Atlanta creator Donald Glover and the writing team of the FX series say they were racially harassed by a group of drunkards in the street while shooting Season 3 of the show in London, England.
During a Television Critics Association (TCA) press conference on Thursday, Glover and screenwriters Stefani Robinson and Stephen Glover (Glover’s brother) unpacked an incident in which they said was racial harassment while filming Season 3 of Atlanta in London.
Stephen Glover explained that a group of intoxicated people approached the Atlanta team when they were standing outside of a closed bar near their home in London, according to a report by Insider.
“It was the first night there,” Stephen said. “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,” he continued. “I think we were talking to them for a second. It’s this girl and two or three guys.”
Glover went on to say that one of the men in the group said that the Atlanta writers could break into the bar because, “you guys all carry hammers.” The word “hammer” is a slang term for “gun.”
“Mind you, all of the writers on Atlanta are black,” Glover said. “So, he’s making a reference that we all have hammers, and we can just break into this place, which we kind of ignored.”
Robinson added that the Atlanta writers didn’t realize what the man was referring to when he used the word “hammer,” stating, “It was so insulting, but not insulting at the same time, because it took us five minutes to fully understand.”
Therefore, the man explained himself more explicitly, she continued.
“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 gone to jail and you do things like that.’ Like he kept doubling down on it,” Robinson explained.
Glover added that near the end of the incident, one of the women they encountered on the street was talking to the Atlanta writers, when “the guy just runs back down the street and grabs her and throws her over his shoulder, and he’s like, ‘Run. They are 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,” he added.
Donald Glover chimed in, adding, “We are just standing there, like, ‘What just happened?'”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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