One of the most constructive uses for community service is that individuals can utilise talents they already have.
However, celebrities don't really have many useful talents – so when they get given community service, they're usually forced to sweep streets like the bums that they'll never admit that they secretly are. But not T.I.
Rapper T.I was arrested last year for buying all sorts of machine guns illegally, and so his community service involves spending 1,000 hours talking to children about his negative experiences with guns. It's a win-win for all involved, really – T.I gets to educate children about something close to his heart, and the children get to learn about how cool it is to illegally purchase a stash of machine guns. Consider us jolly well heartwarmed.
When people think of rappers, they tend to imagine a gaggle of uneducated thugs shooting each other in the stomach. But quite often that's not the case at all – the rappers are victims more than anything. Take T.I, for example. All his life, T.I has been cursed with the desperate inability to put a hat on his head properly. He tries, dear lord he tries, but the hats always end up perched all wonky on the side of T.It's head making him look like a bit of a bell-end.
Imagine the ridicule you'd go through living your life with this affliction – every day people who've managed to work out the normal way of wearing a hat must have taunted and mocked T.I, calling him names like Mr Stupid Hat. What would you do in T.It's position? Stop wearing hats? Learn that hats are to be pulled down fully over the top of your head? Never! Instead you'd protect yourself, wouldn't you? You'd protect yourself with guns.
That's what T.I did last year which, coincidentally, is why T.I was arrested last year, after police officers found him trying to illegally buy three machine guns, two silencers and a pistol. But while a crime like this would usually warrant a long jail sentence, T.I has managed to get away with something a little easier.
Yesterday T.I pleaded guilty to his charge and was sentenced to 1,000 of community service spent lecturing the young on the pitfalls of gang culture. And then he'll have a lengthy jail sentence. Fox reports:
T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, must spend at least 1,000 hours talking to youth groups about the pitfalls of guns, gangs and drugs before reporting for about a year in prison under a deal worked out Thursday. "I'm looking forward to turning this negative time in my life into a positive," Harris, 27, told reporters after the hearing. "I know I have a long road of redemption to travel."
What? This can't be – a celebrity pleading guilty to something they've obviously done? Surely this is a first – we thought that the correct procedure was to plead not guilty until you're offered an insultingly small jail sentence, which will be reduced to about 13 seconds once the sheriff's department realises how overcrowded the jails are.
So fair play to T.I – he's taking his punishment like a man, plus the nature of his punishment means that he'll be able to actively educate the very people who idolise him. Admittedly after about 150 hours T.I will probably run out of bad things to say about gangs and start talking about the perks like the nice outfits and the free dental care plan, but fair play to T.I anyway.
We were going to say 'hats off' instead of 'fair play' but we thought that might be taking the piss a bit. And we don't want T.I to shoot us. Not with all those illegal guns he keeps buying.
Read more:
Rapper T.I. to Spend 1,000 Hours Talking to Youth Groups About Guns, Gangs – Fox