Donald and Stephen Glover Respond to Criticism of 'Atlanta' Being "Only for White People"

Donald and Stephen Glover have responded to the Black community’s criticism of Atlanta being “only for white people.”

Speaking on the show’s TCA panel this week, Donald first opened up about how “everybody’s gonna have an agenda on some level” on the internet, and that those criticism affect him as a Black person. “It would be silly to say that sometimes what people say doesn’t affect you because—especially being Black —I feel like a lot of the Black criticism bothers me only because it sounds like [it’s from] Black people who don’t really know what we’ve been through,” he said. “I don’t think they give a lot of credit to what we’ve gone through. So to be like, ‘Oh, these Black people hate Black people or these Black people hate Black women.’— I’m like, It’s such, my it’s such a small view of who we are. I feel like it might even be because of what we’ve been through that you look at us the way you look at us.”

He continued to touch on the culture and having to relearn many things due to trauma they experienced, ”I kind of feel like I’m a little through with the culture, personally. I do a lot of this shit for the people. But the culture, I think at this point, I think a lot of us are sitting here being like, ‘Yo, a lot of this shit was learned because of f*cked up shit that happened to us. And we actually have to relearn a lot of stuff.’” Donald added, “So if you’re sitting there being like, ‘Oh, this is misogynoir,’ I’m wondering why you think that and why you think I feel that way when I’m nothing without my people. It’s just kind of wack to me. Some of that to me is just Internet people trying to get hot, which is also something we learned in the system we’re in.”

Despite his comments, however, the older Glover brother is still open to criticism and believes that “the conversation isn’t as elevated as it should be.” He shared, “There are better ways to talk about it rather than like with shit I’ve heard in fourth grade about who we are because I feel this is such a Black show. To say it’s only for white people, it’s like we’re cutting ourselves down which is kind of wack to me…I’ve seen on Tiktok where people say Atlanta‘s transphobic. Man, I’m neighbors with a trans man and he told me Atlanta is his favorite show. I love how you guys talked about the trans thing because a lot of this shit is just takes for the internet, you know?”

Stephen echoed his brother’s sentiments, adding that the criticisms of Atlanta not being for Black people — when he thinks otherwise — rubs him the wrong way. “But I will also say being in Atlanta and walking around, or even like in LA, I run into Black people all the time who tell me this is their favorite show and how they appreciate everything we do. They also say we’re making them want to do cooler and weirder stuff,” he continued. “You know, like the TikTok generation kids, they’ll hit me up online and say how much they love the episodes. So for me, that’s the real kind of conversations that are happening out there. Internet stuff isn’t always real; it’s not how people really feel. I kind of get my feelings from the streets, to sum that up.”

The fourth and final season of Atlanta premieres September 15.

In related news, watch the trailer for Atlanta season four.