Little People, Big World alum Jacob Roloff is catching heat from fans after he spoke out about race and white privilege. The former TLC reality star had taken to Instagram on June 9 while “headed to Northern California to visit izzys brother Nico,” when he shared a post detailing his interaction with a police offer.
“On the way out of town at a four way stop, I went before a cop, and as I was passing he yelled, ‘your seatbelt fell off’ and did not pursue me to give me a ticket or to even make sure I heeded his warning,” Roloff wrote. “And as I drove for the next few minutes I felt and thought a lot of things, but one persists: I just benefitted from white privilege.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
“If the same thing happened to a person of color the outcome could have been very different considering the abuses of power that people of color are FORCED to be hyper aware of,” he added. “..I think, as a white person, you are being intellectually dishonest if you insist there is not a disparity in how we are treated by the police.”
The post proved to be controversial among some of Roloff’s 255,000 followers, who slammed Roloff for making an “assumption” about the officer’s intentions and for bringing race it into” it.
“You have no idea why he didn’t give you a ticket,” one person wrote. “Bringing race into this is part of the problem, not the solution.”
“It is an assumption of yours that you have white privilege in regards to this situation,” a second added. “You have no idea behind the thoughts that officer had in his decision.”
“Or maybe, just maybe you ran across a police officer who gave a driver a break. Perhaps another officer would have pulled you over and gave you a ticket,” another of Roloff’s followers commented. “SMH. This post and assumptions that something good or bad happened for no other reason than skin tone are exactly what keeps racism alive. Very disappointed.”
Responding to the backlash, Roloff, who left his family’s TLC series in 2016, edited his post to further explain the scenario he had found himself in, writing that “driving away from the cop it was evident that I had just benefited from the privilege, if nothing else, to not feel fear (or existential worry). I knew that the MOST that would happen to me was a ticket.
He went on to explain that “for people of color that is not so sure of a thing” and that “often people of color are harassed for as little as their existence. And from that harassment their brothers, mothers, fathers, and sisters are killed.”
