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Dortell Williams is an inmate at the Los Angeles County California State Prison in Lancaster, California. Dortell has been published in a number of community newspapers, including the San Francisco Bay View, The Final Call and The Los Angeles Sentinel. He mentors at-risk kids through San Francisco's The Beat Within and is an inside correspondent for Families to Amend Three Strikes. You can email Dortell at: dortellwilliams@yahoo.com. For more information about the Honor Yard Program, visit: www.prisonhonorprogram.org
Paris Hilton: A Voice for the Poor?
Commentary by Dortell Williams, recorded 6/18/07
1) 3:19 MP3 Radio Essay
Update:
Senate Bill 299 sailed unscathed through the Senate Public Safety Committee, the Senate Public Safety Commission, Senate Appropriations and the full Senate. The bill is scheduled to go before the Assembly Public Safety Committee, August 31st, where it is expected to hit turbulence. Old fashioned, traditional letters are requested of the public for legislative supporters of the bill to offset expected opposition.
Paris Hilton: A Voice For The Poor?
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Copyright 2007/Dortell Williams
To many people across the globe, Paris Hilton represents many things. From down–to–earth party girl, to high–maintenance fashionista–and everything in between. But who could have imagined that this white, super rich, high society, icon would become the tearful face for scores of marginalized, incarcerated, people of color?
Yet that’s exactly what happened when she was tossed in the clink for violating conditions of probation.
The Hilton Hotel heir reportedly wailed in anguish as she was led into the dungeon. A wail that is often muffled for so many others by the ever–confining walls of poverty and misfortune.
“Being in jail is by far the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” says Hilton in a statement–just 96 hours into her stint. She speaks for so many who’ve never been given a whisper of a voice.
For the cynical, her sentence is too short for her to complain. With a little imagination one could hear the taunts, “Woman up! Do the crime, face the time” and etc. But for those who actually value human life, and recognize it for the precious gift that it is, even a short interruption of one’s freedom is a serious matter. It takes but a moment to conceive a child; a one second scratch to win the lottery, or a simple turn, to be at the right place, at the right time, to meet the love of your life. All of which is almost impossible while incarcerated.
Once inside, Hilton’s highly publicized nightmare awakened the world to the experience of millions around the nation, after she was thrown into the muzzled darkness of the inside. A potentially deadly darkness where staph (staphylococcal) infections and dangerouns variations of hepatitis eagerly lie and wait for a host.
It makes one wonder if jails and prisons are the cure–all society bills them to be, or if they’re really breeding groups for disease, mental illness, gang and terrorism recruitment, and centers of racism by fellow prisoners?
Hilton’s traumatic ordeal stems from a DUI arrest earlier this year–a misdemeanor. As a consequence her license was suspended. She continued to drive, defying the law. She was sentenced to 45 days, of which it was estimated she would do half. A far cry from the 25–to–life sentence thousands of other misdemeanor offenders are forced to serve under California’s utterly wicked Three Strikes law.
Imagine being sentenced to conditions of severe overcrowding, flesh–eating and other inadequately treated diseases–for a misdemeanor.
Though I wouldn’t wish the horrid experience of incarceration on anyone, who would ever have thought a smooth faced, fair–skinned socialite would come to represent the muted suffering of millions of primarily poor and pigmented people? Yet, in an ironic twist of fate, this is exactly what Paris Hilton has come to represent.
Now that heart wrenching photograph of a tearful and distraught Hilton, cuffed in the rear of L.A. sheriff’s patrol car No. 865, will represent the scores of other people, suffering too, but either too penniless or too dark for society to care about.
Sources:
KABC News, Ch. 7, June 7, 2007, Hilton released from jail.
KTTV’s Fox 11 News, June 8, 2007, Hilton remanded back to court and jail.
KCAL 9, June 8, 2007, Hilton remanded back to court and jail; Sheriff Leroy Baca justifies release of Hilton.
KTTV’s Fox 11 News, June 10, 2007, Hilton’s incarceration condition.
Dortell Williams is an inmate at the Los Angeles County California State Prison in Lancaster, California. Dortell has been published in a number of community newspapers, including the San Francisco Bay View, The Final Call and The Los Angeles Sentinel. He mentors at-risk kids through San Francisco's The Beat Within and is an inside correspondent for Families to Amend Three Strikes. You can email Dortell at: dortellwilliams@yahoo.com. For more information about the Honor Yard Program, visit: www.prisonhonorprogram.org
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