MANSFIELD: Red Carpet and White Privilege

 

In the starkly brilliant film Monster, in which Charlize Theron plays real-life serial killer Alieen Wuornos, during a scene near the end of the movie after being convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of six men, Wuronos blurted something to the effect of “I can’t believe that you’re going to kill an American white woman!” I don’t know if that actually happened at the end of the trial, but considering the pervasiveness of white privilege in this country it’s easy to believe that the scene actually took place.

In March of 2019, when actress Lori Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli were arrested along with 50 others in connection with an alleged nationwide college entrance exam cheating scandal, they both plead not guilty a month later, along with numerous others charged in the case.

Court documents unsealed at the time detail a scheme led by William Rick Singer, a 58-year-old resident of Newport Beach, California. “Wealthy parents paid Singer to illegally arrange to have their children admitted to elite schools by bribing admissions testing officials, athletics staff, and coaches at universities. Payments were made to Key Worldwide Foundation, a nonprofit organization owned by Singer and previously granted 501(c)(3) status. That status allowed him to avoid federal income taxes on the payments, while parents could deduct their ‘donations’ from their own personal taxes.”

One of those charged, actress Felicity Huffman, recently plead guilty and received a sentence of 14 days in jail, along with a $30,000 fine and 250 hours of community service. But others, including Loughlin, have pled not guilty and are planning to fight the charges. In fact, when she and her husband were walking into the federal courthouse, one would have thought that she was on the red carpet of some Hollywood gala. While she didn’t wave to the cameras, she was all smiles. I was left to wonder if she knew something the rest of us didn’t.

While Huffman admitted to paying a $15,000 bribe to help raise test scores of her daughter, Loughlin faces far more serious charges. She allegedly paid $500,000 to get her daughters into an elite college rowing program, in spite of the fact neither had rowed in high school, and one didn’t even want to attend to college.

Loughlin’s defense is supposedly going to be that the half million was a “gift” to the college. But the feds see it differently. Some well-deserving high school rower was denied a spot due to the alleged bribe. Neither the judge nor the jury is going to be sympathetic to that defense.

While I have no proof, I do believe that her “red carpet riches” and sense of “white privilege” are playing a role in Loughlin’s decision to go forth with a trial, something that every American is entitled to have. She must be of the belief that her entitlement places her above the law. If she is indeed innocent I wish her all the best. But if she is found guilty the last thing I want to hear is her sniveling as she is lead away to the Woman’s Federal Prison at Alderson, WV. You can’t play it both ways.

From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.

Post categories:

Leave a Reply

[fbcomments]