On May 10, my daughters showed me Childish Gambino’s (Donald Glover’s) deeply disturbing Youtube sensation “This is America.” That evening, a department store in a suburban Knoxville shopping mall banned one of my dearest friends. His crime? Shopping while black.
While the store eventually offered a half-hearted apology (he’s a public figure in K-town so his story appeared in numerous local news outlets), his experience (especially the presumption of guilt while seeking to help de-escalate a tense situation) was nearly as troubling as Childish Gambino’s video. So much so that it became nearly impossible for me to separate these two experiences in my mind. I think that is exactly what Childish Gambino was going for.
When I read Andre Hen’s article below, he expressed many of my thoughts and feelings. I repost it here, not as a blanket endorsement of Andre’s views (which are both thought-provoking and balanced), nor Donald Glover’s troubling video, but in hope that it might contribute to TwoHandedWarriors.com’s ongoing conversation on race and religion in America.
By Andre Hen via Relevant
Editor’s Note: The video discussed in this piece contains some graphic content (gun violence) and strong language, neither of which represent the values of RELEVANT. However it is at the center of an important cultural conversation about racism, gun culture and media culture, so we find it appropriate to weigh in. It can be viewed here.
In the visual for “This Is America” Childish Gambino glides through scenes of mayhem and joy. It sits at the epicenter of a deluge of controversy and think pieces like this one. It has been praised by some as a work of genius, warranting multiple viewings and detailed exegesis. It has been critiqued for its gratuitous violence, as normalizing black death. But hopefully all can agree that the music video is reactive, offensive and important.
I want to go further and say that the visual for ‘This is America” is prophetic. But before I explain what I mean by that, I’ll explain what it doesn’t mean.
PROPHETS AREN’T PERFECT
To say that ‘This is America” is prophetic is not necessarily praise. Prophets are not perfect and prophecy is not necessarily special. The Christian Scriptures make this clear.
Caiaphas, the high priest, who played a key role in the plot to lynch Jesus prophesied (John 11:51). The mad king Saul, who obsessed about killing his son’s best friend, David, also prophesied (1 Samuel 11:10). And just to prove a point about who can prophesy, God sent the Holy Spirit on a crowd of 72 Israelite leaders who remain unnamed, causing them to prophesy (Numbers 11:29). So to act as a prophet from time to time is not the exclusive prerogative of a few holy men and women. As far the Christian Scriptures are concerned, any [donkey] can prophecy (Numbers 22:21-39).
Prophets are often imperfect vessels. They have their moments of inspiration, but the rest of the time, they’re as fallible as anyone else. So to say that “This is America” is prophetic is not the same as saying “Everything Childish Gambino does and says is immaculate.” It also doesn’t mean that Donald Glover is a Christian.
“Childish Gambino” is the musical stage name of American actor (Atlanta, Solo), comedian, writer, director, record producer, singer, songwriter, rapper and DJ, Donald Glover.
But it means that this piece of art recalls a tradition of frustrated messengers, grabbing a society by the collars and trying to shake it awake by any means necessary. Dr. Christopher B. Hays, associate professor of ancient Near Eastern studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, recalls a story to demonstrate the extreme lengths to which ancient prophets would go. A prophet from the ancient civilization of Mari, he relays, is said to have stood at a city gate and demanded a lamb which he devoured alive once it arrived. Shocking performances like that, commonly known as “sign-acts” are the stuff of the prophetic tradition: reactive, dramatic, offensive and important.
The prophets of ancient Israel also employ dramatic, offensive, creative acts to raise awareness about the injustices of their society and the consequences of those injustices. The prophet Isaiah literally sings a litany of social ills for which the judgment of God is coming upon his countrymen and women:
Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land … to those who call evil good and good evil … who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent (Isaiah 5:8, 20, 23).
Each “woe” in Isaiah’s prophetic song, explains Dr. Hays, is a Hebrew particle (hôy), a commonly used ancient Israelite “funerary cry, [usually] used to mourn people afterthey’re already dead.”
Hays says that Isaiah’s mode of social critique could be read as mocking at times, and wonders aloud if perhaps this mocking pronouncement of a dead society—his society—may convey the prophet’s attitude toward his people. Had Isaiah given up on Israel?
CHILDISH GAMBINO’S RAW LAMB
I first suspected that Donald Glover, Gambino’s alter-ego, was among the prophets while reading his interview earlier this year with The New Yorker. “I feel like Jesus. I do feel chosen,” Glover told the magazine. “My struggle is to use my humanity to create a classic work—but I don’t know if humanity is worth it, or if we’re going to make it. I don’t know if there’s much time left … It’d be nice to feel less lonely.”
There is so much greater context to that interview, and I relay those words not assuming I grasp their full meaning but sharing how they fell on my ears. I heard an echo of Jeremiah who wondered if he should even bother prophesying anymore (Jeremiah 20:9), and Elijah who felt very much alone (1 Kings 19), and Isaiah who may have thought his people were too far gone (Isaiah 53:6), but all these messengers still felt compelled to deliver the truth.
Glover warned us in that interview that he had something he felt compelled to say. It sounded like the message was something like a burden, something he had reason to believe people would resist. To be honest, I hadn’t suspected that weeks later the man who gave us Redbone would, in his own way, devour the proverbial lamb to get his point across.
The Shortest Analysis of “This Is America” on the Internet
At the start of “This is America” the gleeful singing of children is interrupted by a homicide…
