Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ Video Is Also an Indictment of Today’s Church

Among people’s initial responses was the idea that in this song, Donald Glover is paying homage to the “Charleston Nine,” the black churchgoers murdered by extreme racist Dylann Roof in the historic Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015. While this disturbing imagery reminds us of this atrocity, while watching this scene, I also saw this as an indictment of the American church.