My Word's Worth: a weekly column by Marylaine Block

vol. 1, #11, October, 1995

O.J. [ON JUSTICE]

On the CBS News this morning, they showed people in England sitting around in pubs and watching the OJ verdict and shouting and carrying on just as if they were Americans. I was shocked. I always thought you guys were a tad more civilized than Americans. I mean, why should you care?

After all, I've not understood from day one of this whole episode why WE should care, though apparently we do. And I'm a football fan. I did like O.J., on the field and off, but he was not a hero of mine.

When the famous low speed chase occurred, I was trying to watch an NBA championship game. For 45 minutes, while the Knicks went from a resounding lead to being behind, we saw not one basket, not one foul (and this is the Knicks we're talking about!), not one slam-dunk, because on every single channel except C-SPAN (motto, as Dave Barry would say, "Dare to be boring."), we got to watch this stately procession down a freeway of OJ's car and a fleet of police cars (and they tell us that the police departments are understaffed--no wonder, if it takes 15 cars to pursue one Bronco).

It was clear that this was not, in and of itself, riveting television; every TV show and movie ever made had more exciting chase scenes. No, the reason the TV cameras remained fixed was clearly the expectation that they might get to watch a football star commit suicide in public, or have a really neat crash. The actual end of the chase was anticlimactic in the extreme, and reluctantly, the TV cameras let us get back to the NBA championship series.

Then the media hit-and-run began in full force. Everybody who knew anything, or didn't know but might have been expected to, was gang- interviewed by the free media, or bought and paid for by the tabloids. The number of reporters screaming the same questions roughly equaled the population of Bangladesh.

Then the news leaks began. The LAPD and the prosecutors accidentally on purpose leaked all kinds of incriminating evidence against OJ. Between all the news leaks and the fact that the first six months of the trial was entirely conducted by the prosecution, it's no wonder so many Americans were convinced of OJ's guilt. That is, white Americans. To a lot of black Americans, this looked a lot like white cops, white prosecutors, and white media stacking the deck, a phenomenon they are not unaccustomed to.

From time to time, the media realized that what they were doing was a bit unseemly, so they assuaged their guilt by claiming to be examining the "larger issues" raised by the case--domestic violence, racism, celebrity in America, whatever. (This is like those who, like me, get a graduate degree in American studies, and from then on can be couch potatoes without guilt, because they are "studying American culture.")

What ticked me off about the whole trial was its omnipresence. I watch news on a regular basis, because I want to know what our government is doing. I really didn't WANT to know as much about this case as I can't help knowing. I don't want my brain cells filled with Kato Kaelin and Rosa Lopez and Marsha Clark's hairstyle and the quarrels amongst the 87 defense lawyers.

Not that I had any choice in the matter. While I vainly waited for the journalists to explain the telecommunications bill (and after reading a lot about it, I still don't understand it, though I believe what it means is that the universe becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of Time-Warner), or report on the Republican congress' disassembly of government. But there just wasn't time to do that; after all, there's only 22 minutes of news space available in a news broadcast.

So, what is my considered judgment on the verdict?

I think the jury was right. They seemed to feel that OJ probably did it, and that the prosecution didn't do a good enough job of proving it. The DNA evidence was pretty compelling to me, but the circumstances under which it was gathered were questionable and the lab work was inexcusably sloppy, even if you don't buy into a police conspiracy, which I don't. The LAPD does have a fair amount of racist cops--and why this always comes as a shock to white Americans I don't understand--but that doesn't necessarily mean that a whole lot of them worked in concert to concoct and/or plant evidence.

So, what does this farce tell you about American society?

1. That the Romans were right about bread and circuses.
2. That it was wonderfully convenient for corporate America, busily buying each other up and concentrating economic power more than ever before in our history, to have us watching OJ rather than them.
3. That it was wonderfully convenient for the Republicans to have the news media focused on OJ rather than on the dismantling of student loans, national service, medicare, and welfare, and on the wholesale feeding at the trough of their corporate sponsors.
4. That our news media fell asleep at the switch, and forgot why they have the first amendment--not to protect them, but to protect the people's right to know.
5. And that what Jefferson had in mind was not their right to know this trash. The press was supposed to be the guardian of the people against the abuses of government.

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