On June 17, 1994, my niece was married in a beautiful
ceremony in New Jersey. I was on my way home, waiting to catch a train back to
Maryland in New York’s Penn Station when it became obvious that something was
happening. People began to gather around whatever television they could find.
Eventually, the buzz was palpable. Almost everybody in the massive edifice was
transfixed by the flickering images on the screens. The famous and beloved
football player, celebrity, and pitchman, O.J. Simpson and his childhood
friend A.C. Cowlings were fleeing the police on the Los Angeles freeways. Live,
on T.V., with helicopters overhead, and people lining the streets cheering him
on. O.J.’s wife, Nicole, had been murdered along with her friend, Ron
Goldman. Their throats had been slashed. Obviously, O.J. was the
murderer, why would he be running (with a gun to his head) if he wasn’t? The
entire scene was surreal, mesmerizing.
The story would dominate the news for the next year. The
trial would make household names of the participants. The nation would hold its
collective breath on the day the verdict was announced. Despite a literal
mountain of evidence to the contrary, Simpson would be acquitted. Many Black
Americans would celebrate. Many others, Black and White, were totally shocked.
Many saw the verdict as payback. Figuratively, for the historical abuse of
Black people in the legal system since the settlement of the continent, and
literally, for the recent acquittal of several white police officers in the
vicious, videotaped beating of Rodney King, an unarmed Black man
that had precipitated recent riots in Los Angeles.
For once, the system had worked for a Black man as it had
worked so many times for whites. It didn’t matter that Simpson may have debated
the point if you called him a Black man. Nevertheless, a predominantly Black
jury, encouraged by a flamboyant Black defense attorney, decided to exercise
the old Southern concept of interposition and nullification and set “The Juice”
free.
Personally, I was never comfortable with the O.J. verdict. I
was among the many that were shocked by the acquittal. I understood the
possible reasons for it, but deep inside, I felt there would be a price to pay
in the future.
Today, Donald Trump is the nominee of the
Republican Party for the Presidency of the United States of America.
Despite the absurdity of it all, Trump could win. The white supremacists love
Trump. The Ku Klux Klan loves Trump. Trump admires the dictatorial
leaders of Russia, North Korea, China, and Egypt. He despises the American
President. Trump advocates torture, murder (of families of suspected terrorists),
profiling, finding, and expelling more than ten million Latinos (and their
American born children) from the country, while leaving undocumented white
people alone. He also wants to block all Muslims from immigrating to America.
The Republican nominee for President has never held an elective office.
He has not served in the military. He claims that his enormous success as a
businessman qualifies him to be President of the United States. However, he
refuses to validate his business acumen or success by making his tax returns
public. The information that investigative reporters have been able to obtain
casts serious doubt on Trump’s claims concerning his net worth, charitable
giving, and yearly income. He would be the first Presidential candidate in more
than 50 years that refused to disclose his tax returns.
Recent polling suggests that at least 40% of American voters will
vote to make Donald Trump the next President of the United States. More than
80% of them are White. Most of them do not have a college education. Most of
them are at least 50 years old. They don’t care if Trump has the intellect,
temperament, or organizational skills required of an American President. They
don’t care if his stated intentions would make a mockery of the American
constitution. They don’t care about what will happen to the Latinos. They are
totally unaware of the terrible parallels between Trump’s plan for the Latinos
and Adolph Hitler’s plan for the Jews of Europe. They are unaware of the catastrophic
effects that banning people of a particular faith (Islam) from the United
States would have. They don’t care if American law enforcement mimics the
German Gestapo, ordered to spy on Muslim homes and mosques, implicitly
signaling that if you are Muslim, you are guilty until proven innocent.
To be sure, not all of Trump’s supporters are old. All of
them are not uneducated, ignorant or stupid. Many are smart, intelligent, and calculating.
Some are motivated by the possibility of power, celebrity, wealth, and hubris.
Nevertheless, the ways and means they obtain their desires are unimportant to
them.
Some Republicans can see the danger, and have made their
feelings clear. Many of them are cognizant of the facts, and have chosen
country over party. They have chosen light over darkness, right over wrong.
They realize that it is impossible to alter the arc of history. They understand
that the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is not restricted
to whites only. They believe it when they pledge that the United States is “one
nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all”.
America is a pluralistic nation, a multicultural society. It
always has been, it always will be, or it will cease to be a nation at all.
Recently, I have often found myself thinking of the day when
the verdict was announced in the O.J. Simpson trial. I was sure he would be
convicted. Just like that day of the police chase on the interstates of Los
Angeles, people were gathered around television sets in anxious anticipation of
what would happen next. Many were hoping that the jury would interpose their
own version of justice. They were hoping the jury would nullify the evidence and
set Simpson free. Many others were hoping, even expecting the jury to just do
the right thing.
I expect that election day this year will be very similar.
The verdict in the O.J. Simpson case was revenge. Plain and simple.
Will the racists get their revenge this time?
