Leonard Doyle, the “author”of the following piece, seems to have difficulty understanding why prisonpopulations are predominantly black. Doyle knows this full well but feels it his duty to appearpuzzled by this altogether obvious fact. Of course, hispuzzlement doesn’t extend to walking around in high-crime blackneighborhoods to investigate the “root causes” of high blackincarceration rates.
America was a different country in 1995, when the most-watchedmurder trial of the 20th century saw an overwhelmingly black jury findO.J. Simpson not guilty of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Simpson, andher friend Ron Goldman.
It seemed like delayed justice when the former footballer wassentenced to a minimum of nine years’ jail Friday for his role in anarmed raid on a Las Vegas hotel room in 2007, during which two dealerswere robbed of sports memorabilia.
There was none of the rancor that accompanied the murder acquittalor the civil trial, when a predominantly white jury found him liablefor wrongful death.
This could be a hopeful sign that race relations are less poisonousthese days. A little prematurely, some are even calling it a BarackObama effect.
There is not only a black president-elect now,but for many years capable black politicians have been elected toleadership positions across the country.
Even if many blacks still feel they are unfairly prosecuted and putupon by police, just because of their skin color, the general sentimentthat the system is unjust may be diminishing.
Two years before Simpson’s acquittal, an all-white jury acquittedLos Angeles police officers in the beating of Rodney King, convincingmany of the black population that the legal system was rigged. Theyshowed their feelings with the Los Angeles race riots.
Friday’s sentencing did not seem to stir any of the racial turmoilthat so clouded Simpson’s murder trial. Back then, what shocked manywas the stark nature of the racial divide exposed by the trial andevident in offices and workplaces across the United States. Simpson’smurder acquittal was supported by 62 percent of blacks, while only 20percent of whites thought the jury had done the right thing.
The rifts were a sharp reminder of the way race cuts to the quick inthe U.S. whenever justice, politics or education are involved; however,the CNN/USA Today/Gallup polling did not factor in differences inincome, education, age and sex among those it polled. Simpson’scelebrity status and his race meant that poorly educated black womenwere more sympathetic to him than others and those with steady jobs andeducation were excused from jury duty. Lawyers were able to excuseanyone from being on the jury for any reason. So his defense team didwhat it could to eliminate jurors who were not black or who had even asmidgen of education.
In the end, Simpson was acquitted by six black women, two black men,two Latinos, one Native-American and only one white woman. No one onthe jury had more than two years of university education.
Simpson is now headed to jail where he will find himself in thecompany of a disproportionate number of black prisoners: 6.8 percent ofblack men are jailed compared with 1 percent of white men. White peoplecommit lots of crime, but somehow they are not the ones most likely toend up in prison.
Leonard Doyle is a columnist for The Independent of Britain.