Recently reports surfaced that actress Danièle Watts, who appeared in the film Django Unchained, was detained by Los Angeles police responding to a complaint that a white man and Black woman indecently exposed themselves while parked in a Mercedes in Studio City. Watts and her partner, Brian James Lucas, said that the officers mistook them for a prostitute and client. Insulted and maintaining they had been fully clothed and only “making out,” Watts refused to produce her ID when asked, resulting in the officer detaining and handcuffing her.
That Watts, who has played a slave, should now be handcuffed seemed like a cruel moment of life imitating art. While Black feminist commentators rushed to support Watts, citing her as an example of the ways in which Black women’s sexuality has been historically criminalized, after photographs of the incident emerged and audiotapes indicated that she, rather than LAPD Sgt. Parker, brought up race, opinions on Twitter reflected little sympathy for the actress—including the question of whether she was a “victim of racism or [a] skank who should’ve been arrested.”
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Witnesses say the couple was having sex. While the grainy photographs do not unequivocally prove this, they are used by some to “invalidate” Watts’ account because she committed the truly heinous crimes of, first, being a Black female sexual aggressor, then quickly shifting to claim victimhood.
Why can’t she be both?
The slut shaming and respectability politics that have dogged Watts obscures Black women’s victimhood at the hands of law enforcement and fuels a public that often abandons Black females who do not conform to the “good girl” image.
An imperfect victim, Danièle Watts represents a perfect storm, embodying White patriarchy and stigmatized interracial sex, a police reform movement that marginalizes Black women and public shame for “the Black whore.” Only a minority of commentators asked, does what is arguably a victimless crime (public sex) justify the officers’ rough treatment of Watts?
Attention has wrongfully centered on Watts’ indecent behavior and on whether she was required to show her ID. She was not required to do so, according to Peter Bibring, Southern California’s director of police practices for the ACLU. Unsurprisingly, the LAPD disagrees. But even allowing that Watts could have demonstrated better judgment, her contention that the officers were condescending and unjustifiably restrained her are also worthy of consideration.
Denouncing Watts supports a dangerous logic: If police detain an individual who has committed a crime, race cannot be a factor. Consider that Michael Brown’s shooting may hinge on whether he robbed a convenience store, or if he was charging police when he was killed. Many of us believe that unarmed teenagers should not be shot and that Black male bodies are not weapons equivalent to guns. Period. Recall the public outcry when Ferguson police released surveillance footage of Brown’s alleged robbery. The recoil in Watts’ case affirms age-old societal norms that have policed Black women’s bodies, dictated their “respectable” conduct, and situated them as “whores” under the charge of White male authorities.
The audiotape reveals both Watts mouthing off and Sgt. Parker baiting her. By handcuffing Watts while engaging in chummy banter with her partner, Parker casts suspicion on her and transfers authority to her White boyfriend. This sort of patriarchal disregard for Black women’s personhood smacks of slavery-era practices that permitted White men to bed Black women despite taboos against interracial unions. Of course Watts and Lucas’s relationship is consensual, unlike the vast majority of cases in which White slave owners raped Black women. But as evidenced in the 1967 Loving vs. Virginia anti-miscegenation case, interracial unions continued to be criminalized until relatively recently, and mixed race couples suffered harsh police treatment.
Still, Watts claimed this case was about profiling and “freedom.” She may not be that far off the mark. The recent video footage of a homeless Black woman’s limp body, hogtied, and dragged like a rag doll, affords a glimpse into how some police have treated Black female offenders. And with national attention recently drawn to blatant examples of police bias, the criminalization, racial profiling and violent policing of Black women have gone largely unnoticed. This is evidenced in how Black boys and men who have been killed by law enforcement have become household names—including Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell, Ramarley Graham and too many others, but Black women and girls who have suffered similar fates remain in obscurity, including Aiyana Jones, Tarika Wilson, Shereese Francis, Miriam Carey, Shantel Davis and too many others.
Watts’ case raises important questions about when charges of police bias are justified. Should only respectable people be allowed to sound the alarm? Does Watts’ “bad behavior” delegitimize the emotional damage she may have suffered? The public shift against Watts suggests that she made this a racial issue to deflect attention from her own misconduct. Yet one has to wonder how many police officers who mistreat people of color have explicitly mentioned race. Did Darren Wilson mention race when he shot Michael Brown? It is easy to argue that Brown was a teenage boy who lost his life and Watts is an entitled adult celebrity whose own poor conduct placed her under police scrutiny—but what about 12-year-old Dymond Milburn, who was accused of prostitution, beaten and nearly kidnapped by police while standing outside her home? Being innocent did not protect Milburn, and eight years after she was brutally assaulted justice has not been served— but one of the accused officers was named “Officer of the Year.” What about the lack of public outrage over the unsolved murders of Tjhisha Ball and Angela Magnum, two Black teenage sex workers? Does their involvement in sex work preclude us from demanding justice in their killings?
Rather than focus on Watts’ sexual misconduct, let us instead acknowledge her legal rights and her possible mistreatment. Perhaps if we resist the temptation to condemn her in the court of public opinion we can more productively focus on the very real injustices Black women and girls face. We should not be embarrassed for supporting Watts, but we should be embarrassed for failing to rally behind Milburn and the scores of Black women who have been deemed unworthy of our attention.
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Photo of Danièle Watts, courtesy of Instagram user ChefBeLive
