America Will Not Allow the System to Speak in The Case of O. J. Simpson

as a Black American, it is interesting to me to hear the rant that most white Americans use to display their feelings that O. J. Simpson is certainly guilty and that he successfully manipulated their system of American justice so that he got away with murder. And they have built a cult of belief around confirming that proposition, in spite of his having been acquitted in a court of law.

When it comes to the extraordinary number of Black and Brown people who are unjustly killed by the justice system or those unjustly incarcerated by that system, most of white America does not talk about an unfair justice system; however, they change their stance when it comes to O. J. Simpson's innocence and his acquittal, for they are cocksure that he is guilty and that all America believes as they do. They have actually built a cult of belief around the notion of O. J. Simpson's guilt and have a slavish adherence to that cult of guilt, allowing no others free descent of a fair mind. This cult of guilt allows them to vent their fury at O. J. and call him everything short of a nigger. And, of course, many do that as well.

But this phenomenon of having built a cult of belief around this one Black man having "gotten away with murder," as they have decided the case is, seems strange from their own unbalanced position that they blind themselves to.

Supposedly, the American justice system is fair enough to justifiably incarcerate almost one million Black males and kill more Blacks for crimes they have not committed than any other race--and that is acceptable. This same system allows rich white men to go free for many crimes they have committed--and that too is acceptable. But when it comes to O. J. Simpson, in a trial viewed by the world, when a jury acquits him, that is not acceptable! Could that be unacceptable because a white woman and a white man are dead and even though O. J. Simpson was the targeted suspect by the LAPD, a department notorious for their racist killings, framings, planting of evidence on Black and Brown citizens of Los Angeles, he was smart and rich enough to go through their system and be found not guilty? That same fact would be, no doubt, acceptable were O. J. white.

Although there are blatant  racial injustices in the "American justice system" that work a disproportional harm to Blacks, these are conditions most of white America finds acceptable. But somehow they have fixed it so that their dialectic allows them to think it sensible that all would agree with them that O. J. Simpson is guilty of killing Nicole Brown regardless of what the jury's verdict was. Strangely, there is no critical mass that goes to a tipping point for white America when poor Blacks are falsely charged and convicted of crimes they have not committed or when they are killed by this American justice system--an older woman shot and killed in her own home by a police invasion of the wrong house; a Black groom about to be married the next day is killed by police; Amadou Diallo an African male holds up his wallet to identify himself is shoot repeatedly by NYPD officers; and  countless other poor Black men who are imprisoned for years by cases of police having planted evidence, having lied under oath against them simply because they are Black and the white police often think as Mark Furhman* actually said, that they are god of the streets. Many Black people have been killed, beat up on video tape, yet these issues and facts of gross injustices and murder continue but without the attention of most of white America. For them, this is an acceptable norm of uncivil behavior toward Black America.

There is something wrong with these conditions and with the white perception of O. J. Simpson's guilt in the midst of the grossly unjust behavior of this American justice system that kills Blacks, whether they did the crime or not. I watched the trial as millions did around the world. Was there something white people saw that I missed? I did not blink or allow information to slip quickly by me.

On the other hand, I think there is something the vast majority of white America did not see because of a blind spot within them; that blind spot shields them from seeing their everyday assumptions about their special importance in the world and their ideas  of special unmerited and undeserved privileges and preferential treatment granted to white citizens of the US, as they maintain a fiction that such privileges do not really exist. Also, regardless of who O.J. Simpson was and is, those special privileges and unmerited favors were not to be granted to him in that trial because, after all, he is Black. And when it comes to a Black in the American criminal justice system he is 90% guilty before being tried. That is the acceptable normal of Black American justice in this society. Maybe, this is what the majority of white Americans were looking for, as they viewed the trial. Maybe that colored their thoughts so differently from that of the 12 jurors and the majority of the Black community. 

I saw something that they did not see, that they have refused to see, and that most of white America has pretended does not exist. Most of white America has determined that even though O.J. Simpson was acquitted by a jury of 12 men and women of Los Angeles County, he is still guilty, and not only that but they want their belief  to be the  belief of all the world. How American! How foolish!

America has been rushing Blacks and Browns (nonwhites generally) to unfair verdicts and the gallows too long. O. J. Simpson simply refused that common practice; he was smart enough and wealthy enough to mount a vigorous defense that brought about an acquittal, but most white Americans cannot or will not accept that fact or the fact that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. And furthermore, he has somehow baffled the Browns who sued in a lesser court and won a wrongful death judgment, (not a guilty verdict--that is only in a criminal court) yet they have collected no assets of O. J. Simpson. This behavior of Simpson of not acquiescing to the will of the white majority troubles that majority greatly; it discomforts their sense of white order--rushing Blacks to the gallows for any crime they have been accused of having committed.

Something else is at work here beyond the idea that the jury's verdict was wrong. America's pretense that racism is vanquished, abolished, overcome, etc., is not something white America is willing to even pretend about in Simpson's not guilty verdict. Americans see travesties of justice all the time and are never moved to their O. J. passion. In his case the majority of white America is quite willing to show the heart of their hatred and racism that would drive them to embrace the LAPD's corruption and strange behavior in this case as acceptable; so the majority of white America says, "He is guilty, regardless of what the LAPD did wrong and the jury adjudicated; he is guilty, and that is that!" And that majority demands that others see it as they see it, albeit flawed.

Fortunately for Black Americans, most have learned to read white America's often flawed dialectic and hold their own counsel, not accepting white verdicts as their verdicts; not accepting flawed white reasoning as making sense for them--albeit a few, like Ward Connerly and company.

White America may want to look a little more carefully at their justice system and method of thinking about most things. Maybe they will see what Blacks have known all along. Maybe that will help them understand why Black America quite logically thinks contrary to the way they think about O. J. Simpson and the jury's verdict.

Meanwhile Black America will stand back and allow white reasoning on this case to be the standard white American-perspective flawed, herd instinct reasoning  so peculiar to whites of America--we have understood that for years on many issues.** But we will not accept the cult of belief that O. J. Simpson is guilty because white America thinks so. Instead, we have known planted evidence, lies under oath, savage abuse under color of law, etc., that have put many Blacks to death and in prison for life. Mr. O. J. Simpson was one who refused the white justice system's normal injustice for Blacks--and well he should have, seeing its history; he was the one who got away. It is about time.

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* Cop in the O. J. trial accused of having manipulated evidence, if not having planted it.
**If examples of white reasoning gone mad need some support, I cite Iraq as a most current example. A small nation the size of California of some 27 million people was claimed to pose a direct and immediate military threat to the USA. The herd instinct of the American perspective of nonthink took over, and Americans thought and  determined Iraq to be a threat, when in fact Bush and his mental giants were the threat! That convoluted "thinking"  cannot be attributed simply to the flawed nature of the Bush Administration's set of mental giants. This white majority elected him!

Simond Griote
11/27/06

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