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"This is America": an Analysis of Childish Gambino's Song

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Updated: 8 November, 2023

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Works Cited:

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• Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95(2), 256-273.
• Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of personality and social psychology, 92(6), 1087-1101.
• Haimovitz, K., & Dweck, C. S. (2017). What Predicts Children's Fixed and Growth Intelligence Mind-Sets? Not Their Parents' Views of Intelligence but Their Parents' Views of Failure. Psychological Science, 28(6), 776-785.
• Hong, Y. Y., Chiu, C. Y., Dweck, C. S., Lin, D. M., & Wan, W. (1999). Implicit theories, attributions, and coping: A meaning system approach. Journal of personality and social psychology, 77(3), 588-599.
• Mueller, C. M., & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Praise for intelligence can undermine children's motivation and performance. Journal of personality and social psychology, 75(1), 33-52.
• Paunesku, D., Walton, G. M., Romero, C., Smith, E. N., Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2015). Mind-set interventions are a scalable treatment for academic underachievement. Psychological Science, 26(6), 784-793.
• Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2012). Mindsets that promote resilience: When students believe that personal characteristics can be developed. Educational psychologist, 47(4), 302-314.

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An Expert’s Take on the Symbolism in Childish Gambino’s Viral ‘This Is America’ Video

D onald Glover released a new song and music video “This Is America” under his musical moniker Childish Gambino on Saturday Night Live this weekend — and the four-minute, single-take music video is laden with metaphors about race and gun violence in America.

The “This Is America” video, which has already racked up more than 20 million views on YouTube, reveals provocative imagery of the rapper as he guns down a choir at one point and dances while violence breaks out all around him. Childish Gambino/Glover ‘s decision to wear just a pair of gray pants without a shirt in the video, allows viewers to identify with “his humanness,” as he raps about the violent contradictions that come with being black in America, says Guthrie Ramsey, a professor of music history at the University of Pennsylvania.

Warning: Graphic violence

“The central message is about guns and violence in America and the fact that we deal with them and consume them as part of entertainment on one hand, and on the other hand, is a part of our national conversation,” Ramsey tells TIME. “You’re not supposed to feel as if this is the standard fare opulence of the music industry. It’s about a counter-narrative and it really leaves you with chills.”

Here’s Ramsay’s take on four key moments from “This Is America.”

The first gunshot

The opening moments of “This Is America” show a man strumming a guitar alone to choral sounds. Within the first minute, Gambino shoots the man, who has been tied up with a head cover. Childish Gambino hands the gun to another man, who safely wraps it in a red cloth as the obscured man is dragged away. The moment goes right into the first rapped chorus: “This is America / Don’t catch you slippin’ up.”

Ramsay says the timing — that this happens during the song’s move from choral tones to a trap sound — allows Gambino to straddle contradictions and also allows the viewer to identify with his humanness.

“He’s talking about the contradictions of trying to get money, the idea of being a black man in America,” Ramsey says. “It comes out of two different sound worlds. Part of the brilliance of the presentation is that you go from this happy major mode of choral singing that we associate with South African choral singing, and then after the first gunshot it moves right into the trap sound.”

The early moment shows, too, that Gambino “could be anyone,” according to Ramsey. “You have him almost unadorned, as if he were totally without all the accoutrements of stardom,” he says, noting that Gambino dances in neutral colored pants, dark skin and with textured hair. “It’s just him, and therefore, it could be us.”

Gambino dancing with schoolchildren amid violence

Gambino and a group of kids clad in school uniforms dance throughout much of the “This Is America” video, smiling through impeccable moves as violence erupts behind them. The moment could be open to numerous interpretations — for example, Ramsey says, the dancers could be there to distract viewers in the same way black art is used to distract people from real problems plaguing America. But, Ramsey says, it’s better to absorb the video as a whole because America itself is a country of “very strange juxtapositions.”

“Even though we think of popular culture a a space where we escape, he’s forcing us to understand that there’s actually nowhere to run,” he says. “We have to deal with the cultural violence that we have created and continue to sustain.”

The style of dancing by Gambino in the video also calls out the way we consume culture. Gambino samples at least 10 popular dance moves derived from hip hop and African moves, including the South African Gwara Gwara dance, according to Forbes . Ramsey says the use of so many famous dance moves show how ultra-popular pieces of culture lose their specificity over time as they become more ubiquitous.

“It’s really a commentary on how much violence and contradictions there are in the consuming of pop culture, particularly in the violent elements of it,” he says. “With all the conspicuous consumption that global capitalism inspires, part of what we are consuming is this appetite for violence.”

The gunned down choir

Toward the middle of the video, a choir sings enthusiastically in a happy tone before Gambino shoots them all. The massacre and its quickness recall the 2015 Charleston shooting in which white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine black people in a church basement , Ramsey says. The image and what it evokes shows how people struggle to reconcile with and separate different instances of violence, according to Ramsey. As we consume violence on all sorts of platforms, be it in the news, through music videos or television shows, it becomes difficult to absorb very real instances of mass murders.

“You can’t escape the violence,” Ramsey says. “But you’re being forced to separate how you feel about it in our digitized world. The virtual violence, the real violence, it’s all confused.”

Gambino running away in the closing moments

The final moments of the video show Gambino running, terrified, down a long dark hallway away from a group of people as Young Thug sings “You just a Black man in this world / You just a barcode, ayy.” Gambino’s sprint goes back to a long tradition of black Americans having to run to save their lives, according to Ramsey, who says one song dating back to slavery in the 19th century was called “Run N— Run.”

“A black person running for his or her life has just been a part of American culture dating back to slavery,” he says.

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‘This Is America’: A Powerful Social Commentary

Donald Glover, (aka Childish Gambino) has achieved astonishing success both as an actor and musician. This year alone he has won two Emmys, a Grammy and a feature role in Star Wars spin-off ‘Solo’. But it is his latest musical release, ‘This Is America’, which has really got people talking.

Gambino uses his platform to voice just some of the troubling social problems endured by black communities in Trump’s America. In just 4 minutes it references prevalent issues from gun violence to police brutality. Having racked up close to 150 million views on YouTube, ‘This Is America’ has proved to be a huge success, predominantly because of its power to provoke political conversation. With one video and one rap Gambino has highlighted many of the hardships within USA.

Directed by Hiro Murai, “This is America” juxtaposes both overt and subliminal political messages with huge visual impact. The video explicitly references topics such as America’s gun violence epidemic and the relentless massacring of black people. The video features the shooting of gospel singers, which is most likely a reference to the 2015 Charleston church shooting which killed nine African Americans.

What is most striking about the video is Gambino/Murai’s attention to detail.  It opens somewhat peculiarly, with Gambino’s movements awkward and unnatural. However, some have commented how the rapper’s posture resembles Jim Crow, a 19 th century stereotype constructed to justify contemporary Caucasian oppression of African Americans. Jim Crow was played a white man in blackface and dressed in rags to portray an ethnic depiction of poverty and inferiority. Gambino’s reference perhaps therefore suggests that he himself is a white man in disguise. As the only killer in the video, Gambino’s Jim Crow-style caricature could more broadly be interpreted as a comment on the racist persecution of black people.

The repetitiveness of the ‘This is America’ chorus could be a reflection […] of America’s power as a force dominating and oppressing black culture

The video also draws on different styles of dance, ranging from South Africa’s Gwara Gwara dance to BlockBoy JB’s shoot dance. By using popularised moves, the video highlights the issue of people enjoying black culture without actually acknowledging the suffering which produces it such as systematic racism and police brutality. Amidst scenes of chaos, Gambino and several schoolchildren continue dancing as if nothing has occurred.

Although this upbeat dancing seems misaligned with the explicitly dark themes, there are several different interpretations. For one, the dancing in the foreground distracts the viewer from the chaos unfolding in the background. The dancing is therefore a deflection from the brutal realities of America, and more broadly illustrates society’s tendency to selectively choose aspects of black culture. Alternatively, dance here could be a form of escapism, as the lack of interaction between the dancing and violence is an attempt to avoid what is going on and instead retain a sense of false normality. The young ages of the dancers, all dressed in school uniform, is also striking. This suggests child-like naivety or ignorance to what is unfolding around them, or rather the young age at which black children are immersed into such a hostile and brutal world.

Another political message can also be seen through the treatment of the guns. Once fired, all the guns are removed in a red cloth before the massacred bodies are taken away suggesting an emphasis on concealment. Here Gambino highlights America’s shameful moral compass, as weapons are valued over human lives. The graphic way in which they are massacred further emphasises this immorality, losing all dignity when hurriedly dragged away.

Murai juxtaposes chaos with the passivity of bystanders who are occupied on their phones. This can be read as a subliminal dig at social media. More specifically, this offers a commentary on our ability to be so distracted by social media that we cannot see what is happening in reality, and the way in which social media can desensitise us. For example, if news of terrorism and police brutality are appearing frequently on a social media feed, it is easy to become accustomed to this and desensitised to the shock of the event.

By juxtaposing the title of the song with the troubling issues explored, it is suggested that the two are deeply intertwined

Similarly, if such news is broadcast amidst pictures of friends and so on, one may not think much of what is happening. By embedding news items in these social media platforms, it normalises them to an extent. However, somewhat ironically, it is through the social media platform of YouTube that this video is accessed and its political message promoted.

The power of the visuals conveys dark themes, and clearly if you isolate the music from the video these political nuances will be missed. That said, its fundamental political message is also apparent in Gambino’s use of music. The track features backing vocals by American rappers Young Thug, Slim Jxmmi, BlocBoy, 21 Savage and Quavo, and draws on a number of musical styles. The opening creates a fairly upbeat atmosphere, using acapella singing followed by Spanish-inspired guitar playing. The lyrics ‘We just wanna party’, played over a light drum beat, further adds to the relaxed musical feel. This is abruptly shut down after the first gunshot, at which point Gambino declares ‘This is America’. Suddenly, the music becomes darker and heavier. The syncretic melodies, trap cadences, and repeated bass note creates a brooding and unsettling atmosphere. The repetitiveness of the ‘This is America’ chorus could be interpreted not only as the relentlessness of what is going on in the US, but also America’s power as a force dominating and oppressing black culture.

Whilst ‘This Is America’ seems to be have more of visual impact than a musical one, it is undeniably a track with political resonance. By juxtaposing the title of the song with the troubling issues explored, it is suggested that the two are deeply intertwined. Issues of police brutality and gun violence are presented as vital components of America’s past and current identity, offering a powerful social commentary. For Childish Gambino, as is the case for many, this is the real America.

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This is America: Exploring Lyrical and Visual Symbolism

The Unites States has had a long history with strong elements of racial oppression. Despite many great leaps forward in the Civil Rights movement, most prominent in the 1950’s and 60’s, there are still various issues that remain sadly prevalent in the 21st century. There may be some who state that these problems are exaggerated, but those voices probably aren’t too steeped in personal experience. In the last few years, social media has significantly boosted awareness of violent racial oppression, particularly towards black men. Shootings involving black men and police officers became a prominent focal point of social media outlets. The sad truth is, these unfortunate altercations are simply putting a deeply embedded issue under a much brighter spotlight. Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” highlights this unfortunate state of events both through the lyrical poignancy, tonal contrast and disturbing visuals through the accompanying music video.

A Lyrical Examination

Gambino’s lyrics are fascinating due to a certain ambiguity of specific meaning. However, enough focus on verbal choice to create thoughtful and somewhat haunting possibilities is strongly suggested. The song is probably most effective in the jarring transition between the verses and chorus. The opening is introduced with a gentle gospel choir in the background singing, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, go, go, away”. This is one of the first of many repetitive phrases, creating an almost hypnotic suggestion. It’s almost as if the choir is suggesting that there isn’t really any problem and that we don’t really have to pay to close attention. We, the listeners, can just “go away”. This could be indicative of the tendency of society to ignore blatant social issues, simply going about the business of their day to day lives.

This is further emphasized by the following lyrics, “We just wanna party, Party just for you, We just want the money, Money just for you”. This echoes the general consensus of a reflection of a society focused on excess and monetary gain. In this instance, the voices could be from the perspective of minorities, African-Americans, who simply want the benefits of financial stability and the benefits of it. The opening also could suggest the idealized version of America. In a nation where social issues are often ignored in favor on individuals focused on the material, problems could continue without any changes enforced. The jarring shift comes during the chorus, as the transition begins with the sound of a gun shot, leading into a faster and more hectic tempo, complete with a more traditional hip-hop beat and an ominous electronic bass sound. Lyrically, the song takes on an almost different identity. The chorus flows into the verse, leading to a more chaotic contrast. The chorus goes, “This is America, don’t catch you slippin up”. This refrains from the first verse, in which everything seems fine. This sharp turn interjects with a statement accompanying the gunshot. The gunshot is America, or rather a bigger part of American culture than some may want to accept, almost breaking through the façade that everything is perfectly acceptable in modern American society.

The lyrics continue with more narrative focus by our narrator, “Look at how I’m livin now, Police be trippin now, Yeah this is America, Guns in my area, I got the strap, I gotta carry em. ” Here the lyrics are a bit more blatant. Gambino may simply be stating the facts of living as a black man in the United States. It’s far from perfect. He asks us to take a look at how it really is to live as a black man in today’s society. He asks us to look at the relationship between police brutality and African-Americans. Many ideas could be suggested by the lines regarding the presences of guns and gun violence. Gambino, representing a black man, sounds as is if he is confirming that he does indeed have a gun. In fact, he states that he must carry one. From that perspective, this indicates a choice. It should be noted that this line doesn’t take into account specific racial, cultural or socio economic factors. Gambino doesn’t state that he’s a criminal or even that he feels the need to use a gun for violent purposes. Rather, it seems almost that he’s stating the need to carry guns due to the environment pressures he feels around him. Due to his cultural living conditions and specific fear of the police tendencies towards racial violence, it proposes another side to the gun violence problem.

Gambino and his featured artists make it even clearer regarding the lack of priorities in our society in following verses, “Grandma told me, Get your money, Black man.” This demonstrates a generational message many African-Americans may feel. Due to the longstanding effects of racial attitudes, this had led to many disadvantages for people of color since the ending of slavery and the Reconstruction centuries before. For years since, minorities have been fighting the odds to reach a general level of equality in the United States. In simple terms, achieving a more stable economic status could hopefully guarantee a safe and happy place in the culture. However, as events have shown, simply having more money and achieving a greater status is not enough to dilute hundreds of years of embedded racial attitudes. Gambino uses examples of status that should suggest stability and happiness but ultimately mean little in the grand scheme, “I’m so fitted, I’m on Gucci…this is a celly, That’s a tool, On my Kodak.”

Perhaps the heaviest weight is in the final verse of the song, “You just a Black man in this world, You just a barcode…Drivin expensive foreigns.” This reinforces the dynamic between the pursuit for material gain being the dominant focus of black men, though it has done little to help provide a life of true freedom and prosperity. The final lines inform us of Gambino’s feelings regarding the status of African-Americans today, “You just a big dawg, yeah, I kenneled him in the backyard, No probably ain’t life to a dog, For a big dog.” Here Gambino twists the shallow lifestyle with the use of the slang term into what he claims he feels. In American society, it’s being suggested that black men are equated to a lesser class, simply pushed to the side and treated as less than human. This final line is both haunting and damning in what it states regarding race relations.

The Music Video

The lyrics are certainly strong in their message, but the themes are strengthened further by the images in the video. Accompany the gospel chanting of the introduction, the first image is that of a black man sitting solitarily and playing a guitar. Gambino appears and is dancing happily. The image further emphasizes the idea of African-Americans having perceived idea of what is hoped for or even expected of them. This is then interjected with Gambino shooting this man in the back of the head, leading into the previously mentioned chaotic chorus. In the background, the video is a clash of images . We see Gambino accompanied by school children who dance with him. However, the video continues to escalate with conflicting images of him dancing with children, while more violence seems to be going on just out of focus. The video could be suggesting that the society’s collective view of the topic is, in fact, out of focus. It’s also fitting that children would be at the center of the chaos, as the problem would certainly have an effect of future generations.

The video, much like the song itself, seems to demonstrate the conflict within the singer and perhaps black culture overall. Characters in the background are just interchanged between dancing and singing together to running in fear as riots appear to be escalating around them. This type of dancing could have another meaning as well. In addition to the suggestion of naïve and even manic glee, the style of dance has been suggested as a nod to a type of dance called Gwara Gwara. This type of dance originated in South Africa, a nation with a long history of oppression between races. The historical context is there as well, hinting that the roots of the issues have had lasting implications linked all the way back the origin of the slave trade. Much like the shift tempo of the song, the images shift contrastingly with bursts of violence. For instance, Gambino comes across of a group of people dancing in a choir. He starts dancing with them, but then mows them all down with a machine gun. He then moves as the camera turns, revealing a team of police swooping in. The dancing and singing seems to be a representation of the ideal status quo. However, much like the media’s typical reaction on a mass shooting, there is an immediate focus and discussion on it. Ultimately though, each instance of gun violence is quickly swept under the rug and everything seems to go back to normal, until the next burst of violence. Following the pattern of the song, this is the cycle of violence which keeps repeating.

One of the most interesting aspects of the performance is of the demeanor Gambino has throughout the video. Another example of the internal strife he is feeling, Gambino not only sharply contrasts his body movements from dancing to murder, but through facial expression. Throughout the video, Gambino shifts his facial features from showing joyful smiles to pained looks somewhere between rage and fear. All the while, he is often directly addressing the camera (and the viewer) with each moment of intense eye contact. The most frightening image is probably the final one, featuring Gambino running in terror from a crowd of Caucasian Americans. Conclusively, the video seems to suggest that Gambino, and by extension black society, live in fear of their white neighbors.

Some Lingering Questions

Childish Gambino is an artist with work that has often been soulful, thoughtful and sometimes heartbreaking. Most of his songs are established as being rather upbeat, but often had lyrics which suggest introspection and a truly personal reflection, often with a sad and melancholy tone. “This Is America” is probably his darkest piece yet and can now be counted among other songs such as Joyner Lucas’s “I’m Not Racist” as biting commentaries on the tough questions regarding race relations, classist divisions and violence 21st century culture. A few years ago, the documentary I Am Not Your Negro was released. Based on an unfinished manuscript by James Baldwin, the film explores the history of racism in the United States and the struggles of the Civil Rights movement. It’s very possible Gambino probably took inspiration from films like this, incorporating the general mood of the public in through his vocals and accompanying imagery. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Gambino doesn’t outright tell you what he thinks. With symbolic word choice and specific musical dynamics, Gambino seems to focus on gaining a strong emotional response with both his voice and images. The problems he discusses in “This Is America” can’t simply be solved in a short time. However, much like the wave of social media awareness over the last few years, songs like these force us to ask questions about how we can improve our society and start communicating with each other about these issues.

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54 Comments

Dope tune…and I thought hip hop, or at least the hip hop I use to like, died many moons ago. Great bloody tune.

The rise and rise of Donald Glover. One minute he is building a pillow fort with Abed in Community. Next thing you know, he’s creating TV shows, Childish Gambino is 229th most listened to artist on Spotify and he’s playing Lando Calrissian in Star Wars, having already blagged a Marvel cameo.

Kardashian levels of fame await.

Please… Why you have to finish that lovely post quoting the kardashians.

He’s a talented dude, loved his time in the great ‘Community’ but then got into his Childish Gambino stuff. He certainly looks like he’ll be the best thing in that new Han Solo movie. This new video is one that deserves multiple re-watches, so much stuff to pick up on… can’t say that too often these days.

An amazingly well made video. Horrific scenes and vile attitudes. Childish Gambino has shown us what America seems to be allowed to be.

Great video and music. I think it’s quite obvious what the song means. Being black in America is deadly.

Donald Glover is the most annoying man in the world. He’s good looking, he’s got a good body, he’s funny, he can sing, he can rap, he can act, he can do stand up comedy, he can write and direct his own show. And he seems like a good bloke.

Brilliantly creative video.

I’m surprised that this movie isn’t 30 seconds long, with him walking on set and then some police shooting him.

That would be a more accurate description of the US.

It’s unbelievable how layered the video actually is.

The people on the girders with their mouths taped filming it on their phones.

The man on a horse that goes past like General lee when they are rioting.

As a protest piece of visual art it’s stunning.

You can watch it several times, and still miss so much. Because Gambino is in the foreground, dancing away and distracting you from the harsh reality all around.

I’m not sure what I’m meant to be getting from the more violent sections of the video – the reduction of the murders of black people as entertainment? A comment on black on black violence? Or is it meant to shock my out of my middle class comfort zone?

Visually the video is just stunning, trying to keep track of so many layers and movements is nigh on impossible as the brain gets pummelled with message after message, so many parts where the brain makes you see what is not there, and the track itself just pushes the boundaries of rap – and what can be considered popular music. Mindblowing stuff,

The murders show what life is actually like on the streets right now for average black dudes in America. It isn’t meant to shock, just show what things are actually like. A black church congregation was gunned down a few years ago. Black people killed in pais, and groups every day. If you don’t show something in compact form, it will not be known by those who aren’t a part of the situation. I don’t see the murders as shocking, more than I open a page online to read about YET another shooting of a black guy. If I’m not shocked at that, I have no right to be shocked at this video.

Violence made this video. The real violence on the street that kills people ( FYI blacks not whites) every minute in America. Are you so sanitized and clean you don’t like to see this stuff? You couldn’t be black then, or black American. Because it is a daily, real life situation in America. ANd I guess the many layers of action you see are not trying to confound you. It’s clear what they are. This is life on the street. A black man being chased by a police care, someone running as he’s being accused of having a gun. It’s not hard to understand.

Trying to overanalyze it all means you have never been in this situation. As such, you need to watch it a few more hundred times to start feeling the feels that any black baby is going to feel in America right now. Chaos without reason , people running scared, panic in the streets, fear, stupidity. Just accept that this is the status quo.

I can’t say it was my cup of tea. I’m not really a rap guy (although I enjoy Donald Glover’s work as a comic actor), but it was an interesting piece of film-making.

He reminds me of a black Spiderman.

That was quite clever, but the theme left me with the feel bad factor.

Kanye is all talk, Donald Glover is the real thing.

a) it’s mesmerizing b) I think he’s been watching some Aphex Twin c) I think there’s a Chomsky/Adorno critique: you can’t be clean in a dirty world/we’re all complicit.

Thanks for the thoughtful analysis. I think more discussion should center around topics like this; I would like to hear more thoughts on how this work impact(s/ed) American society, or st least their diverse reactions.

Food for thought, right enough.

Clever and multi layered – there’s a huge amount going on behind him that it takes a few views to try and take it all in. It’s very bright to be able to pack that much opinion into a few minutes work.

I have no idea what all of its about, but if I had to dance on top of a car like that, I’d fall off and break an ankle.

Quite like it, though.

He’s absolutely brilliant.

I watched this twice and it meant stuff to me. Hope other people watch it and it means stuff for them…

Childish Gambino shows his sanity and humanism by showing and condemning random violence and madness. Kanye shows his ignorance and inhumanity by praising madness and racism.

It is interesting focus point based on moder song . However I tend to believe if you will look at artist like j cole , and compere his lyrics ideology In which he shows modern brutal truth of racism in his song like, neighbors or if you look at vic Mensa in his song “16 shots” he talk about brutality of today’s worlds . I enjoyed reading your article but if You would compare different artist from same music class it would be more philosophical and interesting to read.

I really appreciate how you can discover something new with each rewatch of this music video. For example, at 2:14 you can see a person jump and commit suicide in the background. Nobody runs to help or even seems to notice, which could be a commentary on how America deals with mental health issues. You also see throughout the video how guns are handled. After Gambino fires guns, someone comes with a cloth to carry it off with great care. Meanwhile, his murder victims are brutally dragged away.

I think the music video is pretty great. In the hyper-stimulated world we live in now, it’s much easier to view art with a sense of emotional detachment. We’ve become a bit numb to expressions of deep human feelings and thoughts. Childish Gambino was able to not only shock and surprise viewers with “This is America,” but I think he also made them care a little bit more because of it. It wasn’t just cheap tricks to sustain an audience’s attention. That’s quite refreshing.

I like the fact that this song and its accompanying video have got us all talking. There’s certainly a lot of layers that can pulled back from this video.

This new song is definitely something that’s rocked our nation’s culture. If anything, Childish Gambino is the poster child of a true artist’s take on the disparities and injustices prevalent in our society today. This work exemplifies his artistic skill and his ability to apply this skill in a way that sends a powerful message to his audience.

This Is America is incredibly powerful in lyrics, and the video presents itself almost like a visual satire… Similar to Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, it’s very obvious that something is wrong: the casual nature of massacre… as you mentioned, the nonchalant way that the video moves on with rhythmic dancing, and an almost caricature-like upbeat tone in Childish Gambino’s face as violence and brutality begins to coagulate in the background. I also find it interesting how the gun itself is handled. In both shootings, the gun is placed on a red cloth while the bodies fall, and no one attends to them. It is a vary powerful echo as to how America currently handles its gun violence; no matter how many people end up grieving, the topic returns to protecting the gun and its “rightful place” in the hands of the common people… despite the potential tragedies that play out over and over.

Donald Glover is an artist- he has something powerful to say and he puts it in the work.

Really interesting analysis! I remember watching this for the first time and was hoping I would find a detailed analysis such as this.

What is so fabulous about this music video is that there is room for another fifty articles analyzing this music video.

Great article!

Cool analysis! I’m so much more aware of the symbolism now that I watch the music video. It’s amazing how much thought was put into it.

This music video is an analytical wet dream.

It seems a common thread in hip hop is either talking about how the artist is trying to make their way in the world, or talking about the streets. What this song seems to be saying is both are traps, but there’s no alternative. If you “make it”, then you are like a big dog kenneled in a back yard. As long as you provide entertainment, you stay in the yard happily chained up, but if you get out of line they “wesley snipe your a%&” to quote K dot. The alternative is getting killed in the streets, or at least living in fear and anger at the thought that you might be killed. I think the song alone is good and it does what a lot of other thoughtful hip hop songs do, but with the added depth of the video it is a masterpiece

Really good job breaking it all down. Thanks a bunch. But, what’s that chick just sitting on a car in 3:19 represent? I genuinely wanna know.

It’s heartwarming to see Childish Gambino’s work generating so much engagement.

Symbols and lyrics within music change peoples lives.

This song has such a powerful message and started a great conversation- plus its a great song!

Great song, songwriter and analysis. Great job!

The special thing about this specific music video is that every time you watch it you discover something new. I thought I knew a lot about the video and the symbolism until I read through this article! The way he dances kind of distracts you from what’s happening in the back but the more you watch it the more you understand the plethora of messages he’s trying to convey. Overall an interesting read on an amazing video!

It is astounding how I seemed to have missed so much about the video at first glance.

Very informative article, it presented ideas that upon first watch I would not have initially picked up on. I love when artists create media which is thoughtful, insightful, and full of introspective messages.

This piece leaves me heartbroken. I cry every time I see/hear it. Childish Gambino is masterful in weaving visual, lyrical and musical elements together to illustrate the plight, and likewise the strength of people of color. His work shots straight to the heart. The first piece of art that comes to my mind, in comparison, is “Guernica,” by Pablo Picasso.

Art can be so powerful when it wakes people up!

I love Childish Gambino’s ability to turn a phrase. He begins a line and you have no idea where it’s going to go and that ability plays well here: the gun shot catches us off guard and is a jarring contrast to the almost whimsical start of the song.

I actually use your article in my Composition classes. My students write an essay analyzing song lyrics that speak to social justice issues. We start with a visual analysis of this video, and it’s a fun discussion to jumpstart their thinking.

I think this is a good analysis of what is an incredibly important song and music video. This is America is truly an intelligent and honest articulation of the systemic problems in urgent need of attention. I just stumbled upon this article today (in 2020), two years after the music video was released. After any media loses virality, the song’s spotlight has certainly dwindled after two years, it is easy to forget about art like this. It gets lost in the archives, no matter how poignant the message it sends. I’m definitely glad to have had Glover’s genius brought to my attention again. A very interesting read!

An interesting essay.

What about the sound bite of Bill Cosby’s voice as Fat Albert, saying “Hey!” right before Glover sings “I’m so fitted”? I’ve looked for references to that and haven’t found any.

This is going back to what rap/hip-hop was in the 80s.

Good analysis. One of my favorite songs. There is a lot to be said about the Gambino’s refusal to define his art leaving it open to speculation but there is a lot in the text that could be said to be “interesting” with regards to perceptions of black masculinities in America.

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Childish Gambino's "this is America" is a matter of cultural importance

Most issues of sufficient meaning and importance to Black Americans begin and end in manichean form, and Gambino’s latest, “this is America,” is a prime example. From the black opening frame with its white lettered, cursive title, to the final chase scene, we are shown the major components of America brought to bear, as viewed by Gambino, and by the Black America for/to whom he speaks, are concerns of place and importance, beauty and ugliness, joy and violence, and other dichotomous pillars of the Black experience. Its prima facie is a meticulous display of perspective and symbolism. Uplifting soulful vocals and rhythms juxtapose a dingy, industrial space, as the camera moves in from the foreground toward a lone chair focused in a narrow depth of field in the middle ground, acoustic guitar atop, and Gambino barely visible as a sliver of a Black body between a white-painted girder and a white-painted pipe in the background. Toeing that fine field of focus, the barefoot guitarist enters, stage left, pacing a calm beeline to the guitar and taking a seat to play. 

A slight contrast is noted between the strength and beauty of the player, with the worn out guitar. The camera passes the guitarist, and Gambino comes into full view, popping to the beat. He spins, eyes off in the lower distance as he jerks, rolls and flexes in classic Black form, full of the weirdness and flavor of an aged granddad showin’ ya how it’s done , and all the grandeur of a proud tribal dancer performing for the Negus. The choral spirituals with the tribal melody complementing his verse during this scene follows steadily in the wake of his most recent album, “Awaken, My Love,” an album evoking Afro-futurism. His dance is a movement retracing the camera’s path from the guitarist. See his hair: a nappy, worn, and handsome growth of African descended heredity. See his gold: adorning the Black chest it stands out, two chains. His gestures quickly turn from a bold display of ferocity and virility, to a juvenile stance as he reaches the seated man, sans guitar. Head bagged, hands tied, clothes tattered and worn, the player is now a dingy part of the surrounding grey and off-white industrial space. 

Not knowing what you are about to see can amplify the effect a stimuli has upon you, and diminish your preparedness to see it. Whether a trigger warning is an sensitive or deleterious way to introduce a person into dramatic information that may arouse traumatic feelings due to experiences s/he has had in the past is a heated debate. Gun violence in a music video can be no easy thing to watch, and many who watched this video, excited to see Childish Gambino sing or dance his way further into their hearts with funny lyrics or twisted metaphors about Black awkwardness and his growing fame may’ve been starkly disappointed, even startled to see him stoically execute a bound band. Amidst a flurry of Black death, mass shootings, police brutality, and other viscous attacks on our daily lives, Gambino’s “this is America” is vital truth in reflection. It is the kind of piece that highlights the maturation of his career from Freaks and Geeks, his sophomoric debut to many as a rage-filled lyricist with a hilarity and complexity unlike anyone in the game at the time. Go back and watch “Freaks and Geeks” again ( video linked at 0:12 ), and you’ll notice the opening frame is a similar black screen with bold white letters, followed by a slowing creeping camera coming in through a large industrial space, framed by floor to ceiling poles, and Gambino pacing in from stage right. He goes on to flex and dance and jerk his way into your heart like a romantic fish hook—if you struggled to like him, you came around eventually, and if—like me—you had been wanting out of the lake of sameness in the music industry, he had you hook line and sinker. 

Gambino offers a bone chilling reflection of America, tempered with inspirational drum beats and melodies of the African diaspora, light-hearted smiles, and playful youths twirling in the midst of gritty violence. This light touch and heavy handedness is a powerful tool being pioneered and revamped by a few daring artists recently, such as Gypsy Noname, whose calming spoken word prosody is a alluring introduction to what you immediately find to be a stark and cogent account of Black beauty, Black death, and life in Chicago. “This is America” has depth and keen use of imagery and timing. It goes beyond gratuitous violence to deliver a painfully strong message: our issues are old, if not timeless, so how distracted are you willing to be? He pulls the trigger and all hell breaks loose.

Kids running wild in all directions, some hanging out the windows of a car creeping slowly by like the hyphy movement of the Yay Area, some dancing on top of cars with a young one blowing money everywhere in a direct reference to to Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” ( video linked at 3:07 ), a few brandishing weapons, one bicycling, and did you even notice those fucking chickens?! The first act is bananas, yet artfully choreographed in a single take, a rare cinematic tool of a few luminary directors. Throughout the video these scenes progress in complexity as the backdrop of the motif: dated cars from the 80’s, police cruisers, bedlam, and trash can fires like many scenes straight out of NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton.”

Act two returns to the choral melodies and uplifting joy of an archetypal Black American church. The return to an upbeat African rhythm and a soulful hymn, instantly foreshadows a return to the exposition. Right on queue, in comes Gambino, popping in with a broad smile, dancing and sliding his way into our hearts—except…no. A mirthless face with a nonchalant demeanor replaces his joy as he levels the choir with a fully automatic volley. Hear the score: a crescendo of blood curdling screams, bullet fire, and tumultuous mass terror. Hear the ad libs: money, black man, whoop, don't catch you slippin up, hey!, whoa, yuh, aargh!, yea, yea, hey, hey, uh, whooh (echoed). The violence of the video is consistently contrasted with a light-hearted touch. You will find it reinforced in the background audio effects and the frivolity of the young troupe accompanying Gambino scene to scene in spite of the burning cars, abundant chaos, and a hooded horseback harbinger of the negro apocalypse.

Act two was brief, but loaded. The third act, also brief, is wide open in content and composition, much like the opening scene of act one, and again we have the uplifting choral hymn and African rhythms in the background score bringing us in. Tossing a blunt, Gambino gets down like James Brown atop the roof of a beat up red sedan. Accompanied once again by the guitarist to his right, seated in his light peach shirt and slacks like the guitarist from the opening theme of “Chappelle’s Show,” prison-hooded head bobbing, and a curiously placid female poised on the hood of a silver sedan to his front-left. The final scene opens eerily in darkness with Gambino barreling down a corridor full pelt. His wide, fear-stricken eyes stand out against the darkness as he moves into the lighted corridor, and his pursuers come into view, slightly. From first glimpse, they could be cops, the weapon-wielding teenagers from act two, or an angry mob. Is he being chased out of town? It would appear so, and by unidentifiable, plain clothes people. Is this the last we’ll hear from him, definitely not.

ATG, 5/6/2018

• Childish Gambino's "this is America" is a matter of cultural importance

• Arts & Culture
• Science & Technology

Davis, California

Adding to discussion about race, politics

48 seconds of light, feel-good music captivate listeners in the beginning of Childish Gambino’s new song “This is America.” However, around 47 seconds into its accompanying music video, we are introduced to the jarring image of a man sitting in a chair with a cloth bag over his head. He is shot in the head seconds later by Gambino, and a shift in the tone of the music occurs as the sound of his gunshot rings.

In the moments leading up to the killing and all throughout the rest of the music video, Gambino is shown dancing wide-eyed with his shirt off. But the dancing is strained and it is the first indication that something isn’t exactly right, even before he shoots the man. His facial expressions depict someone going through the motions and not really being comfortable with his body performing all these moves.

His demeanor changes to indicate he’s succumbing and, in turn, putting a lot of effort into the execution of these movements that are very reminiscent of popular dance moves blasted all over the internet. The exaggeration and forced quality show just how imposed the happy image of the Black experience in America is when, in actuality, it’s the complete opposite. This stark contrast between the “popular culture’s perception of black experience and its often brutal reality,” according to a contributor on Genius Lyrics , is shown in other ways, too, and is the main idea of the video. The same contributor argues that this is exemplified most clearly “by juxtaposing happy, carefree choruses and dark, aggressive verses.” This is matched in the video with chaotic, ominous scenes in the background while Gambino dances both alone and with a crew of people in the foreground.

And when Gambino isn’t dancing, he is engaging in the violence — namely, shooting people. The first instance was the one at the beginning of the video and, in retrospect, that shooting was the one most set up to happen. Compared to watching the second instance, in which Gambino reenacts the Charleston church shooting (with himself as the shooter and an ensemble of Black gospel singers as the victims), it is more shocking and unexpected every time. He follows up the silence of the gospel singers with a pronounced “This is America” with a stoic face. It is unsettling.

If you take a closer look at the cars that Gambino is surrounded by and dancing on top of, you notice none of them are expensive and are decades old. For me, it seemed to point at police brutality, given that many tragedies and/or displays of racism arise from a white cop pulling over someone of color in their car. Other than that, the persistence of income inequality (and disparities between people of color and white people in general) is also something the scene alluded to given that, again, the cars are old and inexpensive.

The final scene we are left with is Gambino sprinting towards the camera with a mob of people following him in the dark. This has been compared to the Sunken Place from Jordan Peele’s movie “Get Out.” According to a tweet Peele posted in March of 2017, “the Sunken Place means we’re marginalized. No matter how hard we scream, the system silences us.”

The Washington Post summed it up perfectly in an article on this very topic: “Whether this reference was intended, the video makes clear how black people have been trapped and/or harmed by American culture. Gambino seems to keeps the darkness at bay by acting within white-imposed boundaries for most of the video — hence the rich depth of field, with his giddy dancing layered in front of violence — but it eventually catches up with him.”

What I initially thought of as Childish Gambino’s attempt at new age trap rap was quickly transformed into a greater appreciation for his project. However, Donald Glover (the man behind the musical project Childish Gambino) isn’t really interested in the analyses taking place. At the Met Gala, in response to a Vogue representative asking him what he would like people to feel when they see “This is America,” he replied, “I honestly just wanted to make a good song. That was it. Honestly I just hope people, you know, get to just enjoy it.”

In a Jimmy Kimmel interview , Glover stated how sensitive he is and how he hasn’t been on the internet since the Thursday night before he first debuted “This is America” on Saturday Night Live for fear he will take criticism too personally.

What we have here is an artistic expression and statement by a talented musician, artist and actor. We are well within our rights to examine, discuss and praise the depth Gambino added to his productions and what they mean in a greater context. But at what point is it over-dissection?

Ultimately the story Childish Gambino weaves is extremely intimate to him, his roots and the people that can relate to it. Maybe in all the close inspections we break down this intimacy.

Written By: Cecilia Morales — [email protected]

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Developing a Thesis Statement

Many papers you write require developing a thesis statement. In this section you’ll learn what a thesis statement is and how to write one.

Keep in mind that not all papers require thesis statements . If in doubt, please consult your instructor for assistance.

What is a thesis statement?

A thesis statement . . .

• Makes an argumentative assertion about a topic; it states the conclusions that you have reached about your topic.
• Makes a promise to the reader about the scope, purpose, and direction of your paper.
• Is focused and specific enough to be “proven” within the boundaries of your paper.
• Is generally located near the end of the introduction ; sometimes, in a long paper, the thesis will be expressed in several sentences or in an entire paragraph.
• Identifies the relationships between the pieces of evidence that you are using to support your argument.

Not all papers require thesis statements! Ask your instructor if you’re in doubt whether you need one.

Identify a topic

Your topic is the subject about which you will write. Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic; or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper.

Consider what your assignment asks you to do

Inform yourself about your topic, focus on one aspect of your topic, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts, generate a topic from an assignment.

Below are some possible topics based on sample assignments.

Sample assignment 1

Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II.

Identified topic

Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis

This topic avoids generalities such as “Spain” and “World War II,” addressing instead on Franco’s role (a specific aspect of “Spain”) and the diplomatic relations between the Allies and Axis (a specific aspect of World War II).

Sample assignment 2

Analyze one of Homer’s epic similes in the Iliad.

The relationship between the portrayal of warfare and the epic simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64.

This topic focuses on a single simile and relates it to a single aspect of the Iliad ( warfare being a major theme in that work).

Developing a Thesis Statement–Additional information

Your assignment may suggest several ways of looking at a topic, or it may name a fairly general concept that you will explore or analyze in your paper. You’ll want to read your assignment carefully, looking for key terms that you can use to focus your topic.

Sample assignment: Analyze Spain’s neutrality in World War II Key terms: analyze, Spain’s neutrality, World War II

After you’ve identified the key words in your topic, the next step is to read about them in several sources, or generate as much information as possible through an analysis of your topic. Obviously, the more material or knowledge you have, the more possibilities will be available for a strong argument. For the sample assignment above, you’ll want to look at books and articles on World War II in general, and Spain’s neutrality in particular.

As you consider your options, you must decide to focus on one aspect of your topic. This means that you cannot include everything you’ve learned about your topic, nor should you go off in several directions. If you end up covering too many different aspects of a topic, your paper will sprawl and be unconvincing in its argument, and it most likely will not fulfull the assignment requirements.

For the sample assignment above, both Spain’s neutrality and World War II are topics far too broad to explore in a paper. You may instead decide to focus on Franco’s role in the diplomatic relationships between the Allies and the Axis , which narrows down what aspects of Spain’s neutrality and World War II you want to discuss, as well as establishes a specific link between those two aspects.

Before you go too far, however, ask yourself whether your topic is worthy of your efforts. Try to avoid topics that already have too much written about them (i.e., “eating disorders and body image among adolescent women”) or that simply are not important (i.e. “why I like ice cream”). These topics may lead to a thesis that is either dry fact or a weird claim that cannot be supported. A good thesis falls somewhere between the two extremes. To arrive at this point, ask yourself what is new, interesting, contestable, or controversial about your topic.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times . Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Derive a main point from topic

Once you have a topic, you will have to decide what the main point of your paper will be. This point, the “controlling idea,” becomes the core of your argument (thesis statement) and it is the unifying idea to which you will relate all your sub-theses. You can then turn this “controlling idea” into a purpose statement about what you intend to do in your paper.

Look for patterns in your evidence

Compose a purpose statement.

Consult the examples below for suggestions on how to look for patterns in your evidence and construct a purpose statement.

• Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis
• Franco turned to the Allies when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from the Axis

Possible conclusion:

Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: Franco’s desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power.

Purpose statement

This paper will analyze Franco’s diplomacy during World War II to see how it contributed to Spain’s neutrality.

• The simile compares Simoisius to a tree, which is a peaceful, natural image.
• The tree in the simile is chopped down to make wheels for a chariot, which is an object used in warfare.

At first, the simile seems to take the reader away from the world of warfare, but we end up back in that world by the end.

This paper will analyze the way the simile about Simoisius at 4.547-64 moves in and out of the world of warfare.

Derive purpose statement from topic

To find out what your “controlling idea” is, you have to examine and evaluate your evidence . As you consider your evidence, you may notice patterns emerging, data repeated in more than one source, or facts that favor one view more than another. These patterns or data may then lead you to some conclusions about your topic and suggest that you can successfully argue for one idea better than another.

For instance, you might find out that Franco first tried to negotiate with the Axis, but when he couldn’t get some concessions that he wanted from them, he turned to the Allies. As you read more about Franco’s decisions, you may conclude that Spain’s neutrality in WWII occurred for an entirely personal reason: his desire to preserve his own (and Spain’s) power. Based on this conclusion, you can then write a trial thesis statement to help you decide what material belongs in your paper.

Sometimes you won’t be able to find a focus or identify your “spin” or specific argument immediately. Like some writers, you might begin with a purpose statement just to get yourself going. A purpose statement is one or more sentences that announce your topic and indicate the structure of the paper but do not state the conclusions you have drawn . Thus, you might begin with something like this:

• This paper will look at modern language to see if it reflects male dominance or female oppression.
• I plan to analyze anger and derision in offensive language to see if they represent a challenge of society’s authority.

At some point, you can turn a purpose statement into a thesis statement. As you think and write about your topic, you can restrict, clarify, and refine your argument, crafting your thesis statement to reflect your thinking.

As you work on your thesis, remember to keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Sometimes your thesis needs to evolve as you develop new insights, find new evidence, or take a different approach to your topic.

Compose a draft thesis statement

If you are writing a paper that will have an argumentative thesis and are having trouble getting started, the techniques in the table below may help you develop a temporary or “working” thesis statement.

Begin with a purpose statement that you will later turn into a thesis statement.

Assignment: Discuss the history of the Reform Party and explain its influence on the 1990 presidential and Congressional election.

Purpose Statement: This paper briefly sketches the history of the grassroots, conservative, Perot-led Reform Party and analyzes how it influenced the economic and social ideologies of the two mainstream parties.

Question-to-Assertion

If your assignment asks a specific question(s), turn the question(s) into an assertion and give reasons why it is true or reasons for your opinion.

Assignment : What do Aylmer and Rappaccini have to be proud of? Why aren’t they satisfied with these things? How does pride, as demonstrated in “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” lead to unexpected problems?

Beginning thesis statement: Alymer and Rappaccinni are proud of their great knowledge; however, they are also very greedy and are driven to use their knowledge to alter some aspect of nature as a test of their ability. Evil results when they try to “play God.”

Write a sentence that summarizes the main idea of the essay you plan to write.

Main idea: The reason some toys succeed in the market is that they appeal to the consumers’ sense of the ridiculous and their basic desire to laugh at themselves.

Make a list of the ideas that you want to include; consider the ideas and try to group them.

• nature = peaceful
• war matériel = violent (competes with 1?)
• need for time and space to mourn the dead
• war is inescapable (competes with 3?)

Use a formula to arrive at a working thesis statement (you will revise this later).

• although most readers of _______ have argued that _______, closer examination shows that _______.
• _______ uses _______ and _____ to prove that ________.
• phenomenon x is a result of the combination of __________, __________, and _________.

What to keep in mind as you draft an initial thesis statement

Beginning statements obtained through the methods illustrated above can serve as a framework for planning or drafting your paper, but remember they’re not yet the specific, argumentative thesis you want for the final version of your paper. In fact, in its first stages, a thesis statement usually is ill-formed or rough and serves only as a planning tool.

As you write, you may discover evidence that does not fit your temporary or “working” thesis. Or you may reach deeper insights about your topic as you do more research, and you will find that your thesis statement has to be more complicated to match the evidence that you want to use.

You must be willing to reject or omit some evidence in order to keep your paper cohesive and your reader focused. Or you may have to revise your thesis to match the evidence and insights that you want to discuss. Read your draft carefully, noting the conclusions you have drawn and the major ideas which support or prove those conclusions. These will be the elements of your final thesis statement.

Sometimes you will not be able to identify these elements in your early drafts, but as you consider how your argument is developing and how your evidence supports your main idea, ask yourself, “ What is the main point that I want to prove/discuss? ” and “ How will I convince the reader that this is true? ” When you can answer these questions, then you can begin to refine the thesis statement.

Refine and polish the thesis statement

To get to your final thesis, you’ll need to refine your draft thesis so that it’s specific and arguable.

• Ask if your draft thesis addresses the assignment
• Question each part of your draft thesis
• Clarify vague phrases and assertions
• Investigate alternatives to your draft thesis

Consult the example below for suggestions on how to refine your draft thesis statement.

Sample Assignment

Choose an activity and define it as a symbol of American culture. Your essay should cause the reader to think critically about the society which produces and enjoys that activity.

• Ask The phenomenon of drive-in facilities is an interesting symbol of american culture, and these facilities demonstrate significant characteristics of our society.This statement does not fulfill the assignment because it does not require the reader to think critically about society.

Drive-ins are an interesting symbol of American culture because they represent Americans’ significant creativity and business ingenuity.

Among the types of drive-in facilities familiar during the twentieth century, drive-in movie theaters best represent American creativity, not merely because they were the forerunner of later drive-ins and drive-throughs, but because of their impact on our culture: they changed our relationship to the automobile, changed the way people experienced movies, and changed movie-going into a family activity.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast-food establishments, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize America’s economic ingenuity, they also have affected our personal standards.

While drive-in facilities such as those at fast- food restaurants, banks, pharmacies, and dry cleaners symbolize (1) Americans’ business ingenuity, they also have contributed (2) to an increasing homogenization of our culture, (3) a willingness to depersonalize relationships with others, and (4) a tendency to sacrifice quality for convenience.

This statement is now specific and fulfills all parts of the assignment. This version, like any good thesis, is not self-evident; its points, 1-4, will have to be proven with evidence in the body of the paper. The numbers in this statement indicate the order in which the points will be presented. Depending on the length of the paper, there could be one paragraph for each numbered item or there could be blocks of paragraph for even pages for each one.

Complete the final thesis statement

The bottom line.

As you move through the process of crafting a thesis, you’ll need to remember four things:

• Context matters! Think about your course materials and lectures. Try to relate your thesis to the ideas your instructor is discussing.
• As you go through the process described in this section, always keep your assignment in mind . You will be more successful when your thesis (and paper) responds to the assignment than if it argues a semi-related idea.
• Your thesis statement should be precise, focused, and contestable ; it should predict the sub-theses or blocks of information that you will use to prove your argument.
• Make sure that you keep the rest of your paper in mind at all times. Change your thesis as your paper evolves, because you do not want your thesis to promise more than your paper actually delivers.

In the beginning, the thesis statement was a tool to help you sharpen your focus, limit material and establish the paper’s purpose. When your paper is finished, however, the thesis statement becomes a tool for your reader. It tells the reader what you have learned about your topic and what evidence led you to your conclusion. It keeps the reader on track–well able to understand and appreciate your argument.

Writing Process and Structure

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Getting Started with Your Paper

Interpreting Writing Assignments from Your Courses

Generating Ideas for

Creating an Argument

Thesis vs. Purpose Statements

Architecture of Arguments

Working with Sources

Quoting and Paraphrasing Sources

Using Literary Quotations

Citing Sources in Your Paper

Drafting Your Paper

Generating Ideas for Your Paper

Introductions

Paragraphing

Developing Strategic Transitions

Conclusions

Revising Your Paper

Peer Reviews

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‘This Is America’: strengths and paradoxes of a critique of violence

by Luis Velasco-Pufleau · Published 01/08/2018 · Updated 30/09/2021

After it was released on 5 May 2018, the music video by Donald Glover (alias Childish Gambino ) ‘ This Is America ,’ quickly went viral. It unleashed passionate debates across both social networks and traditional media. The video generated hundreds of discussions in newspaper articles, videos and blog posts, echoing thousands of tweets, images and comments posted on several social media. Aside from some texts that analyze the political dimension of the video by putting them in the wider context of Donald Glover’s artistic career , the majority of articles and videos promise to reveal the symbolism , references , “ hidden meanings ” or “ theories ” behind ‘This Is America’. These explanations, which consist of deciphering some of the historical or perceived references in the video’s images and words, are largely based on comments posted on Twitter or in other articles across the Internet.

Childish Gambino’s exaggerated gestures and movements, his unassailable and unpredictable body, seem to be a cry of anger against the structural violence suffered by African-American citizens. The video clip is a strong criticism of gun worship in the United States, and for a few people Donald Glover’s virtuoso work renews the American tradition of protest songs . However his criticism of consumer society and the entertainment industry seems less obvious. If ‘This Is America’ was seen over two hundred million times on YouTube in three weeks, it also means tens of millions of online ads viewed by the same people and millions of dollars in advertising revenue. Paradoxically, the vast majority of articles on ‘This Is America’ are silent on Donald Glover’s activities in the entertainment industry and the political consequences of his participation in films produced by studios owned by the Walt Disney Company. The commodification of Glover’s body asks the fundamental question: to whom do our bodies belong? This post examines some of the strengths and paradoxes of ‘This Is America’, a provocative piece of art.

Aesthetic distance and multiplicity of interpretations

The richness and symbolic density of ‘This Is America’ encourage multiple interpretations, most of them with a strong political content: criticism of the violence generated by social injustice and racial discrimination ; condemnation of the cult of arms in the United States; denunciation of the shameful legacy of segregationist laws . 1 The execution of a black man, seated and with a cloth bag over his head, by a bullet in the back of his head could be seen as the denunciation of the armed violence in the United States on African-American citizens. Gambino’s gospel choir shooting could be a reference to the shootings perpetrated in the United States in a Methodist church in 2015 and in a Baptist church in 2017 . The various dances performed by Childish Gambino accompanied by black girls and boys dressed in school uniforms would aim to divert our attention away from the violence that takes place in the background, similarly mass consumerism and social networks distract us from the violence endured by our fellow citizens. Gambino’s exaggerated movements and postures could be a reference to the racialized behaviour of the character of Jim Crow, whose name was given to laws legitimizing racial segregation in the southern states of the United States from the late 19th century until the mid-1960s. The knight who crosses the back of the post-industrial scene of the video on a white horse could be one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Finally, the nightmarish chase at the end of the video could refer to the horror movie Get out .

Donald Glover refuses to provide the media with a ready-made explanation of the meaning of his work. He insists that it is the viewers who must form their own opinion and, therefore, that all aesthetic and political readings are valid. In doing this, Glover introduces what the philosopher Jacques Rancière called the ‘aesthetic distance’, a form of art effectiveness based on “the suspension of every determinate relation correlating the production of art forms and a specific social function.” 2 This assumed polysemy of the work allows its appropriation and mobilization by various actors in the political field in order to break the dominant consensus. According to Rancière, this makes it possible to create a political community where “the excluded is a conflictual actor […] carrying a right not yet recognized or witnessing an injustice in the existing state of right.” 3

Armed violence and sonic spaces

When watching ‘This Is America,’ the viewer is surprised by the abrupt changes in the attitude of Childish Gambino, the character played by Donald Glover, which precede the performance of the African American guitarist and then the members of the church choir. The contrast between Gambino’s emotions and gestures before the executions and the moments of the act is brutal. Moreover, these outbreaks of armed violence seem arbitrary and inexplicable in the context of the actions shown to us. They are all the more incomprehensible as the people executed participated in the smooth running of a collective musical action. Before they were shot to death they were part of the music.

Structurally and narratively, the moments of the performances mark the transition between lyrical sections, with voice-overs and/or the choir singing and dancing, with sections where Childish Gambino begins rapping in the first person with the phrase “This is America”. The perception we have of an acceleration of things happening in video is subtly driven by the mixing of two heterogeneous sonic spaces within the video clip. On the one hand there is the song itself: it was recorded, mixed and mastered in the studio (so the video is not a live recording of the song). On the other hand are the sounds that seem to come from the space where the video is filmed: screams, sounds of riots. The postindustrial hangar is first shown empty, then gradually fills up with people facing the police symbolized by a car, people running or dancing and even an ‘apocalyptic’ white horse.

Sonogram of ‘This Is America’: structure and narrative elements

Our attention is constantly held by the contrasts between the sections, the unpredictability of the narration and the growing presence of the hangar’s sonic space. Then suddenly, there is a 15-second break, when Childish Gambino shoots an imaginary weapon at an off-field target. We hear the sounds of people running and screaming, before he lights what appears to be a cannabis joint. Donald Glover gives us clues about this gesture in a recent interview published in The New Yorker, where he makes the link between the trauma caused by the violence suffered by African Americans and their use of cannabis, stating that the black characters of his TV series Atlanta “aren’t smoking weed all the time because it’s cool but because they have P.T.S.D .—every black person does.” 4

The politics of the black body and structural violence

The silence of the long 15-second break sets in motion a transition that leads us to another space, a nightmarish reality where Gambino is pursued by a crowd of people who probably want him dead. He runs for his life while the voice-over sings “You just a black man in this world, You just a barcode, You just a black man in this world…”

Throughout the video we are caught up in the gestures and movements of the bodies dancing in the foreground as well as the bodies moving, struggling and shouting in the background. They are black bodies that denounce through their gestures the historical violence to which they have been subjected, the null value of their lives in the face of firearms that take their existence away in a second. Childish Gambino’s body does not leave us indifferent, it seduces, surprises, frightens. He recalls the price to pay for centuries of oppression, this coming only a few days after rapper Kanye West , a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, declared that 400 years of slavery seemed to him to be a choice for those who had suffered it. As Ta-Nehisi Coates says, “America understands itself as God’s handiwork, but the black body is the clearest evidence that America is the work of men.” 5

On the paradoxes of ‘This is America’: to whom do our bodies belong?

Just as Donald Glover uses his body to denounce gun violence, the confusion of genres and contradictions of the entertainment industry are also manifestly embodied in his body and in the use that the Walt Disney Company can make of him. Glover asserts: “I’m scanned into ‘Star Wars’ now, my face and body.” He is aware of the consequences of Walt Disney owning the image of his body, not only for the purpose of marketing Star Wars products but also for producing other films based on his digital image. “Who’s to say that at some point they won’t take that scan and say, ‘Let’s make another movie with Donald. He’s been dead for fifteen years, but we can do whatever we want with him’.” 6 Even dead, Glover’s body can generate capital for his owners. As Jason Stanyek and Benjamin Piekut asserted, “in late capitalism, the dead are highly productive.” 7

The contrast on how Donald Glover uses his body in this Star Wars ad and in ‘This Is America’ is striking. He embodies the paradoxes inherent in the neoliberal chaos of the United States, this ‘America’ of which he speaks. The considerable impact of ‘This Is America’ should not hide the issues raised by its commercial dimension and the appropriation of this work by the entertainment industry and web giants. Even if the mix of genres assumed by its author could be considered as a strategy of circumvention or symbolic inversion, ‘This Is America’ asks the question: to whom do our bodies belong? This question is fundamental because it is closely linked both to slavery – the power to dispose and destroy bodies – and to the consumerist enslavement produced by our neoliberal societies of control.

Cite this blog post Luis Velasco-Pufleau (2018, August 1). ‘This Is America’: strengths and paradoxes of a critique of violence. Music, Sound and Conflict . Retrieved May 19, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.58079/rnxf

• According to the recent report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his mission to the United States of America, « the United States remains a chronically segregated society. Blacks are 2.5 times more likely than Whites to be living in poverty, their infant mortality rate is 2.3 times that of Whites, their unemployment rate is more than double that for Whites, they typically earn only 82.5 cents for every dollar earned by a White counterpart, their household earnings are on average well under two thirds of those of their White equivalents, and their incarceration rates are 6.4 times higher than those of Whites. These shameful statistics can only be explained by long-standing structural discrimination on the basis of race, reflecting the enduring legacy of slavery », Philip Alston, ‘ Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights on His Mission to the United States of America ’ (United Nations Human Rights Council, 4 May 2018), 14–15. [ ↩ ]
• Jacques Rancière, ‘The Paradoxes of Political Art’, in Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics , trans. Steven Corcoran (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), 138. [ ↩ ]
• Jacques Rancière, ‘The Ethical Turn of Aesthetics and Politics’, in Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics , trans. Steven Corcoran (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013), 189. [ ↩ ]
• Tad Friend, ‘ Donald Glover Can’t Save You ’, The New Yorker , 26 February 2018. [ ↩ ]
• Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2015), 12. [ ↩ ]
• Friend, ‘ Donald Glover Can’t Save You ’. [ ↩ ]
• Jason Stanyek and Benjamin Piekut, ‘Deadness: Technologies of the Intermundane’, TDR/The Drama Review 54, no. 1 (March 2010): 14. https://doi.org/10.1162/dram.2010.54.1.14 [ ↩ ]

Tags: democracy dissensus listening music embodiment politics Rancière slavery social justice

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Music, Sound & Conflict

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Think of yourself as a member of a jury, listening to a lawyer who is presenting an opening argument. You'll want to know very soon whether the lawyer believes the accused to be guilty or not guilty, and how the lawyer plans to convince you. Readers of academic essays are like jury members: before they have read too far, they want to know what the essay argues as well as how the writer plans to make the argument. After reading your thesis statement, the reader should think, "This essay is going to try to convince me of something. I'm not convinced yet, but I'm interested to see how I might be."

An effective thesis cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." A thesis is not a topic; nor is it a fact; nor is it an opinion. "Reasons for the fall of communism" is a topic. "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" is a fact known by educated people. "The fall of communism is the best thing that ever happened in Europe" is an opinion. (Superlatives like "the best" almost always lead to trouble. It's impossible to weigh every "thing" that ever happened in Europe. And what about the fall of Hitler? Couldn't that be "the best thing"?)

A good thesis has two parts. It should tell what you plan to argue, and it should "telegraph" how you plan to argue—that is, what particular support for your claim is going where in your essay.

Steps in Constructing a Thesis

First, analyze your primary sources.  Look for tension, interest, ambiguity, controversy, and/or complication. Does the author contradict himself or herself? Is a point made and later reversed? What are the deeper implications of the author's argument? Figuring out the why to one or more of these questions, or to related questions, will put you on the path to developing a working thesis. (Without the why, you probably have only come up with an observation—that there are, for instance, many different metaphors in such-and-such a poem—which is not a thesis.)

Once you have a working thesis, write it down.  There is nothing as frustrating as hitting on a great idea for a thesis, then forgetting it when you lose concentration. And by writing down your thesis you will be forced to think of it clearly, logically, and concisely. You probably will not be able to write out a final-draft version of your thesis the first time you try, but you'll get yourself on the right track by writing down what you have.

Keep your thesis prominent in your introduction.  A good, standard place for your thesis statement is at the end of an introductory paragraph, especially in shorter (5-15 page) essays. Readers are used to finding theses there, so they automatically pay more attention when they read the last sentence of your introduction. Although this is not required in all academic essays, it is a good rule of thumb.

Anticipate the counterarguments.  Once you have a working thesis, you should think about what might be said against it. This will help you to refine your thesis, and it will also make you think of the arguments that you'll need to refute later on in your essay. (Every argument has a counterargument. If yours doesn't, then it's not an argument—it may be a fact, or an opinion, but it is not an argument.)

This statement is on its way to being a thesis. However, it is too easy to imagine possible counterarguments. For example, a political observer might believe that Dukakis lost because he suffered from a "soft-on-crime" image. If you complicate your thesis by anticipating the counterargument, you'll strengthen your argument, as shown in the sentence below.

Some Caveats and Some Examples

A thesis is never a question.  Readers of academic essays expect to have questions discussed, explored, or even answered. A question ("Why did communism collapse in Eastern Europe?") is not an argument, and without an argument, a thesis is dead in the water.

A thesis is never a list.  "For political, economic, social and cultural reasons, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe" does a good job of "telegraphing" the reader what to expect in the essay—a section about political reasons, a section about economic reasons, a section about social reasons, and a section about cultural reasons. However, political, economic, social and cultural reasons are pretty much the only possible reasons why communism could collapse. This sentence lacks tension and doesn't advance an argument. Everyone knows that politics, economics, and culture are important.

A thesis should never be vague, combative or confrontational.  An ineffective thesis would be, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because communism is evil." This is hard to argue (evil from whose perspective? what does evil mean?) and it is likely to mark you as moralistic and judgmental rather than rational and thorough. It also may spark a defensive reaction from readers sympathetic to communism. If readers strongly disagree with you right off the bat, they may stop reading.

An effective thesis has a definable, arguable claim.  "While cultural forces contributed to the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of economies played the key role in driving its decline" is an effective thesis sentence that "telegraphs," so that the reader expects the essay to have a section about cultural forces and another about the disintegration of economies. This thesis makes a definite, arguable claim: that the disintegration of economies played a more important role than cultural forces in defeating communism in Eastern Europe. The reader would react to this statement by thinking, "Perhaps what the author says is true, but I am not convinced. I want to read further to see how the author argues this claim."

A thesis should be as clear and specific as possible.  Avoid overused, general terms and abstractions. For example, "Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe because of the ruling elite's inability to address the economic concerns of the people" is more powerful than "Communism collapsed due to societal discontent."

Copyright 1999, Maxine Rodburg and The Tutors of the Writing Center at Harvard University

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Writing a Paper: Thesis Statements

Basics of thesis statements.

The thesis statement is the brief articulation of your paper's central argument and purpose. You might hear it referred to as simply a "thesis." Every scholarly paper should have a thesis statement, and strong thesis statements are concise, specific, and arguable. Concise means the thesis is short: perhaps one or two sentences for a shorter paper. Specific means the thesis deals with a narrow and focused topic, appropriate to the paper's length. Arguable means that a scholar in your field could disagree (or perhaps already has!).

Strong thesis statements address specific intellectual questions, have clear positions, and use a structure that reflects the overall structure of the paper. Read on to learn more about constructing a strong thesis statement.

Being Specific

This thesis statement has no specific argument:

Needs Improvement: In this essay, I will examine two scholarly articles to find similarities and differences.

This statement is concise, but it is neither specific nor arguable—a reader might wonder, "Which scholarly articles? What is the topic of this paper? What field is the author writing in?" Additionally, the purpose of the paper—to "examine…to find similarities and differences" is not of a scholarly level. Identifying similarities and differences is a good first step, but strong academic argument goes further, analyzing what those similarities and differences might mean or imply.

Better: In this essay, I will argue that Bowler's (2003) autocratic management style, when coupled with Smith's (2007) theory of social cognition, can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover.

The new revision here is still concise, as well as specific and arguable.  We can see that it is specific because the writer is mentioning (a) concrete ideas and (b) exact authors.  We can also gather the field (business) and the topic (management and employee turnover). The statement is arguable because the student goes beyond merely comparing; he or she draws conclusions from that comparison ("can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover").

Making a Unique Argument

This thesis draft repeats the language of the writing prompt without making a unique argument:

Needs Improvement: The purpose of this essay is to monitor, assess, and evaluate an educational program for its strengths and weaknesses. Then, I will provide suggestions for improvement.

You can see here that the student has simply stated the paper's assignment, without articulating specifically how he or she will address it. The student can correct this error simply by phrasing the thesis statement as a specific answer to the assignment prompt.

Better: Through a series of student interviews, I found that Kennedy High School's antibullying program was ineffective. In order to address issues of conflict between students, I argue that Kennedy High School should embrace policies outlined by the California Department of Education (2010).

Words like "ineffective" and "argue" show here that the student has clearly thought through the assignment and analyzed the material; he or she is putting forth a specific and debatable position. The concrete information ("student interviews," "antibullying") further prepares the reader for the body of the paper and demonstrates how the student has addressed the assignment prompt without just restating that language.

Creating a Debate

This thesis statement includes only obvious fact or plot summary instead of argument:

Needs Improvement: Leadership is an important quality in nurse educators.

A good strategy to determine if your thesis statement is too broad (and therefore, not arguable) is to ask yourself, "Would a scholar in my field disagree with this point?" Here, we can see easily that no scholar is likely to argue that leadership is an unimportant quality in nurse educators.  The student needs to come up with a more arguable claim, and probably a narrower one; remember that a short paper needs a more focused topic than a dissertation.

Better: Roderick's (2009) theory of participatory leadership  is particularly appropriate to nurse educators working within the emergency medicine field, where students benefit most from collegial and kinesthetic learning.

Here, the student has identified a particular type of leadership ("participatory leadership"), narrowing the topic, and has made an arguable claim (this type of leadership is "appropriate" to a specific type of nurse educator). Conceivably, a scholar in the nursing field might disagree with this approach. The student's paper can now proceed, providing specific pieces of evidence to support the arguable central claim.

Choosing the Right Words

This thesis statement uses large or scholarly-sounding words that have no real substance:

Needs Improvement: Scholars should work to seize metacognitive outcomes by harnessing discipline-based networks to empower collaborative infrastructures.

There are many words in this sentence that may be buzzwords in the student's field or key terms taken from other texts, but together they do not communicate a clear, specific meaning. Sometimes students think scholarly writing means constructing complex sentences using special language, but actually it's usually a stronger choice to write clear, simple sentences. When in doubt, remember that your ideas should be complex, not your sentence structure.

Better: Ecologists should work to educate the U.S. public on conservation methods by making use of local and national green organizations to create a widespread communication plan.

Notice in the revision that the field is now clear (ecology), and the language has been made much more field-specific ("conservation methods," "green organizations"), so the reader is able to see concretely the ideas the student is communicating.

Leaving Room for Discussion

This thesis statement is not capable of development or advancement in the paper:

Needs Improvement: There are always alternatives to illegal drug use.

This sample thesis statement makes a claim, but it is not a claim that will sustain extended discussion. This claim is the type of claim that might be appropriate for the conclusion of a paper, but in the beginning of the paper, the student is left with nowhere to go. What further points can be made? If there are "always alternatives" to the problem the student is identifying, then why bother developing a paper around that claim? Ideally, a thesis statement should be complex enough to explore over the length of the entire paper.

Better: The most effective treatment plan for methamphetamine addiction may be a combination of pharmacological and cognitive therapy, as argued by Baker (2008), Smith (2009), and Xavier (2011).

In the revised thesis, you can see the student make a specific, debatable claim that has the potential to generate several pages' worth of discussion. When drafting a thesis statement, think about the questions your thesis statement will generate: What follow-up inquiries might a reader have? In the first example, there are almost no additional questions implied, but the revised example allows for a good deal more exploration.

Thesis Mad Libs

If you are having trouble getting started, try using the models below to generate a rough model of a thesis statement! These models are intended for drafting purposes only and should not appear in your final work.

• In this essay, I argue ____, using ______ to assert _____.
• While scholars have often argued ______, I argue______, because_______.
• Through an analysis of ______, I argue ______, which is important because_______.

Words to Avoid and to Embrace

When drafting your thesis statement, avoid words like explore, investigate, learn, compile, summarize , and explain to describe the main purpose of your paper. These words imply a paper that summarizes or "reports," rather than synthesizing and analyzing.

Instead of the terms above, try words like argue, critique, question , and interrogate . These more analytical words may help you begin strongly, by articulating a specific, critical, scholarly position.

Read Kayla's blog post for tips on taking a stand in a well-crafted thesis statement.

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Thesis Statements

What is a thesis statement.

Your thesis statement is one of the most important parts of your paper.  It expresses your main argument succinctly and explains why your argument is historically significant.  Think of your thesis as a promise you make to your reader about what your paper will argue.  Then, spend the rest of your paper–each body paragraph–fulfilling that promise.

Your thesis should be between one and three sentences long and is placed at the end of your introduction.  Just because the thesis comes towards the beginning of your paper does not mean you can write it first and then forget about it.  View your thesis as a work in progress while you write your paper.  Once you are satisfied with the overall argument your paper makes, go back to your thesis and see if it captures what you have argued.  If it does not, then revise it.  Crafting a good thesis is one of the most challenging parts of the writing process, so do not expect to perfect it on the first few tries.  Successful writers revise their thesis statements again and again.

A successful thesis statement:

• makes an historical argument
• takes a position that requires defending
• is historically specific
• is focused and precise
• answers the question, “so what?”

How to write a thesis statement:

Suppose you are taking an early American history class and your professor has distributed the following essay prompt:

“Historians have debated the American Revolution’s effect on women.  Some argue that the Revolution had a positive effect because it increased women’s authority in the family.  Others argue that it had a negative effect because it excluded women from politics.  Still others argue that the Revolution changed very little for women, as they remained ensconced in the home.  Write a paper in which you pose your own answer to the question of whether the American Revolution had a positive, negative, or limited effect on women.”

Using this prompt, we will look at both weak and strong thesis statements to see how successful thesis statements work.

While this thesis does take a position, it is problematic because it simply restates the prompt.  It needs to be more specific about how  the Revolution had a limited effect on women and  why it mattered that women remained in the home.

Revised Thesis:  The Revolution wrought little political change in the lives of women because they did not gain the right to vote or run for office.  Instead, women remained firmly in the home, just as they had before the war, making their day-to-day lives look much the same.

This revision is an improvement over the first attempt because it states what standards the writer is using to measure change (the right to vote and run for office) and it shows why women remaining in the home serves as evidence of limited change (because their day-to-day lives looked the same before and after the war).  However, it still relies too heavily on the information given in the prompt, simply saying that women remained in the home.  It needs to make an argument about some element of the war’s limited effect on women.  This thesis requires further revision.

Strong Thesis: While the Revolution presented women unprecedented opportunities to participate in protest movements and manage their family’s farms and businesses, it ultimately did not offer lasting political change, excluding women from the right to vote and serve in office.

Few would argue with the idea that war brings upheaval.  Your thesis needs to be debatable:  it needs to make a claim against which someone could argue.  Your job throughout the paper is to provide evidence in support of your own case.  Here is a revised version:

Strong Thesis: The Revolution caused particular upheaval in the lives of women.  With men away at war, women took on full responsibility for running households, farms, and businesses.  As a result of their increased involvement during the war, many women were reluctant to give up their new-found responsibilities after the fighting ended.

Sexism is a vague word that can mean different things in different times and places.  In order to answer the question and make a compelling argument, this thesis needs to explain exactly what  attitudes toward women were in early America, and  how those attitudes negatively affected women in the Revolutionary period.

Strong Thesis: The Revolution had a negative impact on women because of the belief that women lacked the rational faculties of men. In a nation that was to be guided by reasonable republican citizens, women were imagined to have no place in politics and were thus firmly relegated to the home.

This thesis addresses too large of a topic for an undergraduate paper.  The terms “social,” “political,” and “economic” are too broad and vague for the writer to analyze them thoroughly in a limited number of pages.  The thesis might focus on one of those concepts, or it might narrow the emphasis to some specific features of social, political, and economic change.

Strong Thesis: The Revolution paved the way for important political changes for women.  As “Republican Mothers,” women contributed to the polity by raising future citizens and nurturing virtuous husbands.  Consequently, women played a far more important role in the new nation’s politics than they had under British rule.

This thesis is off to a strong start, but it needs to go one step further by telling the reader why changes in these three areas mattered.  How did the lives of women improve because of developments in education, law, and economics?  What were women able to do with these advantages?  Obviously the rest of the paper will answer these questions, but the thesis statement needs to give some indication of why these particular changes mattered.

Strong Thesis: The Revolution had a positive impact on women because it ushered in improvements in female education, legal standing, and economic opportunity.  Progress in these three areas gave women the tools they needed to carve out lives beyond the home, laying the foundation for the cohesive feminist movement that would emerge in the mid-nineteenth century.

Thesis Checklist

When revising your thesis, check it against the following guidelines:

• Does my thesis make an historical argument?
• Does my thesis take a position that requires defending?
• Is my thesis historically specific?
• Is my thesis focused and precise?
• Does my thesis answer the question, “so what?”

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Developing Strong Thesis Statements

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The thesis statement or main claim must be debatable

An argumentative or persuasive piece of writing must begin with a debatable thesis or claim. In other words, the thesis must be something that people could reasonably have differing opinions on. If your thesis is something that is generally agreed upon or accepted as fact then there is no reason to try to persuade people.

Example of a non-debatable thesis statement:

This thesis statement is not debatable. First, the word pollution implies that something is bad or negative in some way. Furthermore, all studies agree that pollution is a problem; they simply disagree on the impact it will have or the scope of the problem. No one could reasonably argue that pollution is unambiguously good.

Example of a debatable thesis statement:

This is an example of a debatable thesis because reasonable people could disagree with it. Some people might think that this is how we should spend the nation's money. Others might feel that we should be spending more money on education. Still others could argue that corporations, not the government, should be paying to limit pollution.

Another example of a debatable thesis statement:

In this example there is also room for disagreement between rational individuals. Some citizens might think focusing on recycling programs rather than private automobiles is the most effective strategy.

The thesis needs to be narrow

Although the scope of your paper might seem overwhelming at the start, generally the narrower the thesis the more effective your argument will be. Your thesis or claim must be supported by evidence. The broader your claim is, the more evidence you will need to convince readers that your position is right.

Example of a thesis that is too broad:

There are several reasons this statement is too broad to argue. First, what is included in the category "drugs"? Is the author talking about illegal drug use, recreational drug use (which might include alcohol and cigarettes), or all uses of medication in general? Second, in what ways are drugs detrimental? Is drug use causing deaths (and is the author equating deaths from overdoses and deaths from drug related violence)? Is drug use changing the moral climate or causing the economy to decline? Finally, what does the author mean by "society"? Is the author referring only to America or to the global population? Does the author make any distinction between the effects on children and adults? There are just too many questions that the claim leaves open. The author could not cover all of the topics listed above, yet the generality of the claim leaves all of these possibilities open to debate.

Example of a narrow or focused thesis:

In this example the topic of drugs has been narrowed down to illegal drugs and the detriment has been narrowed down to gang violence. This is a much more manageable topic.

We could narrow each debatable thesis from the previous examples in the following way:

Narrowed debatable thesis 1:

This thesis narrows the scope of the argument by specifying not just the amount of money used but also how the money could actually help to control pollution.

Narrowed debatable thesis 2:

This thesis narrows the scope of the argument by specifying not just what the focus of a national anti-pollution campaign should be but also why this is the appropriate focus.

Qualifiers such as " typically ," " generally ," " usually ," or " on average " also help to limit the scope of your claim by allowing for the almost inevitable exception to the rule.

Types of claims

Claims typically fall into one of four categories. Thinking about how you want to approach your topic, or, in other words, what type of claim you want to make, is one way to focus your thesis on one particular aspect of your broader topic.

Claims of fact or definition: These claims argue about what the definition of something is or whether something is a settled fact. Example:

Claims of cause and effect: These claims argue that one person, thing, or event caused another thing or event to occur. Example:

Claims about value: These are claims made of what something is worth, whether we value it or not, how we would rate or categorize something. Example:

Claims about solutions or policies: These are claims that argue for or against a certain solution or policy approach to a problem. Example:

Which type of claim is right for your argument? Which type of thesis or claim you use for your argument will depend on your position and knowledge of the topic, your audience, and the context of your paper. You might want to think about where you imagine your audience to be on this topic and pinpoint where you think the biggest difference in viewpoints might be. Even if you start with one type of claim you probably will be using several within the paper. Regardless of the type of claim you choose to utilize it is key to identify the controversy or debate you are addressing and to define your position early on in the paper.

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70 years after brown v. board of education, new research shows rise in school segregation.

As the nation prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education , a new report from researchers at Stanford and USC shows that racial and economic segregation among schools has grown steadily in large school districts over the past three decades — an increase that appears to be driven in part by policies favoring school choice over integration.

Analyzing data from U.S. public schools going back to 1967, the researchers found that segregation between white and Black students has increased by 64 percent since 1988 in the 100 largest districts, and segregation by economic status has increased by about 50 percent since 1991.

The report also provides new evidence about the forces driving recent trends in school segregation, showing that the expansion of charter schools has played a major role.  

The findings were released on May 6 with the launch of the Segregation Explorer , a new interactive website from the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford University. The website provides searchable data on racial and economic school segregation in U.S. states, counties, metropolitan areas, and school districts from 1991 to 2022. 

“School segregation levels are not at pre- Brown levels, but they are high and have been rising steadily since the late 1980s,” said Sean Reardon , the Professor of Poverty and Inequality in Education at Stanford Graduate School of Education and faculty director of the Educational Opportunity Project. “In most large districts, school segregation has increased while residential segregation and racial economic inequality have declined, and our findings indicate that policy choices – not demographic changes – are driving the increase.” 

“There’s a tendency to attribute segregation in schools to segregation in neighborhoods,” said Ann Owens , a professor of sociology and public policy at USC. “But we’re finding that the story is more complicated than that.”

Assessing the rise

In the Brown v. Board decision issued on May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially segregated public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and established that “separate but equal” schools were not only inherently unequal but unconstitutional. The ruling paved the way for future decisions that led to rapid school desegregation in many school districts in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Though segregation in most school districts is much lower than it was 60 years ago, the researchers found that over the past three decades, both racial and economic segregation in large districts increased. Much of the increase in economic segregation since 1991, measured by segregation between students eligible and ineligible for free lunch, occurred in the last 15 years.

White-Hispanic and white-Asian segregation, while lower on average than white-Black segregation, have both more than doubled in large school districts since the 1980s. 

Racial-economic segregation – specifically the difference in the proportion of free-lunch-eligible students between the average white and Black or Hispanic student’s schools – has increased by 70 percent since 1991. 

School segregation is strongly associated with achievement gaps between racial and ethnic groups, especially the rate at which achievement gaps widen during school, the researchers said.  

“Segregation appears to shape educational outcomes because it concentrates Black and Hispanic students in higher-poverty schools, which results in unequal learning opportunities,” said Reardon, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and a faculty affiliate of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . 

Policies shaping recent trends 

The recent rise in school segregation appears to be the direct result of educational policy and legal decisions, the researchers said. 

Both residential segregation and racial disparities in income declined between 1990 and 2020 in most large school districts. “Had nothing else changed, that trend would have led to lower school segregation,” said Owens. 

But since 1991, roughly two-thirds of districts that were under court-ordered desegregation have been released from court oversight. Meanwhile, since 1998, the charter sector – a form of expanded school choice – has grown.

Expanding school choice could influence segregation levels in different ways: If families sought schools that were more diverse than the ones available in their neighborhood, it could reduce segregation. But the researchers found that in districts where the charter sector expanded most rapidly in the 2000s and 2010s, segregation grew the most. 

The researchers’ analysis also quantified the extent to which the release from court orders accounted for the rise in school segregation. They found that, together, the release from court oversight and the expansion of choice accounted entirely for the rise in school segregation from 2000 to 2019.

The researchers noted enrollment policies that school districts can implement to mitigate segregation, such as voluntary integration programs, socioeconomic-based student assignment policies, and school choice policies that affirmatively promote integration. 

“School segregation levels are high, troubling, and rising in large districts,” said Reardon. “These findings should sound an alarm for educators and policymakers.”

Additional collaborators on the project include Demetra Kalogrides, Thalia Tom, and Heewon Jang. This research, including the development of the Segregation Explorer data and website, was supported by the Russell Sage Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   

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America grows thicker with us

Published in Spring 2024 Online Folio

Over cold cola and Jollof, my new best friend, a handsome Fula in my dorm, remembers back

a plane set ablaze from faulty machinery.

Too cheap, he had chosen the bus and missed the inferno. A classmate

burned to bone.

At the embassy window, my number called,                              

cast against bullet-proof pane.

Congratulations

the consul officer says, beaming from his carefully

considered act of benevolence.

My crossed fingers exhaled, woozy –

I know to feel sorry for the family behind me. The baby, plump as mangoes, coos

pulls her father’s hat down his face.

He returns it to its first

My friend opens the blinds then refills my drink. Memory thins in the half-eaten night. Thrums

only when it shouldn’t: graduation. first apartment. first raise.

In our cups of sweet carbon

atoms are wide awake, numbered, disorderly

we dissolve                                                                                        

laced with guilt

This piece is from our Spring 2024 African Writing Online Folio, an online-exclusive extension of our special issue, “African Writing: A Partial Cartography of Provocations,” guest edited by Chris Abani. You can read more from our Spring 2024 issue, available for purchase in print and digital forms here.

Liz Femi  is a Nigerian American writer, actor, and NAACP Theater Award Nominee for her solo play,  Take Me to the Poorhouse . A recipient of Writeability’s Right to Write Award, she has work published in  Good River Review ,  Wild Roof Journal ,  Stone Poetry Quarterly ,  Two Thirds North ,  West Trade Review , and elsewhere. She is based in Los Angeles and Atlanta and is a 2024 Pushcart winner. 

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Statement on Supreme Court Decision in CFPB v. CFSA

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a statement today regarding the Supreme Court’s decision in CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association of America:

“For years, lawbreaking companies and Wall Street lobbyists have been scheming to defund essential consumer protection enforcement. The Supreme Court has rejected their radical theory that would have devastated the American financial markets. The Court repudiated the arguments of the payday loan lobby and made it clear that the CFPB is here to stay.”

“Congress created the CFPB to be the primary federal watchdog protecting consumers from predatory and abusive practices in the financial sector. Since the CFPB opened its doors in 2011, it has delivered more than $20 billion in consumer relief to hundreds of millions of consumers and has handled more than 4 million consumer complaints.”

“Today’s decision is a resounding victory for American families and honest businesses alike, ensuring that consumers are protected from predatory corporations and that markets are fair, transparent, and competitive.”

“This ruling upholds the fact that the CFPB’s funding structure is not novel or unusual, but in fact an essential part of the nation’s financial regulatory system, providing stability and continuity for the agencies and the system as a whole. As we have done since our inception, the CFPB will continue carrying out the vital consumer protection work Congress charged us to perform for the American people.”

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a 21st century agency that implements and enforces Federal consumer financial law and ensures that markets for consumer financial products are fair, transparent, and competitive. For more information, visit www.consumerfinance.gov .