Can we turn to the OJ Simpson trial? How did Black women feel about the verdict?
The jury was predominantly Black women, of course. And the majority of Black women, as far as I could tell, thought the decision was a good one. One explanation is that people felt that it was an indictment of the Los Angeles Police Department, which is notoriously racist toward Black men and women. People could very easily see the PD setting up someone in the way that OJ’s defence team suggested they did, because many of our own experiences are of racism with the cops, cops’ flagrant disregard for any rights and the contempt that is the norm for working class and lower-middle class whites (which is the background of most of the cops) towards ‘successful Blacks’. But people did not factor in class. Had there been just a fraction of the evidence against a brother off the street without OJ Simpson’s money, he would be under the jail right now. Whether OJ was guilty or not, he purchased the defence. Whether he purchased justice or exemption from justice, I’m not sure. But clearly his clas
