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  • PERSON: Those dance moves in the beginning, though, that chicken shit he was doing?

  • That's me when I'm off the Hennessy.

  • JACQUES: On Saturday, May 5th Donald Glover, also known as Childish Gambino

  • debuted the new music video for his songThis Is America.”

  • It's stirring major conversation online, so we wanted to see what Americans thought.

  • Or at least the ones we were able to find in New York.

  • JACQUES: Do you have any thoughts on Donald Glover? Childish Gambino?

  • PERSON: He's a genius like straight up my man is a genius.

  • PERSON: I think Donald Glover is probably the most well-rounded artist of our time.

  • PERSON: I don't even know who he is, honestly.

  • This is the guy right here?

  • JACQUES: So tell me what stands out most to you when you're watching the video,

  • especially at the beginning?

  • PERSON: The bag on the person's head could be the blind culture of today, you know,

  • with the gunshot the police brutality of young black males.

  • PERSON: Clearly this is like for a white audience it's not like for black - like we see this all

  • the time and then it kind of sucks that he's just like so easily

  • is like killing black people, in his film.

  • PERSON: You can say this is America and show something as awful as that, and me being someone

  • who's proud to be American can't even really disagree with it.

  • PERSON: That stance that awkward demeanor that he had was a very popular like Jim Crow image.

  • PERSON: We use dance as a way for an escape from all of this negativity and the

  • crime and violence that's happening behind us which is portrayed there.

  • PERSON: I think it hit pretty well on the shucking and jiving and like, you know,

  • the whole idea of black culture being entertainment.

  • PERSON: You're following the trends of these rappers but you're not noticing the

  • pit of fire that you're in is going on around you.

  • PERSON: He distracted us a lot with a lot of pop culture references, like using a lot

  • of popular dances that distracted us from the greater picture that was going on in the background.

  • And then a lot of times if you have the conversation online there were so many people that were like,

  • "Watch the video more than one time."

  • PERSON: I'm so pretty like I'm dancing we're all like at the same time

  • so into ourselves and Instagram and just as much about taking pictures of ourselves

  • at protests as we are about going to protests.

  • PERSON: I personally think it was a shot at the whole Dylan Roof thing.

  • PERSON: I would say there's probably something to do, I don't know this to be a guess like

  • with the mass shootings like you never like someone can appear so normal and happy or

  • like he's dancing then all of a sudden it's like people are dead.

  • PERSON: So I think the AR to the choir was pretty cool.

  • PERSON: In general it's just like brutality it's kinda like craziness.

  • PERSON: There's like maybe some kind of like big deal but then everyone kind of just goes

  • back to like you know their lives and nothing really actually changes.

  • PERSON: I don't know if it's what I really needed as a black guy in America to see or

  • to have visualized for me especially since Donald Glover himself is a black person and was

  • part of it is him perpetuating violence against other black people and I get the point but I think

  • you have to make your visuals accessible to a really wide range of people.

  • PERSON: You know, if you're not making art that's challenging you know people's thoughts

  • that's challenging you know what society is saying you know what society thinks and

  • pushing forward the conversation about whatever it is you're trying to talk about then

  • you know, what's the point?

PERSON: Those dance moves in the beginning, though, that chicken shit he was doing?

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