Childish Gambino & Nicole Arbour's America
Donald Glover is a man with many different personas, those being dependant on whomever is consuming his media. Some people know him as an amazing actor, known for his amazing portrayal of Troy Barnes on NBC's hit sitcom Community or even for his own show, Atlanta, in which he plays Princeton dropout turned music producer Earnest "Earn" Marks. I personally knew of him due to his stand-up comedy career, in which he details some of the best and the worst of growing up and being black in America in a funny way. Yet, there's the musical facette of Childish Gambino that was making waves in the hip-hop and R&B community since his Culdesac mixtape, that supported his CAMP project the same year. STN MTN / Kauai, released in 2014, was an amazing mixtape, but he stayed quiet on the musical side for two years, until he released "Awaken, My Love!", which would be his breakthrough into the mainstream. But the pleasure of longtime Gambino fans would be short lived, as he would announce the retirement in music just when the entire world was finally acknowledging his genius.
Then, "This is America" dropped.
At the time of my writing of this article, the music video for "This is America" has been seen over 140 million times on Youtube. The song has dethroned Drake from the number 1 spot in the Billboard Hot 100. The accompanying music video is a startling mirror into the life of african-americans since their arrival in the New World back in 1619. Video essays and entire news networks have dedicated time and energy into dissecting the entire artistic endeavor, from the clear allusions to Jim Crow, gun control, police brutality and the rise of social media. Therefore, spending my energy into dissecting it as well would be fruitless as I could just direct you to a multitude of articles and videos that do an amazing job.
So, let's talk about Nicole Arbour.
A canadian comedienne who has made her career off of off-color commentary and blatantly offending people that are black, transgender, feminists, vegans most other groups. She notoriously fat shamed people in 2016, creating an entire tidal wave of controversy in her wake. Why is she the subject of this article? Last week, she decided to create a remix of "This is America". In her version of the newest anthem for a lot of african-americans, she details the struggles of being a woman in a light hearted comedic way. Some of the topics that she touches upon include drug use, the rigid dichotomy between that comes with being a "strong woman" and even the materialization of the female body by the media.
But she's wrong.
To begin, I have no issues with free speech. I am an avid supporter of people speaking their minds as long as it is done respectfully. I have nothing against the feminist movement or Nicole Arbour, mainly because I believe in a lot of the points brought forward. I do not call myself a feminist because I do not keep enough of a close eye on the situation to be able to give a full fledged opinion on the situation that women are living on a day-to-day basis.
But she's still wrong.
I will disregard her abuse of autotune and her lack of artistic vision in her version of the song and video due to her not being an artist. All is forgiven. But what I will speak out on is how she did what she did.
I am of the opinion that her message was the right message. It's something that needed to be heard but not now and not in the manner in which it was presented. While both her and Gambino present the issues of being in a marginalized group from inside that group. The original song didn't empower its black listeners because it was made to show them an ugly and truthful view of the world around them. Arbor did the same thing. But the fact that she used a song that was already an anthem and already so powerful made her message look cheap. If she had made her own song, I would give her the highest praise even if it was horrible to listen to.
All the while, it demonstrates a problem in society that most people don't like to talk about: being culturally tone deaf. Arbour doesn't understand that because she is a privileged white woman, she gets to live the privileges that Gambino proves in his video and song. Remember that Emmett Till was murdered because a white woman said she whistled at him. Even as a marginalized group, she still has more power than any person of color out there. But we've seen this debate before, in the Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter debate. To say that All Lives Matter encompasses black people is to say that the problems that black people are living should be minimized because all people have problems. That logic could be substituted in this very simple way: if you break your arm, we should give you a rectal exam as well as your cast because your rectum might have a problem too because all body parts matter, right? My question is this: hasn't black excellence and black power been minimized enough?
While I stand firmly against the song from a musical, moral and human aspect, I do not deny it's message. I am for its message to stop making America like a haven for women when, on average, a woman is killed every six days by an intimate partner. We need to stop acting as if women get paid the same way as men when that isn't the case. I believe in it as long as we stay in our lanes and don't try to hop into someone else's message, because it cheapens both messages. Because Nicole Arbour did this, it proves that Gambino's America, one in which people of caucasian descent have it easier and continue to use black people as entertainment, is as real as ever.