Donald Glover and two of the writers on his hit FX series Atlanta went through racial harassment when they went to London to film for the show.
Donald and his co-writers Stefani Robinson and Stephen Glover – Donald’s brother and the executive producer of the show – spoke about the incident at a news conference at the Television Critics Association.
They addressed what had transpired, stating that the incident shocked them so much that they did not immediately realize what had gone down.
Stephen recounted the incident:
“It was the first night there. This group of people walks up. And maybe one of them kind of notices Donald or recognizes him.
And she stops and they start asking if they know anywhere around here to get something to drink. I think we were talking to them for a second. It’s this girl and two or three other guys.”
He went on to say that one of the guys said to them that they could break into the bar because “you guys all carry hammers.” By hammers, they were referring to guns. Stephen stated:
“Mind you, all of the writers on ‘Atlanta’ are Black.
So, he’s making a reference that we all have hammers, and we can just break into this place, which we kind of ignored.”
Stefani added:
“[The situation was] so insulting, but not insulting at the same time because it took us five minutes to fully understand.”
Things apparently escalated from there, with Stefani revealing:
“He got to a point of like if the insinuation was lost on us, he got specific and he was like, ‘You guys are Black, you’ve got to jail and you do things like that.’
Like he kept doubling down on it.”
The horrible incident ended soon after — but before it did, another man made yet another racially-charged statement as the group was chatting with a woman. Stephen shared:
“She’s talking to us. And then, after a minute, the guy just runs back down the street and grabs her and throws her over his shoulder, and he’s like, ‘Run. They re going to rape you, like, rape you.’
The girl was literally, like, ‘I’m sorry,’ as she’s being taken away. So, it was pretty bad.”
The entire situation stunned all three of them, with Donald saying:
“We are just standing there, like, ‘What just happened?’”
