May 28, 2018
Stephen Casmier is the guest on this week's Childish Gambino
"This is America" themed episode of The Chauncey DeVega
Show. He is a professor of English at Saint Louis University
and the author of the great essay
Donald Glover and Richard Pryor, or the Chokehold of the
Minstrel Show which can be read at Medium.
During this episode of The Chauncey DeVega
Show, Stephen and Chauncey have a wide ranging conversation
about black art and black genius, the problems with how concepts
such as "intersectionality", "representation" and "identity
politics" have been commonly used and understood, the uprising in
Ferguson, and America's almost pornographic relationship to black
suffering. Dr. Casmier and Chauncey also deconstruct the politics
and aesthetics of Childish Gambino's amazingly popular new song and
video "This is America".
In this week's episode Chauncey DeVega intervenes against the
horrible cruelty and evil that is the Trump administration's war on
the children and families of undocumented residents, immigrants,
and refugees. Chauncey also reflects on the right-wing "patriotic"
anthem "I'm Proud to be an American" and how it tells some
unintentional truths about the culture of cruelty and the horrible
wrongs in the country. At the end of this week's podcast, Chauncey
has a good laugh about the lawsuit by the people behind the iconic
children's TV series "Sesame Street" against the new adult comedy
"The Happytime Murders".