In the beginning scene, a man is shown playing the guitar then shot, this refers to how easy it is to fall victim to gun violence. But before he is shot, a bag is put on his head. This now faceless man could be anyone, someone you and I may know. After the man is shot, the gun is wrapped up and the body is taken away. The gun gets swaddled up like a baby while the black body gets dragged away with no care. Although there are protests in the background, the frame shifts to focus on the entertainment. While my initial thought was this was done to distract the audience, upon deeper thinking I feel as though this is how White America thinks, this is what they want. They don’t care about black blood on the streets but love our songs, our dances, our creativity, and our culture. I came to this conclusion when I thought about White America’s reaction to athletes kneeling for the Anthem. The athletes were kneeling in protest over blacks being killed by the police and they were met with condemnation. Critics said they should just shut up and play the game. White people think putting our hand over our hearts and worshipping a piece of cloth is more important than police officers killing blacks like it’s open season. In the following scene, a church choir is singing then Childish Gambino comes in and shoots them with an assault rifle. This represents the shooting that occurred in Charleston in 2015. The rifle part is important because it was just thrown to him with ease showcasing how easy it is to get ahold of military grade weapons as an average citizen. After 10 people were just killed, the gun is protected again. The two events happening right after the other is to show how deaths are a cycle, we don’t have time to mourn before the next person is killed and as a result we’ve become desensitized. In fact, most won’t be shaken by watching this video with mass murders, someone being thrown off a balcony, and people being beaten because it has become so normalized to us. By paying close attention you can see that after the shooting, protesters start rushing in and the police run in after them carrying batons. After Childish Gambino protects the gun he turns his back on the brutality. After the shooting, the scene focuses on a few cars. The cars have their doors open and hazard lights on which symbolize the routine traffic stops in which blacks like Philando Castile are killed by police officers. The man who was shot is back but this time he has the bag on. His mouth is covered so all he can do it sit there and entertain. Childish Gambino has stopped his performance and can now be seen running away from the only white people in the video meaning he’s angered them. In this video, I feel that Childish Gambino represents America and the destruction it causes while having its back turned for the aftermath. He’s saying that America and its government killed these people and the dances he does in this video model after the Jim Crow dances. I also notice that he’s wearing the pants and shoes Confederate soldiers wore. Like the Confederate flag, dressing in the Confederate uniform can be associated with hatred and white supremacy hence the reason he’s only killing black people. Since he represents the American government he’s sending the message that America is treating blacks the same way they treated them 100 years ago, it’s built into the system. Supporting this idea of systematic oppression, Gambino says, “this a celly, that’s a tool,” (celly meaning jail cell). A lot of people don’t realize the 13th Amendment didn’t fully outlaw slavery. Slavery still exists and can be used as punishment for crime ie. imprisonment. Mass incarceration is modern day slavery and blacks are the ones who fall victim to this systematic oppression. Blacks make up 35% of total prison inmates and upon further research you will find that whites and blacks do the same crime but it’s the whites who get a slap on the wrist and blacks who get the book thrown at them. When crack was introduced to the black community a “war” was declared but white people hooked on opioids is a “crisis”. They’ll save a white drug addict but put a black one in jail. Corporations “invest” in privately owned prisons and the more people locked up, the more money they make. Similarities can be drawn between this and slavery; the government supplies the prisoners and corporations benefit. The system is designed for blacks to fail and it starts as early as kindergarten. School to prison pipelines describes how harsh disciplinary in schools eventually lead kids to prison. Students who have been excessively suspended and expelled are more likely to drop out, where they have a higher chance of being incarcerated than those who graduate. Black girls are the most targeted, they are six times more likely than white girls to get an out of school suspension for the same violation. Cops in schools also play a large role in creating the pipeline system. While police officers in school make white kids feel safe, black kids know they’re at risk. Black students as young as six are being detained by cops in school. Instead of being disciplined by school officials, the police do it themselves by arresting students. Back to the video, the line also references the shooting of Stephon Clark. Stephon was shot at 20 times in his own backyard by the police. The reason? Officers claimed he had a gun when it was really his phone. As he lay there dead, the officers thought he was pretending. The officers weren’t arrested but instead they were offered to come back to work. This is just one example of hundreds of thousands of the justice system failing blacks. While mothers have to unjustifiably bury their daughters and sons, murderers are able to continue on with their daily lives without any repercussions. While Michael Brown’s mother was putting her son in the ground, his killer became a million dollars richer. It’s almost like people are rewarded for killing blacks. This is the reason I say Childish Gambino represents the American government. He was responsible for the deaths of many and the cause of it was protected. He has the privilege to just turn his head and walk away because he’ll never be on the other side of it. The blacks doing the Jim Crow dances along with Gambino are meant to symbolize how blacks have to go along with the system if they want to survive in America. When protests broke out, all of the protesters were either beaten or harassed by the police but the ones who were dancing with Gambino were safe meaning that if you speak against America you’ll pay for it. Overall, I could go two ways with the meaning. It could represent the problems in America. But it also may be how Childish Gambino feels as a black artist in White America. As all of these killings are going on in the background he is forced to shut up and sing in fear of angering the audience which could explain why he’s doing Jim Crow dances and running from the white people at the end. Although this may seem like juxtaposition in the viewer’s eyes, this is reality for him and all the other black artists featured. While I do have a few interpretations I can’t decide on, I know one thing for certain; the people who are only watching this video for the music and dancing are the reason he made this video.