Real, Strange News

Junior year at college. A late lunch in my dorm room. I remember just staring at the TV like it had lied. Then my roomate says: The only thing this proves is that America's justice system is for sale no matter what race you are.
Then we drank a bunch of beers and started laughing about it.

I was living in a bedroom community near Los Angeles. When the news broke so quickly after the jury had retired to consider the case, my phone began to ring off the wall. We women of color, feminists of color, needed to discuss what we thought had happened not just in the process of deliberation but also in the popular imagination of the nation.
One friend who was eager to talk suggested that I meet her in Beverly Hills for lunch to "theorize" and " to scare the white folks." And sure enough, as we walked into the "tea room" of Magnin's, or Neiman Marcus, or some other high-end department store, the room cleared. The "ladies-who-lunch" hurriedly asked for their checks and left chicken salad uneaten on their plates. The room cleared leaving us alone with our pop-overs.
In someways the incident was iconic, for it signified the difficulty the public has in reading race and gender together, of analyzing the complexity of the many issues at stake in the O.J. case, which demanded we examine our collective consciences from several angles at once: the differing levels of women's vulnerability in the economy of gender; the role of race in our sexual imaginations; issues of class; our racially different notions of what constitutes justice; the impossibility of any justice system completely to redress wrongs--to get at "the truth," and more. And so that day in that gathering place of genteel ladies, it seemed to be only about race.
But the refusal to move beyond this level of analysis has left the media and its public haunted by the O. J. narrative; they want/need to see the story resolved in harmony, in accordance, with social norms of "justice." The Las Vegas episode seems to have afforded them that "I-told-you-so" moment.

Just after I posted my comments it dawned upon me that readers might think that "scaring white folks" in Bev. Hill might constitute some overtly transgressive behavior. Lest you envisioned my companion and me performing some rude and inappropriate act in the midst of a gathering of proper ladies, rest assured our race was the only disruption.

@ S.E. Houchins, that is a really interesting and disturbing tale. Still I think the day at least where I was at Skidmore College was more about gender than race. What was lost in the black white was the fact an abusive husband got away with murdering his wife.
African Americans were/are certainly justified in their claims that the legal system is unjust, slanted and racist. But I never felt that justified murder.
At the same time those white people who feel like finally we got him, with his latest arrest, are equally off base. If OJ is innocent this time I think he should go free. The law should never be racist but it also should never be vendictive.

As disturbing as Ms. Houchins tale may be, it is a reality in this country that no amount of political correctness will ever allow the nation to address. Will OJ polarize the nation again, I would hope not but the real question is, if his problems do lead to another ugly racial standoff, what's to be done about it? Where's Al Sharpton when you need him? What are his thoughts on this? What about the NAACP? They were quick to jump in when Michael Vick had his 'troubles', where are they now?

The sad reality it seems to me, is that there has been a partial rapprochement between the races but it is only partial and it is so fragile a rapprochement that at times like this, the whole thing falls apart and we return to troglodytic thinking. I often scan blog comments about current events and I have to say that it is frankly terrifying, the frequency with which people bring things down to black and white. There must be something about the anonymity of blogging that frees us to be disturbingly racist. Or maybe it's just honest....

Bottom line: at first blush it looks like OJ is guilty but we'll see. As HK offered, if he's innocent let him go, but by golly if the EVIDENCE indicates that he's guilty send the man to jail. Either way, his kids lose again.

iii doonntt knowww