I spent a good bit of time yesterday participating in and following the comments in this diary which deals with the encounter between actress Daniele Watts and a member of the LAPD. As is fairly typical of a topic like this on Daily Kos people were divided into two opposing camps. One of them, in which I include myself, sees Ms. Watts as a black woman making a stand for her civil rights after previous experiences of racial profiling. The other camp tends to view her as a temperamental Hollywood celebrity who is wringing drama from a reasonable and legal demand from a police officer with which she has a clear legal duty to comply. In a couple of comments she was compared unfavorably to Rosa Parks of Montgomery bus boycott fame. Let's start with a refresher course on Parks and her contribution to the civil rights movement.
Rosa Parks holds a position as one of the heroes of the civil rights movement. In reading this Wiki article I found that my understanding of the famous incident was a bit inaccurate. She did not set out to create an act of civil disobedience by setting in the white section of the bus. She was seated in the colored section. The white section filled up and Parks was ordered to get up and give her seat to a white lady who would otherwise have had to stand. She refused to comply and was arrested, booked and sent to jail. Here is her mug shot.
However, Parks was more than just a black seamstress. She was an officer of the local NAACP and had attended a training program at The Highlander School in North Carolina which was an important incubator for the civil rights movement. There had been a few other blacks before here who had been arrested for protesting segregated buses. Parks was a person who was prepared to do more than just make a single act of defiance. She was an active participant as well as a symbol in organizing the ensuing bus boycott which was a major event in shaking the foundations of Jim Crow segregation. She fully earned her place in history.
I am not a great fan of pop culture and entertainment, so I didn't know who Daniele Watts was when I first came across this story. She is not a lowly seamstress. She is a successful and well paid actress. There are various aspects of the incident that are in dispute. Watts and her white partner in a long term relationship describe themselves as having been engaged in a reasonable display of affection. The police supposedly got a call from someone complaining about a lewd act being committed in public view. When the police arrived Watts was on her cell phone talking to her father. No clear evidence has been made available to substantiate that what went on before the police arrived constituted a lewd act.
There is a video recording on the encounter with the police. The police demanded that both Watts and her partner Brian Lucas produce identification. Lucas produced his, but Watts refused saying that she was not legally required to comply and citing her previous with racial profiling as the basis of her refusal. She did not make a claim of celebrity privilege. She makes a claim of racial civil rights. This IMO cloaks her in the mantle of Rosa Parks. Here she is with her hands cuffed behind her back.
The legal question of whether she was in violation of the law as the policeman claimed seems to be open to dispute.
This comment by shinikka who is a California attorney seems to be the best source of applicable legal information. The present state of CA appellate rulings is split and an argument can be made either way. It is not a clear and unequivocal legal duty. I don't know if Daniele Watts will become the Rosa Parks of racial profiling. She has the profile and visibility to get media attention and exposure. This is an important issue that is presently a focus of public attention. I don't think that a comparison between Parks and Watts is unreasonable.
The reason that I am writing this diary is because once again I am struck by the glaring divide in the views of black Americans and many white Americans about the police and what it means to come into contact with them. White middle class people who have spent most of their lives being law abiding citizens in a suburban environment have likely had few official contacts with the police. If they did there is a strong probability that they were treated with basic professional courtesy and depending on the circumstances that might have reason to view the police as people trying to help and protect them. This is their experience and their reality. They aren't really making that up.
In contrast black people from various backgrounds hold a strongly shared experience and view that any dealings they may have with the police are filled with risk and danger. When Eric Holder visited Ferguson, he made the statement that he might be the Attorney General of the United States, but that as a black man he had had the experience of being racially profiled. Black parents of necessity raise their children to fear the police. Daniele Watts got her wrist cut from the handcuffs when she was shoved into the back of the squad car. Many black people wind up dead from similar experiences. They aren't making that up either.
What amazes me is the number of white people, as exemplified by the commenters in that diary, who insist over and over again that their view that police as people to be obeyed and treated with respect is the only responsible approach that any American citizen could possibly take. For people of color it is not just a matter of following the rules and all will be well. They frequently find themselves the targets of abuse, no matter what they do. For many of the white people it seems that the very notion of entertaining the possibility that the law enforcement has serious racial biases poses a grave threat to them. I find it difficult to understand why.
UPDATE: Here's an article from The Los Angeles Times covering Watts subsequent comments about the matter. They make it clear that she has an activist agenda and that it was not just a temper tantrum of the moment.
Actress Daniele Watts of “Django Unchained” fame said she did not regret refusing to hand over her ID to police investigating a call about indecent exposure over the weekend in North Hollywood.
“It’s because I believe in America and what it stands for, and I believe in freedom,” she said on CNN’s “New Day.” “If I’m within my amendment rights, my constitutional rights to say, ‘No, unless you’re charging me with a crime I will not be giving you my ID.’ That is a right that I stand up for because of the shoulders that I stand on ... because of the people who fought so hard for their rights that came before me.”
She told CNN that she was “humbled” by the incident and was grateful it was getting so much media attention because it would “raise awareness.”