This is America, Thanos

May 28th, 2018; MSM

You never realize how difficult it is to stay relevant until you dedicate your time to maintaining what amounts to a blog. "Maintains" is a bit of a strong word but just go with me here for a moment. There has been a lot going on, in my head, as of late. A lot of things I'd love to touch on. But then it's strange because I lack the time to give those ideas the proper coverage they deserve. It is because of that and this looming fear of relevance-there it goes again-that I find myself unable to commit the words. It's a shame. Why do I care so much about being late to the party? Simple. I feel like it's a waste to purport the same trash that everyone else is. It's a waste of my time and the time of any patrons who would visit my "humble" establishment here.

This isn't about click bait. My site, not the title. The title is for sure click bait but it does serve a purpose as well. I want to further the conversation. That's where things like this place--looking further outward--can thrive. The internet. Innovation shines there. Or, at least it can if we allow it. So why not?

This is America. And this is the link to the video. And everything and this and that has been said about it. But no one seems to be talking about the other little subtleties. Maybe my own experience helps shape the perspective; not maybe, definitely, but that's beside the point. I saw the video and looked at scenes where the children are on the rafters above with their cellphones that were originally on Childish Gambino move to the violence that propagated the background and saw that as a call to action. To use that "tool" which he so cleverly alludes to just prior to the scene in question. How those children, having their faces concealed, showcases that it's not a race thing. And that symbolism of the modern revolutionist and how it will be the youth that spark it, just all speaks to me of so much more depth. The bell curve of the piece. How it starts simple, the crescendo, plateau, and then the decrescendo which no one really talks about. How the turning point, again at the children with faces obscured juxtaposed with the ones that were surrounding him, remarks at the height of the "performer." Let's call it the "Ice Effect." Referencing the rappers, T and Cube, as opposed to the transitioned form of water. How they came up with truth and "realness" and then eventually became staples of "a life." Faking it. Actors portraying things and lives they no longer lived or ever had in some cases. Just how once Childish raises his hands without actually holding a firearm and his "posse" vanishes. How he walks alone to the sum of his work. A stable of vehicles. A pretty girl. His wealth, his worth, for all he did to get there amounting to really, barely anything at all. Hollow. And into the end as he runs in the dark. For all he did, his endeavors in the end made him no different from those others who fell before him. The people, America, uses him till they no longer need him. In the coming revolution, he'll have to pay his dues just as everyone else. His time is over. But Childish has rapped about things like that for years. And comedians of colors have remarked about it as well. That, even the wealthiest, most famous, most popular person of color is still just that before anything else. At least in this system.

So where does Thanos fit in? Sure it was a distraction. Sure I enjoyed it and would speed the money over and over again in any countless number of alternate realities. But really, the only reason it's there is because I had this joke sitting in my head for a few weeks now about how I didn't realize Avenger's: Infinity War was going to be a horror movie. Because a black guy is the first to die.