Full disclosure, I’m a huge Donald Glover fangirl. I feel no discounted pride in seeing this modern Renaissance man attack and succeed in multiple fields. And he’s done it all. From his stand up and sketch comedy to his role in Community and his musical persona Childish Gambino, I fawn over it. He’s even tackled multiple genres in a single field. His latest album, Awaken My Love, has heavy R&B and African influences; a strong departure from his previous musical work.

Suffice to say, I’m bias af in Glover’s favor.

Regardless! I come to you with an authentic statement. Atlanta is the show you have to be watching. Not only is it poignantly hilarious and heartfelt, but carefully written, acted, shot, and scored. Atlanta is a show that encapsulates a masterclass of storytelling.

At its core, Atlanta examines the hustle. The main characters are an up-and-coming rapper and his cousin/manager who team up in an effort to navigate the music scene and make ends meet. Glover’s character, named Earn Marks, and the rapper’s stage name, Paper boi, both harken to their struggles as poor black men.

I want to highlight this with two interactions from Episode Three, aptly named “Go for Broke.” It’s payday, but Earn’s still a little light. Undeterred, 60$ will let him take his on-and-off girlfriend to some semblance of a good date. His boy shows him an upscale restaurant with a decent happy hour menu and the night is set. Earn, ever the optimist, puts a bottle of champagne in the fridge.

While seeking parking, Vanessa and Earn pull up next to a homeless man offering valet services. For a couple dollars, he’ll watch your car for you and keep you from getting towed. [Tickets aren’t likely. Not much cop presence. But gangs roll around midnight and he can’t protect your car against them.] Legal or not, it’s just Mr. Homeless-parking attendant is trying to earn a couple of bucks.

No doubt the guy looks a little funny. He points it out himself: lines like “don’t be scared darlin, just the smell of hard work on me.” He’s wearing a reflective vest he got at Kroger’s and he’s holding a Luke Skywalker lightsaber.

Vanessa is freaked. She calls it “janky as hell” and demands Earn parks with a valet. She physically puts up the window as a barrier between them.

[The practice of pseudo-parking attendants isn't fiction and is more common in Southern cities.]

The next scene takes place in the restaurant and depicts a white blonde female waitress up selling to the couple by adding an additional appetizer, moving Van away from the catfish filet to the grilled scallops and lobster, and tries pushing out a dessert menu. Especially humorous considering Earn is counting the prices to see if he can pay. [Also for my community fans: “WHAT MARKET ARE YOU SHOPPING AT?”]

Act 3 of this comedy/tragedy is the real kicker. Earn signs for the check, way more than he can truly afford. Van peeps the bill and finds no tip, to which she proclaims with indigence: “Come on, it’s not enough that she makes less than you because you got a dick? Have some class.” [They walk out of the shot and the homeless guy walks in to calls a patron out to grab his car before it gets towed.] The irony here is that Vanessa has such a different attitude to disadvantaged groups based on their appearance. The black homeless guy trying to make a couple bucks by providing parking doesn’t earn any of Vanessa’s empathy. But she has no problem giving the extra money to the waitress in the literal white collar and tie [and an attitude of righteous indignation to Earn].

River: Earn’s broke, dick or no dick.

Here’s the thing. I think that what Glover really wants to portray, when taking this story in context of the entire season, is that everyone is hustling. Homeless guy, female waitress, Earn and Paperboi, Zan. But we have such respect for the girl who portrays this white collar worker, while we put up barriers against the homeless guy.

Vanessa cites the oft used gender wage gap as the waitress’ disadvantage generally accepted as 80 cents to the dollar. But that is often an oversimplification. 0.8 is the ratio of uncontrolled median wage by gender [female over male]. But if the same data is run with controls for fields, education, work experience and other factors, the gap is significantly smaller, about 98 cent to each dollar.

I’m not saying that there isn’t a problem between genders. There are significant differences in educational choices, childcare responsibilities, and even benefits distributed, [as well as problems with women asking for raises and women in leadership positions.] But using the flawed 80 cents statistic is not nearly nuanced enough to give the proper amount of knowledge into the underlying issues and in my view, detracts from letting the conversation turn to what actual solutions could be.

Like. How do we encourage women to take part in STEM fields? What values do we assign to childcare and how do we make sure that no one (man or woman) is disadvantaged for devoting time to that? [On one side, wtf America, fucking make maternity leave mandatory. And not weeks. Months. But on the other, why are stay-at-home dads stigmatized? Being a parent is the most difficult job anyone can do! I know, I ran my parents through the gauntlet!] How do we bring more women into boardrooms and capital C jobs? What do we do about high risk occupations that are generally male dominated (and aren’t pursued by women) but come with the salary bonuses for those risks like mining, construction, and manufacturing? The workers that are in those industries have voted overwhelming Republican, and their candidate has literally bragged about sexual assault. Can you see how a simple “you-have-a-dick-privilege” isn’t and hasn’t been a super effective way to have a meaningful conversation? That they would have their own opinion based on their own experiences/difficulties?

Vanessa isn’t made out to be some villain. She’s just passively bias, a flaw that I would extend to all of us. But I honestly believe that Vanessa’s character, given the opportunity the audience has to examine the scene, would take actions to correct her mistakes. I think we could all use a little of the same self-examination of our internal biases, unintentional and otherwise.
We’re all out there tryin’ to hustle. We have to respect that. Differences in skin color and gender shouldn’t be the barriers that change our support or our level of empathy. We get so involved in the particular groups that we find disadvantaged that we minimize the problems of other groups. Then we find it audacious that others don’t respect our view, even as we forget that we’re half-blind as well. And using such simple arguments only end up preventing us from talking about the underlying issues, which means nothing gets solved. It will take the levels of detail and conscious thought that Glover conveys in Atlanta for us to make the progress we all want to see. Only then can we crack the champagne over the things we share, rather than continuing to dissect our differences.