Shonda Rhimes, Roxane Gay and Soledad O’Brien react to #NappingWhileBlack incident at Yale

When Sarah Braasch called the police on Lolade Siyonbola for falling asleep in the common room of the Yale residence hall where they both live, she probably did not expect to be at the center of a viral social media story, but that’s what happened. The two PhD candidates have been the subject of numerous articles this week because of the incident.

Siyonbola uploaded two videos to Facebook. One showed Braasch filming her and telling Siyonbola that the common room is not for sleeping. The other video was of her interaction with police once they arrived.

READ MORE: ‘I love hate speech’: 5 Things to know about the white woman who called cops on Black Yale grad student for napping in dorm

Now that the videos have made the rounds online, social media commentators (including some famous ones) have started to weigh in on what happened.

Shonda Rhimes noted expressed her opinion that people like Braasch are the ones who need police intervention for themselves.

“If the sight of brown people in daily life stirs up such fear, worry and hostility in you, clearly the only person you need to police is YOURSELF. People like this chick are the reason America can’t have nice things” Rhimes wrote.

For Roxane Gay, the incident made her reflect on her time at Yale two decades ago.
“Clearly nothing has changed in the 25 years since I went there. Those campus cops would stop a black student for blinking,” Gay tweeted.

Veteran journalist Soledad O’Brien hopped on Twitter to correct a headline that said “someone” called the police.

READ MORE: Yale Dean issues response about Black grad student questioned by cops for napping in dorm

READ MORE: Yale says police ‘admonished’ the woman who called them to remove a napping Black grad student