On Tuesday, the official trailer for the fourth and final season of FX’s Atlanta premiered at the Television Critics Association Press Tour.
Suggested Reading
Appearing virtually, show creator Donald Glover, and his brother and show writer, Stephen Glover, responded to online criticism that the show “isn’t for Black people”—which, hmm. I’d like to see evidence of that in 4K because almost every Black person I know that watches Atlanta loves because it’s uniquely Black and weird AF, thanks to the phenomenal cast, which consists of Brian Tyree Henry (my man was robbed at the Emmys!), #WeirdBae a.k.a. LaKeith Stanfield, and Zazie Beetz—but I digress.
“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,” Donald said, according to Deadline. “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 later explained how he was “through with the culture,” citing its refusal to realize that a lot of things have to be unlearned due to the “fucked up shit that happened to us” and because most of the criticism and talk comes from “Internet people trying to get hot.”
“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,” he concluded.
Added Stephen:
“For me, one thing that I don’t like is when people say the show isn’t for Black people because I think it very much is for Black people. That kind of thing rubs me 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. 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 Thursday, Sep. 15 only on FX and streaming the next day on Hulu.
Straight From 
Sign up for our free daily newsletter.