Like many Black people, Jada Pinkett Smith has had a frightening encounter with the police.
The actress detailed the incident during a recent episode of Red Table Talk centered around race.
“I remember going to Virginia Beach ― remember when they had the riots?” she asked her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Jones. Pinkett Smith was referring to the 1989 Virginia Beach riots during which Black people battled a hostile police department, according to 13NewsNow.
Pinkett Smith said she was verbally abused by two officers as she tried to escape the chaos.
“And I was there by myself — terrified — trying to get back to my hotel,” she continued. “I will never forget these two white officers. I was like, ‘I’m just trying to get down the street, so I can get to my hotel,’ and they said, ‘You better get your n****r b***h ass off this street right now.’”
In the same episode, the Girls Trip star said she wished Black and white women could unite. Pinkett Smith believes all women should be allies due to their shared gender.
“You see there’s this huge gap between white women and Black women,” Pinkett-Smith said. “I feel we as women should know better; I really do. Because we’re women, because of the struggles we have had as women. There should be a natural understanding and familiarity of our struggle.”
Racial diversity teacher Jane Elliot was also featured on the episode and argued every person is a part of the same race.
“I’m not a white woman; I’m a faded Black person,” Elliott said. “My people [are those who are] far from the equator, and that’s the only reason my skin is lighter. That’s all any white person is.”
“There’s no such thing as race,” Banfield-Jones replied.
“There’s one race,” Elliott added. “There’s one race: the human race. We all came from the same Black women 300,000 to 500,000 years ago.”
Elliot is famous for her “blue eyes-brown eyes” experiment, according to People Magazine. She conducted it the day after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968 to explain segregation to her third-grade class. Students were divided by eye color, and children with blue eyes were dubbed “superior.” The blue-eyed students were given special treatment like extra lunch servings while the brown-eyed kids were made to sit in the back of the class.
Watch the full episode below:
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