Worshipping a False Idol

When W.E.B. DuBois wrote in 1903, "The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line," he was dealing with the fact that black men in America were treated as sub-human, and he was addressing the inability of the black man in America to obtain justice.

Nearly 100 years later, is it possible for a black man to obtain justice in America, or are we still dealing with "the problem of the color-line"?

In the case of O.J. Simpson, justice was nowhere to be found, but it wasn't being sought after either. What the trial did have to offer, however, was an analysis of racial clashes in America. The positive upshot of the O.J. trial is that America is now thinking--about race, about justice, and about the "problem of the color line."

Did the issue that overrode the quest for justice justify freeing a murderer? What was the message to white Americans, to black ones, and was it worth it?

One obvious message that came from this trial is that justice has a dollar value. And because of his money, O.J., a man who assimilated himself into Beverly Hills society and never looked back, has become a false symbol for the injustice that blacks encounter every day in our legal system.

As I watched the verdict being read last Tuesday, I felt ill--ill at the fact that someone I believed to be a cold-blooded murderer was walking home, ill at the fact that the smug "Dream Team" was displaying its joy at having beaten the justice system. And most of all, I felt ill watching O.J. thank the jury for granting him a pardon.

When Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman were first murdered, I didn't want to believe that O.J. had done it because I didn't want my image of the bubbly announcer and bumbling cop in "Naked Gun" to be shattered. But fifteen months later, reason has made it impossible to accept the conclusion of the nine black, one white, and two Hispanic jurors.

Maybe members of the jury weren't able to let go of their image of Simpson as a warm, enthusiastic football announcer. Or, even scarier, maybe his guilt was not what they were interested in. But DNA doesn't lie. Conceding that the jury did not want to invoke justice, how did they reconcile freeing O.J.? Proof of the jury's blindness and unwillingness to make O.J. pay was the fact that they took a scant three hours to deliberate over a case that produced 45,000 pages of paper, contained over 1,100 pieces of evidence and lasted nine months.

So if the jury's mind was predetermined before going into deliberation, what was it that they were after? Since blacks were first brought to America, they have been tormented by our justice system. Maybe it was payback time. In some ways, I do not have a problem with this.

The L.A.P.D. has a lot of racists, and racism certainly clouded the judgment of some of the officers and evidence collectors involved in this case. There should be repercussions for this, and there should be retribution. But is it revenge to free a man viewed by many as a murderer, or is it simply cutting off one's nose to spite one's face?

Was this case the right send the message at DuBois gave in 1903? No, O.J. is not a typical black man persecuted by the American judicial system. How many accused murderers are there in the slums of L.A. who can afford a $10 million defense? His money skewed the case's outcome. And now, the trial is over, O.J. is home, and for all we know he is back on the links at Riviera, playing golf with all of the white, rich people who would have had him in the electric chair--which brings us to the ultimate problem.

O.J. has never been an outspoken proponent of black rights, and the fact that he has become a symbol of racial oppression seems paradoxical. When the race card become his ticket out of jail, he played it. It was not out of a quest for racial equality that the defense team crucified Mark Fuhrman or that Johnnie Cochran spent more time talking about blacks in America than he did about the evidence. It was simply a tactic to get O.J. off.

Cochran played to the sensibilities of the predominantly black jury, and he duped the members into believing that the trial of O.J. was the trial of the black race. In fact, if the trial had been held anywhere else or if it had been any other person, white or black, trial and conviction could have been completed in under a month, and no one would have cared.

O.J. Simpson, who before the trial did his best to insinuate himself into the predominantly white, rich community where he lives, has now become a symbol for the persecution of blacks. Although he grew up in a bad neighborhood in California and is familiar with racial inequality, he has never made any public efforts to represent the black struggle. He has tried to make the "problem of the color-line" not his problem.

And did he in fact feel the injustice that so many blacks are subject to in our system? No. He was acquitted for a double murder that DNA suggests he committed, the very opposite of what usually happens to black men. Surely somewhere else last week, a black man was convicted for a murder he didn't commit, but nobody knows about it, and very few people care.

This is the real problem with our justice system; and the result of the O.J. trial might be even more apathy on the part of whites. Let Johnnie Cochran and Robert Shapro defend people who are being falsely accused in Detroit and Harlem, and then maybe some real justice will be served. But as long as only the wealthy can afford justice, or the rape of it, the poor will be the only ones paying the real price.