THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 4, 1995 TAG: 9510040564
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: CHARLISE LYLES
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
For every black neck ever hanged on a tree branch and stretched in the lock of a lynching.
For every African American who ever died mysteriously in police custody.
For every upstanding citizen of color ever frightened out of his wits by white cops who stop and intimidate black folks, no matter what clothes we wear, what car we drive, what credentials we carry.
The O.J. verdict is justice. But a peculiar justice it is.
For I believe if ever a man was guilty of murder, Orenthal James Simpson is.
To me, the evidence was overwhelming: no alibi; the bloody, size 12 Bruno Malis shoes from Bloomingdale's where O.J. shopped; the bloody sock found at the foot of O.J.'s bed with DNA markers indicating his ex-wife; the bloody Bronco; O.J.'s blood at the crime scene; the defense's pathetic bumbling witnesses; and its shoddy story of an LAPD conspiracy.
Yet, after listening to 37 weeks of testimony, a jury of nine blacks, two whites and one Hispanic arrived within 3 1/2 hours at a verdict of not guilty.
Why?
The police.
If anyone created a reasonable doubt, it was retired LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman. In the minds of way too many African Americans who have endured insult, set-up, abuse and even death at the hands of police, Fuhrman is Everycop.
He epitomizes the all-too-real racist cop whom we are likely to encounter on any day. Thus, in the end, I believed both Simpson's guilt and an LAPD set-up.
The tapes on which the retired detective boasted about his racist ways and dirty dealings confirmed my worst suspicions about police.
Fuhrman's vaunting further validated my encounter with a burly Chesapeake police officer who arrested me by hand and foot in June 1988 as I attempted to cover a traffic accident.
Perhaps the verdict can be viewed as a collective testimony to this common African-American experience. Albeit unintentional, the jury has meted out a justice that appears to compensate for past injustices.
In effect, it is affirmative-action justice.
For the justice that O.J.'s money and celebrity could afford to buy seemed to strangely make up for all the justice denied blacks over the years.
His mega-powered defense team made up for every black whose case was poorly defended or who never saw a courtroom.
The nine blacks on his jury made up for all the blacks who ever faced an all-white jury and lost.
His 37 weeks in the courtroom made up for every black whose trial lasted a day or a week.
All-day and all-night coverage on CNN, Court TV and every day on the second page of The Virginian-Pilot made up for every black trial that never received decent media coverage.
But this strange justice does not feel good, brings no comfort.
It's not pure like a mighty stream, like justice ought to be. It's sullied by a history of racism and the day-to-day indignities done to blacks everywhere by police paid to protect us all.
It's a whorish kind of justice that deals even deeper sorrow to the families of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson who got no justice.
Sadly, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s words ring true: ``Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'' From the streets of Chesapeake to the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
KEYWORDS: O.J. SIMPSON VERDICT REACTION by CNB