OJ Simpson and the backlash

By Jon Singer I had been trying to avoid thinking about the O.J. Simpson trial as reports of it paraded across television screens and newspaper pages for months. How important could it be when we've got a planet to save and a better world to fight for? I knew that a racist cop, who admitted planting evidence on black "suspects" and who could have done the same to Simpson, was involved and therefore I was not surprised at the "not guilty" verdict. In my experience as a juror, jury members usually take their power over a person's freedom seriously. The evidence must establish the guilt of the accused, beyond reasonable doubt, regardless of what the jurors believe to be the case, or the accused has the right to liberty. Statements by Simpson's trial jurors after the verdict show this was the basis for their unanimous decision. But the establishment media in Australia generally took a different view. Overwhelmingly, we were told that the evidence to convict Simpson, (primarily forensic, and all circumstantial), was compelling. Giles Whittell, in the October 5 Australian, managed to both assert this and state later that the defence "made a mockery of much of the physical case against Simpson". His underlying message was that Simpson, an African-American, would have been found guilty but for the predominantly African-American jury. In fact, Simpson's acquittal was primarily the product of the strong legal defence which he, unlike most African-Americans, could afford to buy. The majority of African-Americans remain poor and many are subjected to systematic police and judicial harassment. Almost one in three African-American men in their 20s, and one in 20 women, is either serving a criminal sentence in jail, is on probation or parole. The "not guilty" verdict came as a surprise to the legal and media pundits because they, along with the police who had set out to assemble a case that would normally ensure conviction, assumed Simpson was guilty. The accusation of "racism" against the jury was only the jumping-off point for supporters of the inequitable social order who deny the existence of systematic racism. They now label any collective action by African-Americans against their continuing oppression as "racist". Hence, Simpson's defence was supposed to have "played the race card" — "a whole deck", some wrote — by attacking police corruption in fabricating evidence. Most explicit was Paul Sheehan, who, in the October 7 Sydney Morning Herald made dubious use of trial anecdotes, US justice department crime statistics, and allusive and emotive language to try to claim the moral high ground for a "discussion" of "black racism and black hypocrisy". In fact, Sheehan's piece was a vitriolic attack on those who have dared to explain the underlying social and economic causes of racism. He went as far as to raise the question of whether US law was biased in favour of African-Americans! While Sheehan is in the business of redefining "reality", most people agree that minorities in the US are bearing the brunt of the recession. Affirmative action programs, for instance, are under serious attack. The response to the O.J. Simpson trial verdict could intensify the backlash against the African-American struggle for equality and justice. All freedom-loving people have a responsibility to expose the hypocrisy of this latest attack.