The O.J. Effect

The O.J. Simpson murder case was a mark of progress in race relations.

No, I'm not talking about the judge, jury, prosecution or defense in this now 15-year old murder case in the usual sense. And I have no doubt that the rage we saw in Simpson's relatively recent conviction in the Las Vegas case involving memorabilia showed us the man that slew Ron Goldman and Nicole Simpson.

The important thing was that it showed that blacks have come far enough in America that a rich black man with money can beat the rap. It's a viewpoint that I haven't seen discussed in the years that have passed since the famous White Bronco slow-mo chase and slow-mo trial.

This is not a cynical dismissal of the verdict. This is a recognition that in the past, a rich and famous black man accused of serious crime would not have beaten the system, if you believe Simpson to be guilty or that he would have been acquitted, if you believe he was innocent. A black man accused of murdering a white woman would have been lynched in most of America.
At best, he might have been driven from his home.

Take the boxer Jack Johnson, who was convicted of violating the Mann Act, simply for consorting with (and marrying two) white women and for whom there has been a repeated pleas for pardons.

When we look back at the election of Barack Obama as president in the United States in 2008, perhaps we can remember that there was another important, if not particularly noble, landmark in the Simpson case.