The world remains outraged that Felicity Huffman is serving 14 days in prison for her role in the college bribery scandal. Many feel that she got off easy because she's rich and famous. Wendy Williams would like to add to that: if Felicity had been black, her sentence would have been much harsher. When Wendy Williams said “Season 11, I'm going harder than ever,” she clearly meant it. “So Felicity Huffman's only going to prison for 14 days?!” “I mean, if she were black, it'd be 14 years number one.” She's not wrong, really. Studies show that even doctors view black women less favorably than white women. You know that courts do, too. Wendy then briefly confuses Felicity with Lori. “She paid $15,000 and she's worth million,” Wendy observes, saying that Felicity paid to “have her daughter's SAT scores changed.” “And that's where her trouble is,” she states. “So,” Wendy continues. “She admitted what she did. She's going to jail for 14 days.” “She pays $30,000 in restitution — maybe a few more dollars,” she assesses. When you're talking about a pair of movie stars, that's not a huge fine. “Do I think she’ll ever work again? Yeah,” Wendy admits. “Because first of all, she copped to it,” she points out. “Second of all, she’s one half of a power couple in Hollywood,” Wendy reasons. She adds: “And she’s a nice woman. She just did something that I think a lot of mothers would do if you had the means.” Wendy then asks her audience if they would do the same for their children, given the chance. A shocking number of them clap. (Folks, you can take the SAT repeatedly and it's genuinely not a difficult test; let your kid get the scores that they get) Wendy then very correctly points to a case that constrasts with Felicity's. (When the scandal first broke, outrage over this particular case showed the disparity between rich white women and their poor brown counterparts) A woman in Connecticut — who is black — was sentenced to five years in prison. She didn't bribe anyone. She didn't pay someone to impersonate her child to give them a better test score. All that she did was use a relative's address as her child's home address to give her child a better zip code and thus a better education. Remember, this was a woman overcoming racism — because yes, schools being funded by local property taxes is not race-blind. It's a decades-old system designed to ensure that rich, white homeowners aren't paying for the educations of poor people. And because of other racial injustices in America, a disproportionate number of low-income families are black or brown. Most people wouldn't consider what this mom did a crime. You'd equate it with sending your kids to a rich neighborhood to go trick-or-treating. But clearly, prosecutors felt that this woman defrauded more affluent parents by giving her child a better chance at life. Meanwhile, Felicity gets 14 days. Nice though she may be, that's not right. Wendy notes that she feels that Felicity should have been fined millions — with that money going to those who cannot afford a better education. That is a great idea. A genuinely great idea. At the end, Wendy states that she doesn't even feel like discussing Lori, whom everyone feels did much worse than what Felicity did.
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Wendy Williams: If Felicity Huffman Were Black, She’d Be Serving 14 YEARS!
