“Django Unchained” actress Danielle Watts announced this past week that she was mistaken as a prostitute because she was simply “passionately kissing” her white boyfriend. Immediately, of course, many members of the African-American community rally behind her, not only because this is appalling and oft-repeated behavior but also because this is a sensitive time for our community amidst continuous reports of racially-motivated police brutality.
Time passes, however, more information is released, and we are informed that Watts was not simply kissing her boyfriend. She was allegedly having public sex with him, which of course she also denies. Officer Parker, the police officer who handled the situation, said he received a complaint about two people having public sex in a car. He decided he was going to handle this situation simply because he did not believe public sex was grounds for arrest. Little did he know what he was getting into.
When he arrived, Watts immediately pulls the overplayed “race card,” demanding, “Do you know how many times the cops have been called because I am black? Just because I’m black and he is white?”
This is where I pause the story and rewind to the past few months.
In recent months, blacks have been fighting to let their story be heard. The story that racism is not dead, and that we are stereotyped and unheard. Even with the Mike Brown situation, we are at a point where it is the officer’s word against the word of the dead. But we want to be heard. We want to be believed. We want to be treated equal. Yet there are individuals like Watts, who completely obliterate any chance of us gaining dependability.
These are the people who cry wolf, when there is no wolf in sight. By doing this, she not only pushed any progress we could have made back, but also she makes a mockery of the real struggles that African-Americans encounter daily.
People are racially profiled and stereotyped daily. What Watts claims to have experienced could actually be the story of many African-American women today, but that does not matter any more.
In the eyes of the world, the cries of the black community have officially become nothing more than a means to be the victims.
It is very irritating when we hear anyone inside or outside of the African-American community accuse us of always pulling the race card, but honestly, with stories like these can we blame them?
Ignorance is a far louder cry than intelligence, so of course through Watts pretending to be the victim, she loudly justifies this accusation. In her failed attempt to save herself by manipulating the system with the race card, she throws the rest of her race under the bus.
When the boy cried wolf the final time, what happened? There was a wolf, and there was no one there to hear his cries. African-Americans are screaming because the wolf is among us, but thanks to individuals like Watts, our cries are nothing more than a joke to the people around us.
No, everything is not about race, and we are not always being persecuted. When race does play a factor, however, we are ignored because to apologists for racism, our credibility has been destroyed by people like her.
So Danielle Watts, thank you. Thank you for degrading what has been fought for, for so long. You have made a mockery of racial profiling, and, much more, you have made a mockery of the individuals killed for being African-American.
Rachel Granger is an international studies major from Pearl.
