror might be present; and then he moved very quickly indeed. (p. 89)

Fetchit was the embodiment of the nitwit black man. As with the Zip Coon and Urban Coon, this old-fashioned coon character could never correctly pronounce a multisyllabic word. He was portrayed as a dunce. In Stand Up and Cheer (Sheehan & MacFadden, 1934), he was tricked into thinking that a "talking" penguin was really Jimmy Durante. Fetchit, scratching his head, eyes bulging, portrayed the coon so realistically that whites thought they were seeing a real racial type. His coon portrayal was aided by his appearance. According to Donald Bogle (1994), a film historian:

His appearance, too, added to the caricature. He was tall and skinny and always had his head shaved completely bald. He invariably wore clothes that were too large for him and that looked as if they had been passed down from his white master. His grin was always very wide, his teeth very white, his eyes very widened, his feet very large, his walk very slow, his dialect very broken. (P. 41) “
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The coon caricature's eyes were wide and bulging because that character was depicted as being childlike and afraid of things that reasonable adults wouldn't believe in (for instance ghosts) or be afraid of.

It also occurs to me that the "wide eyes" might be a "politically incorrect", stereotypical way of depicting someone (of any race/ethnicity) who is mentally ill. Therefore, that facial expression in Childish Gambino's "This Is Your Life" video may symbolize how America treats people who are mentally ill, and may also refer to the issue of people who are mentally ill having access to guns.

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41. talkn with trini Stara
"Heed the message(s), not the messenger 😉"

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42. jayepea81
"They are more concerned and paying attention to our cultural dancing than they are to the important matters that they ignore and push in the back ground. Just keep dancing. We are entertainers to American but not humans with rights or importance. That's what I took from the video. And even the kids just video everything but it doesn't matter"

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43. Ms Synchronicity
"When your truly woke, this is the artistic result"

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44. Marie White
"We've been asleep for too long now."

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45. Jaeia Gibbs
"Stay. woke."
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In the context of these comments, being "woke" (and not being asleep) means to be alert to and vigilant toward social justice issues, particularly as they refer to Black and Brown people. Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2018/05/what-stay-woke-really-means-definitions.html for a pancocojams post about the vernacular meaning of being "woke" and its opposite meaning "being asleep".

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46. dallas adderly
"why r u playing gods plan in the background"

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47. Marissa Gates
"Your opinion on the "this is a celly, that's a tool" had some really good points but he was definitely talking about stephen clark with that line."
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"Celly" here refers to cell phones (cellular telephones). I don't think that the term "celly" is widely used except, perhaps, in Hip Hop culture.

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48. Angel Sweet
"There was also a scene in which a man jumps from the roof (suicide rates)"

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49. Romeo Robinson
"Yea I saw that and gasped 😂😂"

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50. Rhon Cartmell
"Wow. .I missed it"

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51. Camille Williams
"I noticed that the last time I watched"

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52. Queen Nonya
"Angel Sweet Did he jump or was he pushed? I have to watch his video again."

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53. Jamie Ambrose
"Looks like he was pushed"

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54. Morgan Chevis
"Kinda missed the part that the ppl dancing with him are Kids meaning the generation can not wake up due to these distractions thus stopping from making a change my opinion"

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55. moval moval
"Yes. The kids are following us....so if we stay sleep...they are learning to stay sleep also."

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56. SouthernNYCga
"OR that black children learn to cope with trauma by dancing through it. Cause what else can they do?"

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57. Edgar Garcia
"Yes I feel like he’s also putting the new gen rappers on the spot because all they promote is violence and drugs etc. instead of promoting change with the huge platform that they have. Like the line “hunnid bands hunnid bands hunnid bands” alluring to the song gucci gang, which all lil pump promotes is gucci and “I’m so pretty” and his newest single “Drug addict” literally says “All my friends are drug addicts (or something like that) so yeah I feel like that’s something nobody has talked about, This is America song and video is awesome"

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58. Shawnee Scorpion
"SouthernNYCga, ‘Dancing through it” also can be used in a Rhetorical sense."

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59. Lyndell Chambers
"Dancing was definitely a distraction. I missed everything in the back!!! That’s crazy!!!"

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60. CAAARRRLL
"I just love his facial expression when he dances"

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61. fake Apple Store
"Yeah made the video artsy."

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62. Alec Truelove
"That's also from a Jim crow propaganda poster."

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63. Cecile Estelle
"Yeah it feels like a comment to the viewer (especially when you listen to the lyrics playing over that scene) that Black people are NOT here just to "party just for you." It's definitely a rejection of the continued culture of minstrelsy that is sometimes expected of Hip Hop artists. There's some comments on this issue in episodes of Atlanta as well."

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64. Fi Dixon
"They're Uncle Rukus (Boondocks). Google It."

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65. Ebony Love
"The faces he made (especially in the beginning) represented Uncle Rukas - the blk character that loves white ppl more than his own."

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66. ewgamingspies
"OMG! It's true! Uncle Rukus always had this "unique" facial expression"

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67. S M.
"Did anyone notice the brown and white chickens?

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68. Risky
"it's a coon chicken inn reference"
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I think "inn" is a typo for "in". An "in reference" means an "inside joke" (a joke whose real meaning may only be caught by people within a certain population or group; in this comment, the commenter is implying that only (or mostly) Black Americans would understand the hidden meanings of the coon/chicken reference.

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69. Yade N Adamma
"Unrelated, but the older girl (dancer) is Rwandese and the choreographer of the video ✊🏾 🇷🇼"

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70. Missy Miles
"The dances in the video are moves that are popular in Africa"

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71. Ladiluv
"Every new dance , Murder is Still happening Etc ❗❗❤"

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72. Berardo Manzi
"I think that the "smartphone part" has another meaning. The guys do records, but they have white clothes on their mouths. It can mean many things: "You think about recording violence, but you don't protest about it" "

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73. theosaka69
"Berardo Manzi Yes! The essence of World Star HH!"

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74. mr spacley
"America is a giant warehouse"

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75. qasdad qaweqeqsdas
"I think there's also a meaning in why the dancers all are kids and wear uniforms. I think Childish Gambino want to criticize the youth of America whose blind/living in an illusion with the way hedonism is advertised by artists/musicians, and not realizing that their surrounding is falling apart."

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76. LovelyLady Carter
"Respect bro✊🏽not just for the break down but for getting it💁🏽‍♀️like really understanding the truth behind it all 💯👌🏾🙌🏽👏🏽thank you💋"

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77. Eddie Landeros
"The color of the cloths that take the guns are red which could represent a few things: red being the color of power, the color of blood to hide it when it's wiped, and the color of the Republican party that is more known for keeping the right to bear arms even after tragedies occur."

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78. JASDKA1
"WOW!"

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79. Kassie S
"Interesting theory. 👌"

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80. LovelyLady Carter
"Respect bro✊🏽not just for the break down but for getting it💁🏽‍♀️like really understanding the truth behind it all 💯👌🏾🙌🏽👏🏽thank you💋"

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This concludes Part II of this two part pancocojams series.

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