Django Unchained Actress Accused Of Being A Prostitute By Racist Cops

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In news so horribly upsetting I keep hoping it’s a joke, “Django Unchained” actress Daniele Watts and her boyfriend Brian James Lucas were hugging and kissing in public when a cop decided they must be up to no good. It quickly became obvious that race was a factor when they were treated like criminals after having done nothing wrong. We live in a very sad world when a black woman is accused of being a prostitute by racist cops for being affectionate with her white boyfriend.

From The Raw Story:

Danièle Watts, star of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, wrote on her Facebook page that she was handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police cruiser after failing to provide the officers with ID, according to The YBF.

In her posting, Watts wrote, ”Today I was handcuffed and detained by 2 police officers from the Studio City Police Department after refusing to agree that I had done something wrong by showing affection, fully clothed, in a public place. When the officer arrived, I was standing on the sidewalk by a tree. I was talking to my father on my cell phone. I knew that I had done nothing wrong, that I wasn’t harming anyone, so I walked away. A few minutes later, I was still talking to my dad when 2 different police officers accosted me and forced me into handcuffs.”

 

Apparently, without seeing money exchanged or anything else that would indicate that a “deal” was going down, these cops thought the mere idea of a black woman and white man being affectionate with one another must mean that he is a paying customer. I guess based on recent incidents in this country of extreme racial profiling that I should not be surprised but I am certainly disgusted.

After the cops stopped her, Watts refused to show ID because she knew she had not done anything wrong and was placed in the back of a police cruiser before being released. Her boyfriend took to Facebook to describe the incident and also included a photo of Watts’ arm, which had been injured as a result of the officer being rough when hand-cuffing her. This is positively unreal:

 

 ”Today, Daniele Watts & I were accosted by police officers after showing our affection publicly. From the questions that he asked me as D was already on her phone with her dad, I could tell that whoever called on us (including the officers), saw a tatted RAWKer white boy and a hot bootie shorted black girl and thought we were a HO (prostitute) & a TRICK (client).”

 

God, how humiliating. As a white person with a white spouse, I cannot possibly know what this feels like but I know reading about it makes my skin crawl. On her Facebook page, Watts also describes what it was like for her own father years ago as a black man being harassed by cops because of his skin color and it is so sad to see that obviously, not much has changed:

 

”I remembered the countless times my father came home frustrated or humiliated by the cops when he had done nothing wrong, ” she wrote. ” I felt his shame, his anger, and my own feelings of frustration for existing in a world where I have allowed myself to believe that ”authority figures” could control my BEING”¦ my ability to BE!!!!!!!”

 

This is so disheartening and shows that as a society, we haven’t made much progress if you can be detained by police for doing nothing other than having darker skin. It is 2014, not 1964. Racial profiling by the police has never been acceptable but wouldn’t we all like to think that things have gotten better over the last several decades? I cannot imagine how humiliated and scared Watts must have been after being shoved in the back of a police car like a criminal for having the audacity to be an attractive black woman kissing her white boyfriend in a public place. I truly hope that these officers are severely punished for their actions and that they offer a sincere apology to Watts and her boyfriend for this incident. It is the absolute least they can do.

(Image: Twitter)

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