Embattled actress Daniele Watts, who has become more well-known for pulling the race card prior to being briefly detained by the LAPD than for her role in the Oscar-winning movie Django Unchained, is blaming her conduct on society and the allegedly racially-charged shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
“If we’re going to condemn me, then we also have to look at the entire society that I am a product of,” Watts contended while speaking at a panel discussion on Monday at the University of Southern California School of Law.
Watts was reportedly teary-eyed, declaring, “at a certain point, enough is enough and somebody has to say something,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
She explained that it was not only a traumatic experience she had when she was 16, involving a white police officer and her father, which caused her to pull the race card on Sgt. Jim Parker in North Hollywood on September 11. Watts added that the incidents in Ferguson further propelled her reaction to Sgt. Parker when he arrived to investigate a claim that she and boyfriend Brian James Lucas were making love in public.
Watts allegedly refused to furnish her ID to Sgt. Parker, claiming she was being racially-profiled because she is black and her boyfriend is white. Sgt. Parker says he was merely responding to complaints from nearby business owners that Watts and her boyfriend were engaged in lewd sexual acts in their car. He had come to the scene to identify the suspects involved in the misdimeanor. He briefly detained Watts allegedly after she ran away and refused to furnish identification. Audio of the incident appears to confirm Sgt. Parker’s story, though he has been made to face internal investigation and transferred to a different unit in the interim.
The actress has been lambasted for “crying wolf” by several civil rights activists, including Dr. Earl Ofari Hutchinson who had initially rallied behind Watts, but later changed his tune.
Watts said she had hoped the panel discussion at USC would advance the broader societal conversation about race, notes the Times.
Watts and Lucas are due in court in November 13. If convicted, the couple could each face up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
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