[Only a couple
New England states celebrate
Patriots’ Day, which officially pays
tribute to the colonial Minutemen who helped begin the American Revolution
at Lexington and Concord. But the holiday offers a chance to think about
patriotism in America more broadly, which I’ll do this week, starting with my
annual Patriots’ Day post, continuing through a series on critically patriotic
texts, and leading up to an update on my new
AmericanStudying book!]
When I finally
got around to checking out Gary Clark Jr.’s “This Land” in late January, after
I had seen it highly recommended by reliable voices for at least a couple
weeks, what immediately blew me away was the chorus: “I remember when you used
to tell me/‘Nigga run, nigga run/Go back where you come from/ Nigga run, nigga
run/Go back where you come from/We don’t want you, we don’t want your kind/We
think you’s a dog born’/Fuck you, I’m America’s son/This is where I come from.”
I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered a more succinct expression of the debate
between the exclusionary and inclusive definitions of America on which my
forthcoming book focuses: Clark apparently was prompted to write the song when
he was confronted by a particular horrific version of the exclusionary
attitude, when he was attacked
and called the n-word in front of his young son; and his choice to quote
that perspective directly and then respond so forcefully in the chorus is thus
at the heart of the song’s reason for being as well as its resulting identity
and meanings.
The song’s
lyrics (there and throughout) are more than powerful enough to speak for
themselves, but the striking video, directed by filmmaker Savanah Leaf, contributes
additional and equally potent layers as well. It does so most visibly and
consistently through its use of Southern
gothic imagery, starting with the decaying former plantation (flying an
upside-down American flag) in which Clark is located for most of the video.
Thanks in no small measure to Beyoncé’s
visual album Lemonade (2016), among
other prominent cultural influences and images (including the new, third
season of True Detective), the
Southern gothic has returned to American popular culture with a vengeance in
recent years. Leaf’s video for Clark’s song builds on those longstanding and
evolving influences, weds them to more overt depictions of racial violence
(especially nooses) than is sometimes the case in the symbolic gothic, and centers
them all on repeated
and stunning images of the Confederate flag (along with the
MAGA hat one of the two most contested American symbols of the last decade).
This is Southern gothic with a very pointed 2019 twist.
That might all
seem more critical than critically patriotic, of course, and both “This Land”
and its video have that more justifiably angry side to be sure. But I would
argue that the video and Clark do put even the darkest images in service of depictions
of and arguments for the future, and the video especially does that through one
central choice: besides Clark, every other person in the video is a young
African American kid. As that hyperlinked interview reflects, that choice
was certainly inspired by the role that Clark’s own young son played in the
experiences that prompted the song (as well as in every aspect of Clark’s life
for the last four years, of course). And I suppose one could argue that
watching these young African Americans confront images of racism, past and
present, is its own form of darkness and anger. But I believe that the video’s
use of kids, and particularly the culminating images of those kids watching and
singing around a bonfire for the various neo-Confederate images, offers instead
a portrayal of a future in which the next generations, those America’s sons and
daughters, can create a different set of narratives and communities. I can’t
imagine a more important and inspiring vision of critical patriotism than that!
Patriotic series
continues tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other patriotic texts you’d highlight?
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