“Grey’s Anatomy” Showrunner Details How White Privilege Allowed Her Past Crimes To Be Labeled “Mistakes”

Krista Vernoff, a showrunner on the popular drama series” Grey’s Anatomy,” has put together a candid thread detailing how white privilege allowed the crimes that she committed as a teenager to be written off as “mistakes.”

Vernoff, who has always been open about her past, particularly her struggles with alcoholism, created the thread to show how being white got her out of many situations that would have likely ended very differently for black people, starting with a situation that happened when she was 15-years-old. Vernoff confessed that she 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.”

The showrunner, who has worked on Grey’s Anatomy since 2017, continued by describing another incident two years later where she said that she 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 couldn’t blow hard enough to get a reading. 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.”

That instance was similar to the one that ended in murder in Atlanta when Rayshard Brooks was shot to death by cops, who responded to him falling asleep behind the wheel in a Wendy’s drive-thru line.

At 19, Vernoff stated that she “drunkenly attacked” a girl at a party for flirting with her sister’s boyfriend and “swung a gallon jug of water, full force, at her head.” According to her, “the police were never called,” she added. And at 20, she “punched a guy in the face while we were both standing two feet from a cop. The guy went to the ground and came up bloody and screaming that he wanted me arrested, that he was pressing charges.”

The 46-year-old also added that between the ages of 11 and 22, “my friends and I were chased and/or admonished by police on several occasions for drinking or doing illegal drugs on private property or in public. I have no criminal record.”

Director Ava Duvernay praised the showrunner’s unbiased thread for “talking honestly about her experiences.” She added, “It’s one of the best threads on the criminalization of Black people that I’ve read lately.”

Vernoff ended her thread by asking, “If I had been shot in the back by police after the shoplifting incident – in which I knowingly and willfully and soberly and in broad daylight RAN FROM THE COPS – would you say I deserved it?” Continuing, “I’m asking the white people reading this to think about the crimes you’ve committed. (Note: You don’t call them crimes. You and your parents call them mistakes.) Think of all the mistakes you’ve made that you were allowed to survive.”