Filed under: News, Politics, Race and Civil Rights
I spoke with someone who is familiar with the case against T.I. I asked him if T.I. was going back to prison. He said that while he isn't sure what the rapper's fate will be, there is an inherent contradiction in his case. While we can almost expect that T.I. will be punished for his latest violation of the law, the same can't be said for other celebs, like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. Both of these young women have been arrested time and time again for one offense after another. In each case, they are typically given a slap on the wrist.
Artists like T.I. and Lil Wayne have done hard time in prison for their violations of the law. We could try to argue that their crimes are worse than those of Lohan and Hilton (I don't agree with this point), buy you can't disconnect their experience with the justice system from the disparities between white females and African American males.
According to the United States Department of Justice, black males are roughly 35 times more likely to go to prison than white females. Additionally, black children are nine times more likely than white children to have a parent in the penitentiary. TI's children have already spent a year without their father, during his most recent stint in prison. If his hearing on the 15th doesn't go well, they may not see their father for a very long time.
This is not to say that T.I. didn't play a role in the creation of his problems. I've written publicly that I was incredibly disappointed with TI after this latest incident. He not only disappointed me, but he's let down millions of fans who believed in him, and the children he's vowed to raise. But I must wonder if this were Lindsay Lohan being caught with weed and codeine in her car, would there be a possibility of a prison sentence? Both she and Paris have been arrested for cocaine possession and Paris was recently videotaped in a car where her male friend ran over a woman and drove away. Lohan and Hilton have rap sheets that could probably rival those of T.I. and Lil Wayne, yet we typically expect that they are going to "Macgeyver" their way out of every situation.
If a black male rapper were doing all the things that Lindsay and Paris were doing, would their trips to the court house be cute little celebrity appearances, or situations where they'd be expected to face real consequences? If these artists were sent to rehab or jail, would they be able to skip out of their sentences or miss court dates whenever they wish? What about black males in the hood being caught with dope vs. college students who get drunk and high every weekend on college campuses? Do we consider all of these cases in the same way?
I won't answer these questions for you, since our perspectives as Americans vary widely based on where we come from and who we represent. But with almost no exception, we can argue that the experience of black men in the criminal justice system is quite different from that of white females. This is true even if you're a celebrity.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.