Princeton Professor Cries Racism Over Her Arrest

Imani Perry, an African-American Studies professor at Princeton University, took full advantage of her opportunity to become one with the struggle on Saturday when she was arrested for a parking ticket she hadn’t bothered to pay since it was issued three years ago. Perry, who apparently believes that her arrest puts her in the pantheon of great civil rights figures like Rosa Parks, played the victim on Facebook and milked the arrest for everything it was worth.

“Now, make no mistake, I do not believe I did anything wrong,” Perry wrote. “But even if I did, my position holds. The police treated me inappropriately and disproportionately. The fact of my blackness is not incidental to this matter.”

What horrors was Perry subjected to? Well, she was pulled over for speeding Saturday morning by Princeton, New Jersey police. The police ran her plate and saw that she had an outstanding arrest warrant pursuant to the unpaid parking ticket. They subsequently arrested her, as they would anyone, and then released her on bail.

Truly, this is a moment for us all to reflect on the tragic plight of black people in America.

“Some critics have said that I should have expected what I received,” Perry said. “But if it is the standard protocol in an affluent suburb to disallow a member of the community to make a call before an arrest (simply to inform someone of her arrest) and if it is the protocol to have male officers to pat down the bodies of women, and if it is the norm to handcuff someone to a table for failing to pay a parking ticket, we have a serious problem with policing in the society.”

Do we, though? Or did you just have your ego bruised by falling afoul of the law? Or, in reality, are you just using this ridiculous incident to prop up your own quasi-celebrity status in the black community? Newsflash: black people aren’t immune to the law. Are police supposed to give every person of color a break just because there is “systemic racism?”

“I can say that what I experienced was far more likely because my skin is a deep brown, my nose is round, and my hair is coily,” Perry concluded.

Well, that probably played a part in what you “experienced,” but it didn’t have anything to do with what actually happened.