Taraji P. Henson says son will attend HBCU so he won't be racially profiled

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Taraji P. Henson is sending her son to Howard University rather than the University of Southern California because her son was racially profiled by campus police.

The Empire star opened up about the decision during an interview with Uptown Magazine.

“I’m not paying $50K so I can’t sleep at night, wondering is this the night my son is getting racially profiled on campus,” Henson told the magazine.

Henson explained that she was originally going to send her 20-year-old son, Marcel, to USC, but his experience in Glendale and on campus quickly changed her mind.

“My child has been racially profiled. He was in Glendale, California and did exactly everything the cops told him to do, including letting them illegally search his car. It was bogus because they didn’t give him the ticket for what he was pulled over for,” she said.

She then added, “Then he’s at University of Southern California, the school that I was going to transfer him to, when police stopped him for having his hands in his pockets.”

In the same interview, Henson discussed the growing opportunities for African-American women on the small screen in shows like Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder.

It feels good that there’s not just one black person. I don’t like that we get fixated on one or two at a time, or three at a time. If you look at Caucasian Hollywood, every year there’s a handful of new faces you’ve never seen before, then after that, they got five movies coming out and they’re introducing you to more talent. So I’m just so happy to see what’s happening on television right now. We have options and that’s how it should be.