They may vow to protect and serve the community, but Storm Reid admits that she has had a lifelong fear of police.
The 17-year-old actress makes the stunning admission during a new episode of Steve Harvey’s Facebook Watch show, STEVE on Watch.
And, as you can see below, HollywoodLife has an EXCLUSIVE preview clip of the show, which addresses how Black children are reacting to incidents of police brutality.
“From a time that I can remember I’ve always been afraid of the police and it’s not something that my mom or the people around me were telling me, like ‘all police officers are bad,’” Storm admits during the episode, which premieres on Facebook Watch on Sept. 24. “But I just feel not protected and unsafe and I’ve always felt that way and I feel like that feeling has amplified now because I do know what’s going on in the world and I do understand that there is a lack of concern for Black life, in that we’re dehumanized for existing.”
The A Wrinkle In Time actress expands on her feelings by adding, “Whether that’s these young babies or these young children being on the ground and being handcuffed for no reason, or when I look at Breonna Taylor, I see my mom. I see my aunt. I see my sisters. Those are people that I genuinely, deeply care about that could lose their life just for being a Black woman or a Black man and that is something that I feel like we all have to come to terms with, but it’s not fair. And we have to try to continue to make steps to combat that ignorance and that intolerance and that injustice that we face.”
The Euphoria star is also an activist who has made her feelings very clear about race and social unrest in America on her social media channels. It’s not the first time that she has drawn attention to the case of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black woman who was shot dead by Louisville police on March 13, 2020 after they barged into her home unannounced in the middle of the night while she was asleep with her boyfriend. For nine long months celebrities, politicians and activists alike have been calling for the officers who killed her to be arrested and charged for the role in the tragedy.
“We must go harder for Breonna. Her name is no longer trending,” Storm captioned a photo of the EMT that she posted on her Instagram page in June. She then called for all of the cops to “be fired, arrested, and convicted.” “We want justice, and we have to continue to say her name,” Storm added.
To see the full episode of STEVE on Watch airs on Facebook Watch on Sept. 24 at 9am ET/ 6am PT. Child actor Lonnie Chavis, of This Is Us fame, is also featured in the episode.