Today, on WHY ISN’T DONALD GLOVER MY FRIEND, AND IF WE MET, WOULD WE BECOME FRIENDS OR WOULD I MUMBLE INTO MY HAIR ABOUT COOKIE DOUGH AND DIVERSE CASTING AND BLOW IT: I have now watched Childish Gambino’s This is America approximately 37 Times, so I can say with confidence (and authority? Sure!) that it’s brilliant. Specially because: when you watch it, you think to yourself, hey look, it’s a cool black guy doing cool dance moves and saying cool things over a cool beat! Gosh, black guys are so cool. But that’s just the foreground. In the background to his antics (and often in soft focus) it’s melee. People are chased and killed by cops while kids just sit there, filming it with their phones. But we’re too distracted by his Weirdly charming Jim Crow Minstrel show moves to even notice. THE ACT OF WATCHING THE VIDEO PROVES THE ARTIST’S POINT. HE TRICKS US INTO HIS POV. It’s like one of those stare at it until an elephant emerges paintings from the 90s, but the elephant is the fetishization of black culture. DONALD: I KNOW ITS STILL EARLY IN OUR FRIENDSHIP BUT PLZ LISTEN TO ME: NEVER STOP.