This Is America - Artist Interpertation

I painted this in 2019. That day I remember waking up with a song in my head. Nothing out of the ordinary except for the song. I don't listen to a lot of new popular music. But somehow Childish Gambino flew through my spectrum. It seemed both scary and happy, a tune that earworms into your head with a hook that makes you want to sing along. When I look at it I see something different each time. Right now, for example, I see a duck in the middle. There's a tree on the right-hand side. The sun shines from the left. Sea to shining sea below. But there is also a bit of pain involved. Much like the song, a layer of struggle and oppression. Looking now I see handcuffs and chains. I don't remember painting these things when I made it. I see the violence that has taken place on our streets. I see the now clashes between protestors and government. I see the mistrust and lies. The looting of stores, but also the looting of government resources by corporations. I see revolution and bloodshed. I see the pain of a young man just out for a jog. The heartbreak as a guy takes one of his last breaths on this planet to cry out to his mother, who passed two years before by the way. I see the face of a young lady who's a name I didn't even have time to learn before yet another person was murdered. I see a civilization fallen. There's so much more that I can say and honestly it all breaks my heart. But beneath all of that in the purple sky... I still see hope. I still see that duck in the middle. I still see that tree on the right-hand side. I still see the rays of sunlight coming down upon the water. I might look bleak outside sure. I have often called this land The Divided Lands of 'Murica in the past few years. Hopefully one day soon we can all come together. There is so much that I want to say right now. As a creator, a writer, an artist, as someone who's skin is a wonderful mixture of burnt umber and red ochre from his Irish,  Native Indigenous, and African ancestors, as a black man, as a 43yr old male, as someone who has studied The Tao, as someone who has studied The Bible, as a human being on this planet... Instead, I will just say to stop and look. See what we have done. To this land, to the air, to the water, to the creatures, and to each other. Stop and look around. I took a moment to read through the words that Donald Glover wrote and hid behind the catchy beats and "Woo Yeah" lyrical sprinkles. A line that we all caught at the beginning talked of being "just a black man in this world. You just a barcode, ayy" None of us should feel that we are expendable products only meant to be sold or worked. Slavery was not truly taken away but instead replaced with debt. It was replaced with lack and ripping apart of neighbors to say that each new group of poor coming here is taking away from what we have by people who honestly never planned to share.  I only wonder if a returning deity or ascended master would think. Think I remember what my mother would say, that this will all work out in the end. She wouldn't be happy about what she saw happening right now, but she would hold to her faith that as long as the sunlight returned each day there was a chance for things to get better. 

This Is America