A couple of days ago, a female african american actress was “hand-cuffed and detained” by police officers in LA. The incident occured after the actress was seen making out in a car with her white boyfriend. The actress reports that the police thought that she was a “prostitute” and as such was mistreated.
Is this a case of racial profiling? In my opinion, it is most definitely a yes!
An incident like this evokes emotions, and emotions cloud ones’ judgement! The actress in questions may have been offended, hurt and angered by the incident and when she was requested to produce her ID, she simply refused, stating that “she didn’t have to”.
Is she right in saying that? To be honest, I don’t know. I’m not sure what the law states and how her constitutional rights are protected. However, if you look at the incident objectively, the police made a mistake and approached her assuming, incorrectly that she was a prostitute. If she produces her ID when requested, the police are given an opportunity to verify and rectify their mistake and go on their way.
When the actress doesn’t produce her ID, the police have no other option but to “handcuff and detain” her to verify the necessary information that they needed. She was let go in about twenty minutes. She was not arrested and there was no report written about the incident.
I am a basketball coach and I use the above story to highlight incidents and actions that can benefit players.
When something happens in life or in sport, the easiest thing to do is go with what your emotions tell you to do. This means that your emotions control your actions and not you. When someone abuses you or someone you love, and everything inside you says to punch him square in the jaw, you have two choices. Are you going to give in to your emotions and punch him?
That’s the easy option, because everything is telling you to do that. Or, are you in control that you can actually look at the situation from an objective point of view and make a “logical decision” about the situation.
Are you in control of your mind and body or do your emotions govern your actions? It is not weakness, but strength to remain in control, when things go wrong.
Within the game of basketball, if a player relies on emotions to produce good performances, then what happens when they don’t get the emotion they need? They have a poor performance, and this frustrates them which leads them to taking out whatever emotion they are feeling at the time on those around them.
“Anger” – arguing with the referees, their teammates and the coach, punching walls and maybe starting fights with the opposition. This further frustrates them and alienates them from their teammate and does not help the team at all!
“Anxiety” – your nervousness may get you to withdraw into your shell more, and not get involved as much, hide away from the basketball. You stop communicating to your teammates and don’t hold anyone accountable, once again alienating yourself from the team.
“fear” – you may not know what’s going on and how to deal with it. Fear may illicit any number of responses, depending on the person and each response is less predictable than the next.
My point is, if your emotions control you, then your chances of playing better are reduced when things don’t go according to plan. If you control your emotions, and are able to stay where you need to be at your best, then you can be assured that you’ll always be there for your team and give them their best chance at succeeding, even when the events aren’t ideal (Bad calls from the referees, humid gyms, flat basketballs etc.)
Your RESPONSE to any EVENT determines whether the OUTCOME is favourable or not. Again, I used the story above to illustrate my points. As with any story, I am sure they will be more to it and once that comes out we’ll know whether the police were right or Danielle Watts was. Perhaps, they both took actions based on emotions which led them to less favourable outcomes.
More on Danielle’s story can be found on the link below. Make your own mind up about what your thoughts are.
Rend Sports 
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