Section 8 Agency

Watch Donald Glover’s This is America music video before reading the assessment below. Then think about violence and depictions of it in America in general. Try to identify at least one symbol from the video and explain the connection to America’s love of violence. What does this symbol suggest about American values?

Remember, we are here to think… short lessons that last a lifetime are everything in a fast moving communication driven culture.

The scene towards the end where the cars are all parked around with their doors open and abandoned while Donald Glover continues to dance as though he is in a minstrel show reminded me of the end of times, Walking Dead style (Glover, 2018). I got the message that he would be forced, as a black man to continue to dance for the white man long after the end of society and the death of America.

Glover utilizes shock and awe throughout the video to show America’s underbelly. America has a love of its guns and gun violence towards black people and children which does not stop the propaganda machine feeding the lie that America is synonymous with gun ownership. The Gun Violence Archive reported more than 600 mass shootings (four or more died) in 2020 in the United States (Victor & Taylor, 2021).  America has constructed a narrative that accepts violence against children, people of color, and anyone else devalued in society because the NRA has done an astounding job tying the constitutional right to bear arms to patriotism (NRA, 2021). Funding is used from propaganda groups like the NRA to influence politics and politicians who uphold laws against humanity such as more guns and acceptance of the abuse of devalued human beings, which includes murdering black Americans by the police and citizens. While money is there to influence this thread, the thread will continue to sew an ugly quilt of what is American culture and this includes a post-apocalyptic America where a black man keeps dancing to stay alive long after the laws are gone because he has been taught that this is the only way to survive. 

America’s love of violence requires a very long thesis style paper answer, but in short, exists because socioeconomic created a culture of survival of the fittest. Americans are taught to fight each other for the last bone and it is perpetrated by the lie that there is only one bone. This also feeds the hate and fear monster against immigrants and like I said, a thesis paper. Hofstede’s theories on conflict speak to the moral compass of those involved in the conflict (Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov, 2010). The members of any given culture must ascribe to a common moral compass that centers its members on a fixed point that curbs motivation or aspirations towards violence. Once the moral compass is calibrated away from violence a new center is learned and violence is no longer the desired goal. America’s love of guns, obsession with killing devalued human beings, and prescribed doctrine of propaganda must be recalibrated to a new moral compass point that can change the future of What is America but that requires thoughtful consideration towards a new common goal as a country.

What do you think? Leave your comments.

References

Glover, Donald. (2018). Childish Gambino – This Is America (Official Video). YouTube. 

Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G. J., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and organizations: software for the mind. McGraw-Hill

NRA. (2021). America’s First Freedom. Retrieved from https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/ (Links to an external site.)

Victor, Daniel. Derrick Bryson Taylor. (2021). “A Partial List of Mass Shootings in the United States in 2021.” The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/article/mass-shootings-2021.html (Links to an external site.)