Justin Timberlake: Pleading and Privileged

Vice President Kamala Harris, the presidential debate, and Taylor Swift have dominated the western news cycle this week. Also the VMAs and Shannon Sharpe, LOL. There have been two celebrity beneficiaries of all of these headlines: Dave Grohl (who Maria posted about yesterday) and also Justin Timberlake. White man privilege at work again. 

Justin Timberlake will be in court Friday in the Hamptons and will reportedly plead guilty a lesser charge. He was initially charged with drunk driving but he’ll end up pleading to Driving While Ability Impaired and his pro-men friends at TMZ are doing him a solid by explaining to the internet that: 

“Although the word "impaired" is used, it is NOT a drunk driving offense. As for the penalty, we're told Justin will pay a $300 to $500 fine, and that's it.”

So the message here is, basically, Justin did something not-that-bad and his punishment is not-that-bad so let’s all get together and protect his reputation. 

Not that any of this is surprising. From the moment he was arrested and it was revealed that he’d been pulled over after hanging out at a bar and the arresting officer said he failed field sobriety tests and refused a breathalyzer, most of us probably expected it to turn out this way. Because, of course, it almost always turns out this way for wealthy white men like Justin with resources and himpathy. He wasn’t trending for weeks in the aftermath like, say, JLo who was not accused of the crime of getting behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated. The amount of critical energy directed at JT was nothing compared to the nuclear amount of hate that JLo was eating all over socials this year, and she wasn’t charged with a crime. 

So this is working out like it always works out, JT is going to be fine, he was always going to be fine. Which is why the short public embarrassment he experienced at the time? That was the worst it was ever going to be.