Talk:This Is America (song)

This Is America (song) was a Music good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
March 23, 2019	Good article nominee	Not listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on May 16, 2018.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that "This Is America" by Childish Gambino addresses the themes of being black in America and gun violence in the United States?

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	This article was accepted from this draft on 7 May 2018 by reviewer Ammarpad (talk · contribs).

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The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:

Howard, Theresa Ruth (May 10, 2018). "A Dancer's Take on 'This is America': Is The Dance A Distraction Or Something Deeper?". Dance Magazine. Retrieved May 11, 2018.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2020 and 15 March 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Kevintowles39.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:17, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Bad part of article[edit]

In the "Music Video" section, a major portion of it has "We" before every sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.240.130.67 (talk) 01:26, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

" fearfully running towards the camera while being chased by white people."[edit]

wrong, there's at least one black person on the left, and due to them being blurred out some of them could be latino or anything other than white, too — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.194.173.74 (talk) 19:06, 17 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why is Mashable a source?[edit]

nor Mashable nor HuffPost is not a music magazine. Please use music magazines or something reputable not tabloidy/clickbait internet garbage sources. EDIT also, Rolling Stone is not a music magazine despite its name Yoandri Dominguez Garcia 17:07, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

It's a reliable source at times. See WP:IRS EvergreenFir (talk) 17:15, 27 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Last sentence in critical reception, "Viewers were angered..."[edit]

I am having trouble verify this sentence in the Times article source cited or even understanding the meaning the editor was getting at. In particular, the prase "At one point in time" implies that America no longer has these problems which is clearly not the message of this song/video.

Viewers were angered at the message, seeing it as an insult to Americans that were said to have ignored racial issues that plagued America at one point in time.

Can someone take a look and tell me I am not crazy to remove it? Also, why say "Aside from deserved praise"? Do we not need a reliable source for these "angered viewers"? I have no doubt they exist but we still need a source. ---Coffeeandcrumbs 06:53, 29 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Short description[edit]

@Ss112: Re diff, the article already has a short description because by default it uses Wikidata—see d:Q52808665 which is the "Wikidata item" link in the tools on the left of the article. Short descriptions are very helpful for the many readers accessing Wikipedia with a mobile device—readers see the description at the top of the article, and they see it when searching for the title. The problem with leaving the short description at Wikidata is that it could be vandalized there and editors here may never notice. However, if the description is here, any damage will be noticed. That is why short descriptions are being applied to each article at enwiki. The note added in diff seems to be about WP:Hatnote? That note does not apply to {{short description}}. Johnuniq (talk) 09:35, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnuniq: I already know why short descriptions are being added to articles, and no, I meant the note to apply to the description (yes, it's a similar reasoning to not using a hatnote, but that last part is about the specific wording that was used in the description). I don't think this "trend" will last; it'll be like the interwiki language links that were here for a few years at the ends of articles then removed. Ss112 09:45, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is a short description (at Wikidata, click the above link), and sooner or later someone will damage it. Readers will see the damage displayed very prominently, but editors here won't notice. Johnuniq (talk) 09:58, 31 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Recording[edit]

Trillfendi, it's your burden to provide sources for your changes. The source you cite states: "The bones of "This is America," the newly Grammy-anointed song and record of the year, were actually laid before Awaken." and "Another two years passed before they went back to finish the song." This could mean anything from 2015–2017, 2014–2018, etc. Interpreting it as 2016–2018 is WP:POV. Musicfan122 (talk) 19:32, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yet here you are trying to apply your own theories of special relativity to it. It’s chronologically implausible that this song was recorded before even Atlanta was created let alone taking 4 years. I simply used common sense. Trillfendi (talk) 19:58, 1 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Irrelevant Information[edit]

The first person depicted as being shot in the video, a guitarist who had been accompanying Gambino's singing up to that point, was musician Calvin the Second, but was initially mistaken by many viewers to be the father of 17-year-old gun violence victim Trayvon Martin.

Why is this information included in the article? As the article states, the guitarist is not Trayvon Martin's father. This was just a rumor that was corrected within hours of the video going up--it didn't even last long enough to become an urban legend. More generally, the music video section contains a lot of conjecture and interpretations without citations. Faithfulruslan (talk) 14:35, 13 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]