Marcy,
Thanks for your reactions to the verdict and the scene around you. A
comment from a friend in California, made last night before the verdict was
announced, has been troubling me in my conflicted reactions. She thought
it was "racist" of people who believed that Simpson would be acquitted on
racial grounds to assume that the African Americans on the jury "couldn't
think for themselves." I think when we apply that white liberal
individualistic value system we easily blind ourselves to the effects of
systematic oppression on whole populations. When Cochran suggested that
this was a chance to send a message not just to the LAPD but to the white
world, maybe the individual--whether Simpson, the jury member, you,
me--became irrelevant. And the question of guilt could be deflected from
Simpson to society. It's sobering to take this (I hate to call it lesson,
but maybe) from the trial; and still horrifying for me to contemplate the
corollary--that the abuse, the two dead people can be seen as incidental.
I wish I could take the easy way out and believe that the verdict was based
on reasonable doubt (which I do think the defense created) but I think that
would be a nifty little shuffle of denial.
-jean
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