This is our America

With the recent release of the music video for Childish Gambino’s “This is America,” I am writing to you because I feel it is more than imperative now to discuss the wrongs in American society. Gambino himself manages to hit the nail(s) on the head. His apathetic behavior toward basic rules of artistic expression and censorship not only makes the video memorable but meaningful. In particular, there was a scene in which Gambino pulls out an assault rifle and fires away at an all-black church choir. Without meaning, a normal person would be shocked at seeing such events.

But we aren’t normal people. We are Americans, and this is America.

Every other week on television, there seems to be a shooting at a school, church, or shopping mall. These are places where we are supposed to feel safe with our friends, our teachers, our family, and our God. And the bizarre thing is we hardly shed a tear for those people. We shake our head in disappointment and change the channel.

As a high school student, I am afraid. Not of being shot, but of the idea of me growing up knowing that my generation is becoming, in a sense, desensitized because of the mass media. Must we wait until our loved ones are shot to start caring? Or do we wait until the next shooting to start genuinely talking about the issue at hand? Watching the news, I feel like that’s the case. DAANISH SALMAN

Little Rock