YETMO

”As You Sow, So Shall You Reap"

A year ago in one of my articles I said that only time would tell whether the public reaction to the OJ verdict -- guilty or not guilty -- would follow "predictable" racial patterns.

Well, the verdict's in and my use of the word predictable was unfortunately prophetic. We know now the reactions within the black and white communities.

So?

Step back with me for a moment, away from the emotion. Step back even from the evidence.

A jury of his peers acquitted OJ of two counts of murder. Case closed. It is frankly irrelevant whether you believe he's innocent or the state of California failed to persuasively present an air-tight case sufficient to convict.

Our justice system says OJ is no murderer. Will society accept the verdict? Again, we know the answer: blacks mostly will; whites mostly won't.

Whether or not we want to accept it, race is inextricably a part of this case. It was probably the determining factor.

How about this hypothetical? Would the verdict have been different, if the case had been tried, as it was originally scheduled, in the predominately white Santa Monica venue, where perspectives of the virtue and competence of the LA police department differ from the downtown area to which the case was shifted?

Of course! Today's news articles would be evaluating Alan Dershowitz's efforts to appeal the case rather than chronicling our reaction with the intensity of a sweet-toothed kid in a candy shop. Would OJ have been any more innocent or guilty than he, Ron Goldman, Nicole, and God know him to be? Of course not. But the verdict, ah, the verdict would most likely have been completely different.

We reap what we sow. If we're looking for the real culprits in this case, which many feel is a "miscarriage" of justice, than we need only present ourselves to the closest mirror.

This is not a liberal apologist view. Folks are responsible for their actions. I'm merely suggesting that the effect of years of white-dominated justice is seen totally differently by blacks. Many whites actually think the police are largely competent and pure. They don't arrest people unless there's darn good reason. Many blacks know the pain of mistaken identity, questionable "questioning" techniques, and more. Often justice viewed by one group is not viewed similarly by the other.

How many civil rights cases existed like the Medgar Evers trial nearly 30 years ago where many in the black community -- and in the white -- felt that the defendant got away with murder? He has since been re-tried and convicted under the Federal Civil Rights Act, but....

The damage was done. Day-after-day, year-after-year. Thousands of real or perceived injustices. These scenes were marked quietly and indelibly in people's hearts and minds over all these lo many decades.

I'll give the OJ jury the benefit of the doubt and assume that they believed he was innocent. All the blacks I initially saw and heard cheering the verdict's announcement disarmed me. Were they pleased that he got away with murder? Was this pay-back time?

But finally I got it. Many of them -- surveys now show most -- think OJ is truly not guilty. They were merely celebrating what they considered a right and just decision. Perhaps their jubilance was an expression of a collective "at last!"

I'm mostly true to my racial stereotype. I believe that it is more likely than not that OJ did it. While the reverse is possible, I can't envision a conspiracy where dozens of people could devise and carry out such an intricate frame-up. Maybe against Louis Farrakhan, but OJ?

I can't say definitely that OJ is the murderer. The only absolute I know is that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. And that, too, is likely to end in the next 2 to 3 billion years.

OJ was a role model and icon for me. I had hoped that he was innocent and that some terrible mistake was made. But month-after-seemingly-endless month, I changed my mind and accepted the "mountain of evidence" that was presented.

Imagine if OJ isn't the killer and the real one is found. I wonder how many of us would choke to death on all that food for thought. What a testimony that would be about how our beloved societal institutions sometimes malfunction.

Alas, all this narrative is pointless. Our legal system has spoken. OJ is not guilty and a free man. He received a fair trial by jury -- a jury of his peers.