Danièle Watts, a black actress best known for her role as Coco in Django Unchained, was in handcuffs on Thursday as a result of kissing her partner, Brian James Lucas, in public. A woman kissing her boyfriend is obviously not a big deal, but it struck the cops as a potential problem because Watts is black and Lucas is white. Yes, it has been almost 50 years since Loving v. Virginia, but the LAPD assumed that Watts was a sex worker. Because why else would a mixed race couple be showing affection in public?
According to Watts and Lucas who wrote about the incident on Facebook, the LAPD stopped and asked to check their IDs. Watts was talking on the phone with her father and refused to do so. So, the cops handcuffed her and stuck her into the back of the cop car — reducing her to tears — until they figured out that she was actually just a working actress. She wrote:
As I was sitting in the back of the police car, I remembered the countless times my father came home frustrated or humiliated by the cops when he had done nothing wrong. 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!!!!!!!
Meanwhile the LAPD say they have no record of the incident because it wasn’t an official arrest.
