NEW YORK — Graduate students at Yale University got a lesson this week in diversity and inclusion after a white student called the police on an African-American student who was sleeping in a common area in their dorm.
Graduate student Lolade Siyonbola recorded the moment she confronted a white dorm mate who called the police on her for taking a nap in a common area. Police arrived within five minutes.
“OK, let me open my apartment for you so you can see I belong here,” she’s heard saying on the video.
But after she opens her apartment door, she faces more questions.
“Can we just have your ID?” police ask her.
“Why? You just said if I prove that I live here you would leave,” she replies.
Siyonbola says that night she had been working on a paper and took a quick nap in the common room. The police questioned her for nearly 20 minutes.
This comes on the heels of a rash of incidents where police were called on African-Americans, like a group leaving their Airbnb rental in California.
“What happened is that I almost died because somebody was afraid of me,” said Donisha Prendergast. She’s the granddaughter of Bob Marley, and spoke out at a press conference on Thursday.
“The neighbor, what did you want to happen? Do you not understand how you jeopardized our lives just because of your fear?”
Yale’s vice president of student life said on Thursday she was “deeply troubled by the incident.” She says the officers who responded admonished the complaining student and that the other student had every right to be present.
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