Celebrity Status = Community Service and Jail...maybe

I've been working on this entry for a while. It is not because I could not think of something to say. It was because of my little hater. Most people know this guy as procrastination. I apologize to all that read this and I vow to try and put more posts up. If you feel that I'm slacking again, let me know. Now that I have that off my chest, let's get down to business.

I'm the average citizen in the United States. Most people are known in a community or clique and carry a reputation in that community or clique. If you do something right, it may reach a little outside that comfort zone but not too far. If you do something wrong, the same result will most likely occur. Now, let's take things a step further and bring in a case study. I will choose...T.I. and the gun charge.

If you've been living under a rock or if you refused to watch MTV, BET, VH1, or FUSE, you will not know who this guy is or why I would bring him up. T.I. is a well established multi-platinum recording artist from Atlanta, Georgia. And yes, he's a rapper. T.I. was arrested on weapons charges. This was not any old handgun under the passenger seat thing. He may have had enough weaponry to supply a small guerrilla army. He got caught and in a very surprising move, he didn't claim that the stuff wasn't his or that he had no idea where it came from. He didn't run away from it. He stood up with his head held high and took what was coming to him. He was supposed to get up to 30 years in prison. But, he ended up getting only 366 days with chance for parole. How?

There are two factors that come into play. The first leads into the second. The first is his celebrity and pop culture status. In the mainstream music world, T.I. is a total success. He's put out more than 3 albums and all of them have sold extremely well. He's the typical rags to riches rap artist and because of this, he is looked up to by kids all of the world. With this status, he can use that to get himself out of situations. In most cases, celebrity status will get you a full pardon and somehow we can pretend like none of these eventes ever happened. But, the severity of this particular case study, some more has to be done. This leads into the second factor in this equation. The one thing that seems to save alot of celebrities from doing a full sentence. I'm talking about community service.

In the case of T.I., he made a plea with the judge assigned to his case to do some sort of act in order to get his sentence shortened. He had to perform around 1000 hours of community in a span of 10 months. This sounds like a doable job for the avaerage citizen. But, this guy is a celebrity with a tight schedule and does more in a day than most people can do in a week. Not to mention that everything he is doing is in the public eye. Now, he could have just done the hours and called it a day. But, once again, he used his status, situation, and life lesson to do something extraordinary. He got in touch with MTV and created a reality show that helped kids that were going down the same path that he took to jail. This is going above and beyond the call of duty. The judge saw that and lowered the sentence from 30 years to 366 days. I don't care what anybody says, that is crazy generous for any judge. Now, to my overall point.

If T.I. did not have his status, he would most likely be doing 45 years without parole in tha maximum security prison. He still has to go to jail, but it could be so much worse. Like you, I do not have the kind of notoriety or finances to hire the best lawyers or use my status to put a lesser hinderence on my family and my business. I hope T.I. enjoys his stardom because it may have been the only way he could possibly stay relevant in this society. Not bad for a minority citizen growing up in the ghetto to make a name for himself legally.

Tell me what you think. Have any opinions or anything I missed? Leave a comment or send a message.