That time Sho Madjozi got arrested in America over a laptop

Sho Madjozi was arrested in America for refusing to verify that a laptop she was holding was hers.
Image: Sho Madjozi/ YouTube

Sho Madjozi has never been scared to speak her mind and stand up for herself when she felt injustice, something that once got her into trouble as a student in America.

Before she was dominating charts, she went by the name of Maya the Poet, preaching to the world about racism black people experience on a daily basis.

Speaking to TshisaLIVE she recounted her own battle with this, which led to her arrest while studying at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts in America around around eight or nine years ago.

“I was literally arrested for the fact that I was trying to take my own laptop, and they could not verify that it was mine. I was taking it from a dorm room. This white guy took his out, and that was fine, but then I took mine. They were like, ‘we want to make sure it yours’.

“I told them I wasn’t going to prove anything to them and they said they were taking it until the morning, to allow me to calm down. They literally called everyone and no one said the way they were treating me was unfair.”

She said she felt like the she was being painted with the stereotype that black women are always angry and ready for a fight.

“They were all telling me to calm down. They told me that if I didn’t give them the laptop they would arrest me. I refused and they arrested me. I was held overnight.”

Sho said that it only cemented her belief that black people often faced an uphill battle to be heard and treated equally.

“It confirmed what I already knew, that black people are often not treated equally to other races in a society.”