Atlanta Commentates on Black Parents and White Adopters

 **SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST TWO EPISODES OF ATLANTA SEASON 3!**

So Donald Glover's Atlanta is back and the first two episodes released a little while ago and now I have the time to talk about it. I was up in the middle of the night that week when I remembered that the third season of Atlanta started already. I went to Hulu and started the first episode. In the opening sequence we see two men fishing in a lake at night. One is black, the other is white. They laugh and talk and then the black fisherman mentions how people end up missing  at this lake. The white fisherman mentions how this lake used to be a town occupied by black people and it was flooded by the mayor to create this lake. The scene becomes massively eerie as the area becomes darker when the fisherman looks away. His voice trails off and the audio becomes muffled and when he finally turns around he is missing eyes and the black fisherman is drug underwater by black hands. I was terribly uncomfortable when I first watched this.               

This scene reflects some real world trauma as recently of the past year a topic of discussion in the black community on social media has been shedding light on black communities that were destroyed for parks and lakes.

The rest of the episode is equally quite interesting, perhaps more so. Season 3's first episode delves into a topics of raising black children in America. We first see a group of children in a classroom excited because their teacher is going to send them on a trip to see Black Panther 2. This mention right here had me assuming we were looking into the close future as only the first Black Panther has released so far. On subject, one black child in particular by the name of Laquarius starts getting overly excited and starts dancing in the classroom and making jokes. The remainder of this episode focuses on Laquarius and his relationship with his parental figures. Laquarius is sent to the principal's office where his mom is brought in along with his grandfather. The mother is highly upset having to be called away from her job just because her son disrupted class for a bit.

She feels so annoyed by the situation she suggests just to give him detention and be done with it, but the guidance counselor suggests Laquarius be placed in remedial classes which upsets Mom and rebuttals "He is not the first child to misbehave in class. He doesn't need to be placed in remedial classes. He's not the first child to act up in class!"

When Laquarius's mother and grandfather take him out into the hallway his mother makes him recreate the dances in front of her as punishment and the grandfather hilariously lightly slaps the boy across the face. Mom also bespoke a telling message: "You out here showing out for your white friends, but they're going to be laughing when you're in jail or dead. "

The guidance counselor from earlier sees all of this and afterwards when she escorts the boy back to class she says "Don't worry. I'll get you away from all of this." Some time after the boy is at home with his mother complaining about doing some of the chores when there's a knock at the door. There's a white woman with two police officers in the background. The woman is with child protection services and she was called to check on the living conditions of the boy. Mom is infuriated and assumes her son called them. He tries to tell her that he didn't, but she doesn't listen and in a fit of rage pushes him into the arms of the social worker.

Confused and scared, the boy is thrust into a new home; this one with two matriarchs. This isn't the first black child these two white women have fostered, there are three other black children here as well. In this new environment there are changes. The food is terrible and not filling, he is put on display as a charity case, and deals with diet racism from his adoptive parents. These instances are played for laughs, but at the same time are serious. At the first dinner scene for instance it commentates on how white people tend to not season their food at all by giving a barely "fried chicken" with some dull vegetables, but it's pointed out by the boy that while they're eating this undercooked unseasoned chicken that the dog is eating a hamburger. It's subtle, but it's a commentary on how a lot of white people care more about animals than black people.

When he and the other children are working in the garden one of his mothers asks him to sing while he's working. Before he even utters a word I immediately felt uncomfortable. Singing while doing manual labor was commonly shown in media depicting slavery and prison labor. This is made worse when she stops the boy while he recites rap lyrics and she starts singing a very mockingly racist tune. Later we see the boy get up in the middle of the night and seemingly either vomit or do something else as he was clutching his stomach. Child services comes the next day and this time the social worker is a black woman. She said she received a call from a neighbor and wants to checks in. She sees the boy in the pain and asks him if he's okay in which he responds that he's very hungry. The mother looks annoyed and a bit worried and goes to talk with the social worker in the backyard. In the next scene when the children are getting into the van we see a body in a garbage bag nearby implying that the mothers killed the social worker.

While these two social worker scenes are similar, they are also vastly different. The social worker in this case seems to care more about the child on a personal level. She doesn't assume violence so she doesn't bring any police, but given what happened she should have. In the previous encounter it was implied that the guidance counselor called child protection services, but in this case although the social worker said a neighbor called I believe it was actually the boy this time. Something feels off and all the children are put into the van being told that they're going to "The Grand Canyon." What's actually going on is more disturbing. Throughout this whole tenure something seemed off about these two white women. Their house smelled odd, they haven't been living in this house for that long, and we never see the children go to school during this time. 

It's still not clear by the end exactly what was going on with these two women, but we do here that they were low on money. They drive off into the night in panic and the look each other give with the subtitles was hilarious. 

"These white women are going to kill us." 

"Nigga, I know!"

After they let their dog run off to be free they get back into the van and drive on a bridge. It's apparent their about to drive off of it to commit suicide taking the children with them and before they do they check the back and when she pulls up one of the hats, the dog is underneath it. The boy is still in the back. He stayed as bait so the others could slip out unnoticed. Before the van drives off the bridge he pops the trunk and rolls out with the dog. He manages to make his way back to his birth mother's house and starts washing the dishes in the sink. On the television we see a news report of the remaining children being found in the woods. The boy's mother walks in and says to him "Oh, so you finally decided to come back and exchanges a sweet smile after he asks if there's any spaghetti in the refrigerator. After washing the dishes he gets the spaghetti and watches cartoons. The final shot is with Earn waking up in his room.

This episode was a lot. There's a lot to say here on the portrayal of black parenthood, education, and white adoption. I speak on personal experience along with second hand I gained over the years when I say this but the American education system is bad and particularly bad for black people. In public schools there are many districts with classrooms that are at least one these two things: overcrowded or underfunded. And in the case of these schools there can be disconnect between white instructors and black students. As it has been shown tests can be culturally biased so its no surprise that the instructors can be looking at these students with a separate lens and things can go in multiple directions. There can be outright prejudice or their endeavors of helping these students can feel a lot like a publicity stunt. Something self-indulgent to alleviate your white guilt or make you feel virtuous. 

As we can see from this episode sometimes your help can end up doing more harm than good. The guidance counselor made a lot of assumptions and never talked to the parent or the child. It's like my mother had told me often in my childhood -

That is to be said the way the mother handled child services arriving was terrible. She immediately got upset and assumed her son called them even though there was no reason to suspect so and she threw her own child out causing him to end up in that situation. She didn't listen to her son when he told her he didn't call them and this actually brought up some memories for me. I remember plenty times when my mother accused me of doing things I didn't do and no matter how many times I denied it she wouldn't believe me and I'd get punished for it. My experience isn't unique as over the years on social media I've seen other black people say the same thing. In the "Get the Belt" skit from A Black Lady Sketch Show we also see a child get punished for something she didn't do.

There's been discussion about black parenthood and if everything we experienced was for the better for us despite the love we have for our black parents. It's an ongoing discussion and as shown in this episode outside opinions aren't needed. From the time of watching this episode to writing this article I discovered something about this episode. The two segments are actually based in history. The opening scene with the two fisherman is at Lake Lanier, a man made lake in northern Georgia that was built over a predominately black town to give electricity and water to surrounding areas. 

In times of drought the underwater city can be seen including rubble, buildings and even headstones from cemeteries. Like I mentioned at the beginning of this piece current residents were paid to move, however I didn't find anything saying that some people couldn't move or stayed. Still, there are graves underneath those waters and there are rumors that the lake is haunted. People have claimed to have heard church bells ringing and many people have drowned in the lake over the years, with some who survived described to have felt like they were being pulled under by hands.

The rest of the episode is based on a very real and very tragic event. Not so long ago in 2018, a white couple in California drove off a cliff killing themselves and their six adopted children. This event is known as the Hart Family murders. It actually received two documentaries; one on Discovery and the other on Netflix. Jennifer and Sarah Hart were a married couple that adopted six minority children, five of them black. They identified as liberal, but had the children under harsh conditions and ultimately murdered them.

What's a little different in "Three Slaps" is that there are only five children and they're all black, this takes place in Atlanta versus California, and all the children survived. The part where Laquarius was at the festival holding the "Free Hugs" sign was from the actual case and the part where he hugged the cop was taken the real event and in the news it was spun as way of branching racial tensions and showing change. Atlanta showed that the boy was actually trying to get help and leave this family. It is tragic that those six children died in California. Atlanta puts this through the lens of "What if these children survived?"

There's a lot to examine in this first episode and the incorporation of history to give viewers like me who like to analyze everything something to learn is enriching. I'm not sure if I'll do a rundown of every episode of season 3 of Atlanta, but I'll definitely be back to talk some more.