A viral photo cries for help
FX
When Loquareeous runs to the cop, he’s looking for help, but what he gets instead is a photo op to make white people feel better. Devonte Hart also ended up in a photo that went viral, only in reality, he and his adoptive family were attending a protest related to the shooting of Michael Brown when it happened. In a look back at the picture in the wake of the family’s murder-suicide, The Outline explains that freelance photographer Johnny Nguyen caught the photo after seeing Devonte carrying a sign that read “Free Hugs.”
The photo is painful to look at now, but even as it made the rounds in 2018, it was taken by some as broadly symbolic to the point of potentially dehumanizing its subject. Millions of people saw Devonte’s fear and hurt, but no one successfully helped him. As Ann-Derrick Gaillot writes for The Outline, “Now, it’s hard to look at photos of their smiling, interracial family and see tragedy and trauma inseparable from the toxic racial harmony fantasy that Devonte was used to promote.” “Three Slaps” is a heart-wrenching, painful episode of “Atlanta,” one that raises questions about, among other things, the broken systems that claim to help facilitate care for children of color. It also lets its lost boy become a hero, saved by his savviness and good instincts and the bits of Black community he can salvage among his siblings, who talk to him only with their thoughts in the episode’s last scenes. I wish I could say the nightmare ended the same way for the Hart siblings, but sadly, that isn’t the case.
Rest in peace Ciera, Abigail, Jeremiah, Devonte, Hannah, and Markis.
The Tragic Real Life Story That Inspired Atlanta’s Season 3 Premiere
FX
The lake these men are talking about, Lake Lanier, is a real place in Georgia. The body of water stands on Forsyth County, where in 1912, NPR reports that white “night riders” violently displaced nearly 1100 Black residents in the wake of two alleged violent crimes. As a result of this act of terrorism, Black residents lost their land, safety, and livelihood. Decades later, a dam was built over the area. Lanier Lake, named after a Confederate soldier, has since become a site of heavy superstition and real danger, with Complex reporting that 145 drownings occurred there in roughly two decades.
A nightmare adoption
The true story “Three Slaps” seems to be clearly referencing is a heartbreaking one. In 2018, Sarah and Jennifer Hart killed themselves and their six adopted children by driving off a California cliff. According to Investigation Discovery, five of the childrens’ remains were found, but 15-year-old Devonte’s body has never been recovered. This one detail is the imaginary space “Atlanta” slides into in order to tell its ultimately hopeful version of the story, in which Loquareeous sneaks out the back of the vehicle at the last minute and helps the other kids escape with him. There’s a small triumph in seeing this rewrite — in seeing Loquareeous make it home and witnessing the look on his would-be killers’ faces as they realize they’re only killing themselves.
A viral photo cries for help
When Loquareeous runs to the cop, he’s looking for help, but what he gets instead is a photo op to make white people feel better. Devonte Hart also ended up in a photo that went viral, only in reality, he and his adoptive family were attending a protest related to the shooting of Michael Brown when it happened. In a look back at the picture in the wake of the family’s murder-suicide, The Outline explains that freelance photographer Johnny Nguyen caught the photo after seeing Devonte carrying a sign that read “Free Hugs.”
The photo is painful to look at now, but even as it made the rounds in 2018, it was taken by some as broadly symbolic to the point of potentially dehumanizing its subject. Millions of people saw Devonte’s fear and hurt, but no one successfully helped him. As Ann-Derrick Gaillot writes for The Outline, “Now, it’s hard to look at photos of their smiling, interracial family and see tragedy and trauma inseparable from the toxic racial harmony fantasy that Devonte was used to promote.” “Three Slaps” is a heart-wrenching, painful episode of “Atlanta,” one that raises questions about, among other things, the broken systems that claim to help facilitate care for children of color. It also lets its lost boy become a hero, saved by his savviness and good instincts and the bits of Black community he can salvage among his siblings, who talk to him only with their thoughts in the episode’s last scenes. I wish I could say the nightmare ended the same way for the Hart siblings, but sadly, that isn’t the case.
Rest in peace Ciera, Abigail, Jeremiah, Devonte, Hannah, and Markis.
The photo is painful to look at now, but even as it made the rounds in 2018, it was taken by some as broadly symbolic to the point of potentially dehumanizing its subject. Millions of people saw Devonte’s fear and hurt, but no one successfully helped him. As Ann-Derrick Gaillot writes for The Outline, “Now, it’s hard to look at photos of their smiling, interracial family and see tragedy and trauma inseparable from the toxic racial harmony fantasy that Devonte was used to promote.”
“Three Slaps” is a heart-wrenching, painful episode of “Atlanta,” one that raises questions about, among other things, the broken systems that claim to help facilitate care for children of color. It also lets its lost boy become a hero, saved by his savviness and good instincts and the bits of Black community he can salvage among his siblings, who talk to him only with their thoughts in the episode’s last scenes. I wish I could say the nightmare ended the same way for the Hart siblings, but sadly, that isn’t the case.
Rest in peace Ciera, Abigail, Jeremiah, Devonte, Hannah, and Markis.
