june 12, 1994
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13, 1995 Theation.
337
PULP FICTION
and the
Trial
J.
WILLIAMS
ere was a story some years ago about apeniten-
tiary in Texas where state prison officlals asked in-
mates to volunteer to help train their tracking dogs.
The inmates would be dressed up in padded cloth-
a
head start , and then the hungry hounds would
officials riding on horseback after
t became quite a
sport
the chasing of what they called
oys,” and it eventually embarrassedthough scarce-
enough) quite a number of politicians (who had joined in
when he degree
to
which it had become jolly pas-
e fox-hunting, came to public light.
The degree to which official exercises of power become
ague sports events gives melot
of
pause these days,
I
cautiously turn on the television from timeo time, search-
e weather report while trying to avoid the swamp of
Simpson mania, Sooner
or
later, I fear, it will sweep me
too, in the excruciatingly slow,molasses-motioned dis-
of
afternoon soap opera by the industrial-strength
Court
TVopera.
Although I had promised myself that I would be the one
yer in he United States to refrain from writing about the
I’m
increasingly troubled by the way it severe-
pushes the limits of whatever justice was supposed to be
notion of a public trial. The unprecedented
of rial by theater-rivaled only perhaps by the cover-
of Dr. Sam Shepherd in the 1950s-has whetted a public
for lurid speculation as well
as
spectacle. It is an ap-
I
fear, that will be satisfied by neither a guilty
nor
a
so much melodrama is building
better denouement han that. The publlc wants great pulp
y, for Marcia Clark to have Johnnie Cochran’s baby
0
J.
and Detective Fuhrman commit suicide in a dou-
interracial love pact, and just for good meas-
Ito
is discovered to be heading up a n international
whose operations he directs rom his chambers
the commercial breaks.
Of course, this is why Juries get sequestered-it’s a way
of
not the public viewing f the trial but the mob’s met-
climbing-Into-the-witness-boxand influencing the
by nolsy, string-’em-up gladiatorial rhetoric and
Still troubling to the unsequestered of us, however, might
Simpson trial
being used o divert political ttention from some very great
J
Willmns, aprofessorat Columbia
Law School,
IS
of The Alchemy of Race and Rights Harvard).
divisions rending this nation. “Maybe the Simpson trial will
undo the misperceptions created by the Rodney King hing,”
said one commentator on a morning news show-barely two
days after publication of the Mollen Commission report,
which detailed police excesses n Harlem and theBronx, in-
cluding racketeering, narcotics dealing and even attempted
murder. This seemingly pervasive entiment astonishes me for
a number of reasons:t reduces black anxietybout theustice
system to superficial and singular television encounters-the
Rodney King “thing” may have“created” a bad impression,
but look, “the system” is apologizmg, by making
up for
it
with
O.J.
Simpson. It trivializes or ignores the day-to-day
ex-
periences of blacks who are treated as “suspect profiles” at
best and suffer a range of abuses in contacts with the justice
system that go
from negligence to outright brutality. And it
dangerously misreads the discontent of
a
significant popu-
lation that s not merely disaffected but enraged, whose fury
is barely reflected n the staggering rates of black criminali-
zatlon and imprisonment.
T h e Simpson coverage takesa
bizarre
trial and mytho ogiza
t
into the mundane.
The
O.J.
Simpson trial bears very little resemblance to the
circumstances-in courtrooms or elsewhere-that occasion
so much black distrust of the justice system. But the self-
congratulation proceeds apace:
Now
maybe
they
will
see that
justice is color-blind, say so many of the high-priced pundits
who crowd he airwaves. Yeah yeah, except all sides agreehat
this trial is hardly typical. How many black or white people
can afford a team of defense lawyers like
O.J.’s?
How many
black or white people could command the audience that he
does? How many black men could lead the Los Angeles
Po
lice Department on a slow chase around thecity and survive
to spawn a publishing industry
of
True Inside tories,
all sure
to be best sellers?
The Simpson coverage takesa singular trial-possibly one
of the most bizarre of the century-and mythologizes it into
the mundane. The imultaneous failure to cover the Mollen
Commission report with anything like the same spotlight al
lows such mythologizing to trump empiricism in dangerous
ways. And when he empirical becomeso thoroughly discon-
nected from political belief structures, it’s a formula for o-
cial tension.
“Do
you think blacks will riot if
O.J.
Simpson is found
guilty?” a reporter asked meduring the prehminary hearing.
The question made me augh. “Are you serious?” I asked be
fore I realized that he was. Of course, the last laugh may turn
out to be on me, but it still seems preposterous that anyone
could think that angry black crowds wouldtorm the streets-
of what, Brentwood?-Just because a black man was found
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338 The Nation.
March 13,
guilty. T he questlon struck me as revealing a total lack of
understanding of the riotous passion thataused the infuri-
ated, blind eru ptions in
Los
Angeles-as tho ugh the eporter
expected that anytime any black m an is convicted,
no
matter
what he does, black comm unities will scream foul. W hat a
total lack f understanding of the seething soclal desperation
th at th e Slmi Valley verdict blew op en.
Even acknowledging tha t there are plenty of blacks w ho
don’t believe tha t any black ma n can et a fair trial in the Unit-
ed States, those beliefs alone hardly cause riots. H ow ran dom
and shallow the discontent must seem
if
0
.
Simpson is made
the measure of black oppression, just another example of
playlng the race card.
If O.J. Simp son is believed bymany whites
to
be enjoying
the typ ical trlal of a black m an you know, mired in the in-
dulgences
of
due process, tme-con suming and more expen-
sive than the ational budget), then Colinerguson, the man
wh o opened fire o n a crowded car on the Long Island Rail
Roa d, has been figured as the ypical black man you know,
always complaining, always blaming, parano id).
I
don’t know
how to say this gracefully, but there’s paranoia and there’s
parano ia, and Colin Ferguson is
msane.
H e thinks there are
ninety-threecountsagainst h ~ m ecause the year of the
shoo ting was
1993
He was sleeping
at
the time.
Marlo
Cuomo
is par t
of
a plot o set him up. Th e witnesses are all lying
and
the deadaren’t really dead . Yet a judg e fou ndim competent
to stand trial andll the headlines self-righteously proclaimed
hls raising of that old efense, The white man did
it
That’s
what they all say Well, he’s crazy r he thinks we’ll beheve
that one
sn’t there something comp letely upside down abo ut
ruling an insane man sane
so
that society can waggle their
heads and call him insane? The oft-palred but funda men tally
con tradicto ry logic is: He’s just acting this way to con vince
. “ ”
the court thathe’s crazy. Th at is, he’s plo tted an d plan ned
insanity. Do ing insane thingsust proves the demon ic ra
ality of his warped but “no rm al”paranoid black mind. W
is the function, one mu st egin t wonder as he babbles
soars in a world of his own, of “norm al”-izing Ferguso
the quintessential black mind?
Meanwhile, in the n ot-too-distant backgroun d,
Susan
Sm
who confessed
to
killing her children after recipitating
a
tionwide manh unt when she
told
authorities ablack man
It, is figured as som eone wh o s guilty as sin but simult
ously filled with pluck an d remo rse, ready to shoulder her
“responsibility” by stepping right
on
up to theelectric c
like a pitcher to the mound.
W ha t are these stories we are tellmg ourselves? We can’
quester the public imagination, b ut sh ouldn’t we be just a
more
careful in how we rush to m ythologize our fears, ou
mons, ou r mental inventions? S houldn’t we be a little m
careful abo ut digging ourselves deeper into the entrenc
of
our
division?
Would it help to make a reality checklist?
A
scorecar
sorts, just to keep the myths trim me d, like fingernails, e
so often, so they don’t get dangerou s or pok e som eone’s
out
or
Just plain paralyze us?
Th e Simpson trial is hardly the normal trial
of
a b
ma n, even thoug h it ymbolizes the domestic abuseof m
“norm al” atizens, black an d white.
Colin Ferguson is not your average black man, e
though he xpresses fears of thewhite world that are fam
to m any blacks.
Blacks who talk a lot ab ou t social inequities are
per se insane, even thoug h
I
appreciate that there are m
white people wh o find them very annoying.
Colin Ferguson 1s no t you r average urban Am erican
rorist. In fact, un til Ferguson, th e suspect profile
of
those
went into public places and sho t andom ly was the lonely
clusive or recently divorced, roub led, middle-aged whitem
9
If
Susan
Smith does die
n
the electric chair
and O.J.
S
son doesn ’t, perhap s we as a nation couldrefrain just a
ment before intoning that whitewomen die for their cri
while black men who com mit doub lehomicides don’t.
haps we could just make room for a host f competing
siderations such as:
A
wom an w ho kills her children is alw
more abho rred than m an wh o ills his wife in the so-ca
“h eat ‘of passion” and/or kills a ma n he thinks is his w
lover. The death enalty is administered variously by state
ernments, differently in Sou th Carolina and California. S
ing the death penaltys a matterof prosecutorial discre
0 .
is a star, dadgum mit, a nd nobo dy likes to see Amer
heroes ex ecuted. If
O.J.
were “Willie” Ho rto n, he’d fry.
I f
Susan Smith had m urdered almost anyone but her own
dren, she probably would not.
Blacks an d Latinos form a olid majority of our nat
prison popu lation. They are convicted more frequently
sentenced for longer terms than their white counterp
Blacks end up
on
death row in numb ersvastly disprop ort
ate to whites who commit the same cnmes.
Now th at all the boxes are checked
off,
are these
fac
really a source f com fort to those who think thatlack
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340 The Nation. March 13, 1
are out there “getting away” with things while white women,
even murderesses, are out there doing theirbit to uphold the
social order? Or shouldn’t this complicated play between
exceptionalizing trends and normalizing extremes give us a
frisson of a decidedly more sinister sort? How oes a demo-
cratic order rationalizehe craving for catharsis thatounte-
nances this savage running
of
the bulls, this chasing
of
the
dog boy, this stoningof the onemarked village idiot? These
are not imes foreasy prescriptions, butwhen the executives
of Entertainment Tonrght are thls exuberant, one has to won-
der if Justice hasn’t been just a wee bit seduced by the thrill
of O
STILL
THE STUPIDEST PARTY
Newt
G w i c h and
Other Blunders
NOEL E. PARMENTEL
JR.
“Vorers gave Republicans a second chance.
This
time they
better not blow It.”
il/~um
chneider on CNN’s Inside Politics
H
ere’s he deal,see. You’re he G.O.P.and you just
won the big one. Now
to
draw a bead on the
White House, where lurks Sidney Zion’s “Where
,isGeorge Bush now that I need him?” In poetic
justice Bill Clinton is now the patsy, blamed for everything
not his fault while getting
no
credit for his many accomplish-
ments. Worse, the Karacter Kops are o n his case. With wide-
open windows of Republican opportunity, high contrast is the
way to go, right? Credibility. Ethics. Family values. Patrio-
tism. Best put best foot forward.
For Republicans, after a forty-year drought, the irrevers-
ible first impression would be everything. With the Clmtons
nowwidely perceivedas rrelevant, nothing would revealmore
about the nature
of
the new majority than its choice for
Speaker of the House. Here was who would set the national
agenda perhaps even become de factoPresident. He better
look
good. Surely even Republicans would see that.
Free to choose from the entire House membership, the
G.O.P. was blessed with an embarrassment of riches: Henry
Hyde of Illinois, popular as his separated-at-birth twin Tip
O’Neill; John Kasich
of
Ohio, a Perot pet who might keep
Ross
the Baas
on
the reservation; Christopher Shaysof Con-
necticut, conscience
of
the Congress. There were even more
adventurous choices who would havemade thehistory books:
San Antonio’s Henry Bonilla (who makes fellow Texicans
Gonzalez yCisneros look like Cheech Chong) or Connect-
icut’s FemiNazi (Not ) Nancy Johnson (nowooden nutmegs
there). All in all, an impressive array.
Noel
E. Parmentel JK Republ~an,oncedes that any man
burdened wrth Speaker Gingrich’s wnting skills whoanstill
rip
off
4.5 million of Rupert Murdoch’s Yankee dollarsifoniy
for a moment) can’t be all bud.
So here goes nothing. Push the envelope, please. The w
ner is? Would you believe Newt Gingrich? Way to
go
N
who? Sure, the buck starts there. But this bucko? The o
White House wannabe with more demerits than the liv
couple? The rsatz Gaukiter of
Boys
Town with thevoice
of
A uy
Named Joe McCarthy? And, like his soundal
has he got a mouth on him.
Cobb
County
Caliban
Like I Smith, when Republicans make a mistake it
beaut. The daddy of all boners was a bad judgment cal
craven party brass
in
favor
of
a sawdust Caesar they ho
would respect them in the morning.
Up tohe election, few “normal Americans” had ever h
of Gingrich. Now since the Cobb County Caliban lau
his unfriendly takeover bid for the Partyf Lincoln, Ne
Coach’s Corner
is giving
All Day/EveryDay/L A /O J
for the ratings. At Christmas therewas a modest propo
give state orphanages a hance, give the little bastards
due: Here’s looking at you, kids. No room at the inn?
problem. At Gingrich gulags, Tots R
Us.
Lost in the up
was
any appreciation
of
classic G.O.P. timing.
Family values? The guy’s close to his mother, even if
spilled the beans to Connie Chung. Did Connie gooo
Maybe you hadda be here. And none of that JudgeWap
crap for this hothubby. When you want out in Hot’La
just lie doggo till the little woman comes out
of
a cance
eration. Thenyou spring thedivorce papers on her in the
covery room. O.K. he’s no Ashley Wilkes.
When you got it, flaunt t. And
Newt’s
such
a
good-look
devil, it’s plain to see whyRepublicans would insist upon
as
celeb spokesman for their Twelve-Step update, the Cont
With America. The Speaker s trying his best to elevate th
bromides
to
the exalted level of The FederalrstPapers. (N
mind that the Contract s to the
Federalist
what Bob Pa
wood’s diaries are
to
the private papers
of
Henry Adam
Other thanproviding tea and sympathyo a bunch
of
n
Poujadistesset to win anyway the political cllmate being
i t
was), Gingrich had little to do with the election resu
There was
no
reason for G.O.P. lemmings to walk the pl
when the real founder of the feast was the former Hillary R
ham. Once ths
Joan
of
Ark.
massed herArm y
of
the Poto
(which, living off the land,lew a cool half-billion f sa
taxpayer to produce a 1,342-page Magaziner Mous
piece), the Federal Period was over. Accordingly, in imp
sive homage to George Romero, she revived barely eno
Living Dead White Males to give the G.O.P. their point-a
a-half “blowout.” Hummelstown’s Own Ma Gingrich ou
to wash Newtie’s mouth outwith soap. He owes the First L
big-time. Virtually unassisted, she liberated this 900-po
guerrilla (previously more or less confined to Zoo Atla
into the general population. But en garde, G.O.P. Not e
St. Hillary can guaranteeo keep testosterone levels up
adrenalige flowing her way once L.D.W.M.s again h
George Steinbrenner and Mike Keenan to kick around.
White Dwarf or Sneaker
of
the House
It’s an understatement to say that Newt Gingrich hasb
a P.R. disaster
for
the G.O.P. With all that baggage, how
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