“Slay trick, or you get eliminated” (“Formation,” Beyonce)

Olivia Baker – January 16, 2019

I focused (for the most part) on the beginning of Childish Gambino’s “This is America,” from approximately 50s-1m20s. As Childish sings “don’t catch you slippin’ up” he dances, but his moves go from joyful to staggering as his facial expressions do the same, suggesting that the dance is painful or forced.

The Houston Baker chapter talks about biological masks that assist an organism in finding food and avoiding becoming food. It seems to me that the dancing in this particular 30 seconds – as well as the dancing that continues throughout the video while the background turns to riotous scenes – is a commentary on the masks that black people in America sometimes have to wear even in times of pain and crisis.

Houston Baker compares mastery of form to a rabbit, and deformation of mastery to a gorilla. In some ways, music and dancing is a mastery of form – it’s appealing and palatable.

n contrast, the choir shooting at 1m55s is shocking and disruptive to the sense of security Childish Gambino creates with his dancing and melody. Doreen St. Felix references this moment in her New Yorker piece (“The Carnage and Chaos of Childish Gambino’s ‘This is America,’” The New Yorker. May 7, 2018.) showcased by the Genius News video: “This is what it’s like, Glover’s video seems to say, to be black in America—at any given time, vulnerable to joy or to destruction.” Black pain and anger – about slavery or police shootings or tennis – is not palatable or acceptable to much of white America.