Rewatching This is America

There is always a drop that ends up filling the glass. In this case, a glass full of suffering, injustice and racism. On last May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man died in Minneapolis after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes while he was lying face down handcuffed on the street. Hopefully the brutal death of George Floyd has been that drop that can start a change. In any case, this precise moment seems like a good time to rewatch This is America, Childish Gambino's shocking and vindictive music video.

Directed by Hiro Murai, the captivating video took the internet by storm when it was released back in May in 2018. And it's easy to understand why. Simple and powerful footage mercilessly hitting our limbic brain system. Enjoy this brilliant music video once more and check out the references from below that you might have missed before!

Gun policy in the USA

Almost 1.5M people have been killed by gunfire in the USA since John Lennon was shot to death in 1980. In the video there are a lot of references to American citizens' willingness to protect gun rights over people's lives, despite the alarming signs that indicate it may be a wrong direction.

Charleston mass shooting

In 2015 a white person killed nine black people who were attending mass at a church in South Carolina. It's one of the most disturbing scenes of the video.

Fela Kuti

A shirtless Childish Gambino combined with the chain necklace and trousers was supposed to be a visual reference to Fela Kuti, a pioneer of the Afrobeat music and human rights activist and also one of Africa's most challenging and charismatic music performers of all times.

Traffic stops

Remember the part where Childish Gambino is dancing on top of a red car surrounded by other cars? It may well be a reference to all those black drivers killed after routine police traffic stops.

Police brutality

Perhaps not the most obvious part of the video but there is a moment when a group of black teenagers record with their mobile phones a scene of violence, as an analogy of the amount of viral videos about police brutality circulating on the internet.

White horse

And in the Bible is written: “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.” It happens in the background, but a white horse appears galloping, and as in the Bible perhaps it announces the apocalypse.

And if all that wasn't enough, the video ends with Childish Gambino running desperate, like trying to escape the white warehouse where the video was filmed.