False Stereotypes In Donald Glover's Atlanta

Donald Glover’s Atlanta is a series that centers around Earnest Marks, a black man who navigates his career in music industry management with his cousin in Atlanta, Georgia, following his expulsion from Princeton University. While the show focuses on the experiences of racism in the music industry, it also depicts racism in larger institutions, like the criminal justice system. The struggles relating to criminal justice that black characters face in the show are interconnected through the false stereotype that all black people are criminals. Because of this stereotype, the black characters are treated as dangerous by white individuals despite the fact that they are merely trying to get by in a country where they are already disadvantaged. Atlanta

For example, in the episode “Streets on Lock,” Earnest witnesses police aggression toward an elderly black man in a holding cell. Even though the black man who approached the police officer was clearly mentally-challenged in some way, the officer struck and forcefully detained him. This moment displays how black people are irrationally assumed to be dangerous even though they are often doing completely harmless activities. This false belief that law enforcement holds towards black people is represented through data. According to Nolen, “Force was used more with Black and Latino people compared to white people,” and that white people were twice as likely to carry a weapon compared to black people (Lecture 3/20). The episode of Atlanta verifies the data presented by Nolen by substantiating the idea that black people are often innocent, however, because of their race, they are not only unnecessarily handled with aggression, but are not even supposed to be handled in the first place. In a similar way, the reason why the officers were unnecessarily hostile towards the black man in Atlanta is better understood through the real data and actual history presented in the lecture that highlights that police officers are more likely to use force against black

In the episode “Sportin’ Waves,” Tracy, a former convict, faces several obstacles to apply for a job following his imprisonment. For instance, Tracy attempts to escape homelessness and shoplift professional clothing for an interview following his sentence. In addition to the financial hardship, Tracy also experiences discrimination in applying for employment. Following Tracy’s job interview, the interviewer informs Tracy that he will not be considered for the job because they are no longer trying to employ that spot despite a whole room of people waiting to be interviewed for that position. This scene highlights that black people are severely disadvantaged in numerous ways following their incarceration, in their struggle to stay afloat financially. This idea is echoed in Alexander’s article, as she states, “Like Jim Crow (and slavery), mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws… and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race,” both during and following prison (Alexander 2010, 8). The financial adversity and discrimination that Tracy encounters during his job interview experience emboldens Alexander’s argument that incarceration disadvantages black people economically, socially, and politically in