Paris Hilton and Equal Justice

Yeah, I'm obsessing over the Paris Hilton case. But what are blogs for? Today, I'm going to focus on the myth of equal justice.

The rationalization of Paris Hilton's original sentence and return to jail is that she should receive the same treatment as other, less privileged offenders. That's equal justice. As the co-authors of a Salon article put it, "let's just pray that those bad prison sheets scratch her tender white ass . . ." That's precisely the point. In the United States, we have a extremely harsh legal system that's designed to exercise surveillance over, disrupt, and incarcerate the African-American population. And if Hispanics and poor whites are swept up in the system that's fine as well.

The harsh treatment of Paris Hilton performs a couple of functions in relation to the racial legal system. Of course, putting Paris Hilton's "tender white ass" into a jail creates a high-profile example of a prominent white woman who got the same kind of sadism that's usually reserved for black people. In this sense, Paris Hilton is the rare example of "equal treatment" whose case justifies the on-going mistreatment of African-Americans. At the same time, reveling in the abuse or possible abuse of Paris Hilton provides an escape valve for the anger that all kinds of Americans--blacks, whites, liberals, conservatives-- feel in relation to contemporary politics. As Americans, we might not agree on much and we're all pretty pissed off about it. But we can all agree that Paris Hilton is getting what she deserves.

Needless to say, the collective sadism is an ugly thing.