By: Trends Desk | New Delhi | Published: June 18, 2020 11:18:23 am Vernoff has been lauded for illustrating how her teenage crimes were written off as mistakes because she was white. (Source: Twitter, AP)

Even as anti-racism demonstrations continue in the US, the showrunner of the show Greys Anatomy, Krista Vernoff, took to Twitter to highlight how she had committed various crimes, but was never punished due to white privilege. The thread has sparked a serious conversation on race and Vernoff has been praised for being straightforward.

Opening up about all the crimes she has committed over her life in a candid conversation, Vernoff listed various things she did and how she was mostly let off with a warning. She also pointed out that other incidents had shown how it could have panned out differently for those who werent white. Vernoff wrote about how her crimes were written off as mistakes just because she was white, and that she still didnt have a criminal record.

When I was 15, I was chased through a mall by police who were yelling Stop thief! I had thousands of dollars of stolen merchandise on me. I was caught, booked, sentenced to 6 months of probation, required to see a parole officer weekly. I was never even handcuffed, she said in the start of her thread.

When I was 18, I was pulled over for drunk driving. When the Police Officer asked me to blow into the breathalyzer, I pretended to have asthma and insisted I couldnt blow hard enough to get a reading, she continued. The officer laughed then asked my friends to blow and when one of them came up sober enough to drive, he let me move to the passenger seat of my car and go home with just a verbal warning.

The 46-year-old screenwriter who has never shied away from talking about things online, or highlighting such incidents in her show over the years, talked of her crimes to highlight how white people are treated differently by the police.

Her tweets come after the death of Rayshard Brooks, a 27-year-old black man who was shot and killed an Atlanta Police Department officer on June 12, amid the ongoing protests over George Floyds killing.

Defunding the police is not about living in a lawless society, she wrote. Its about the fact that in this country, were not supposed to get shot by police for getting drunk.

Footage from body and dash-mounted cameras showed Brooks chatted cooperatively with the two white officers, agreeing he had a couple of drinks to celebrate his daughters birthday and agreeing to a breath test.

Vernoff ended her thread saying: The system that lets me live and murders Rayshard Brooks is a broken system that must change. Stop defending it. Demand the change. #BlackLivesMatter #WhitePrivilege #DefundPolice.

Commenting about the thread, Director Ava Duvernay, a founder of an advocacy for justice reform, lauded her for talking honestly about her experiences as a white woman in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Its one of the best threads on the criminalisation of Black people that Ive read lately, Duvernay said.

The thread went viral and many highlighted how important it is for white people to talk about their privilege and be aware of the discrimination. Others also shared how they received different treatment from the police due to their race:

Violent protests had erupted in many cities across the US after a video emerged of a Minneapolis policeman suffocating Floyd by pinning him to the ground with his knee on Floyds neck. The policeman, David Chauvin, has since been fired, arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

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Greys Anatomy showrunner tweets about escaping action due to her race, sparks debate - The Indian Express