Race and the O.J.

By Jill Smolowe

First came the explosive charge. The defense team in the O.J. Simpson murder case, it was leaked, was planning to accuse one of the police investigators, Mark Fuhrman, of being a "racist" cop who may have planted the bloody glove found in the area behind Simpson's guest house the day after the brutal slayings of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Then came the disclaimer. "Race is not and will not be an issue in this defense," said Robert Shapiro, Simpson's lead attorney. "The only thing we are looking at is credibility of witnesses."

Maybe for Shapiro. But for nearly everyone else last week, the race issue emerged front and center in the Simpson case. After first focusing Americans' attention on the issue of domestic violence, the Simpson drama is being transformed into a national teach-in on the gulf that exists between black and white attitudes toward America's criminal-justice system. The shift came in a flurry of news leaks and public announcements. In raising questions about Fuhrman, the defense team unearthed a 1983 lawsuit, brought by the Los Angeles detective seeking disability benefits, in which he admitted to harboring hostile feelings about blacks and other minorities. While Fuhrman denied charges that he planted evidence, Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti spent nearly two hours with black city leaders, trying to assure them that Simpson will get a fair trial. The civic leaders, in turn, urged Garcetti to integrate the all-white, all-male, eight-member panel that in coming weeks will recommend whether or not the prosecution should seek the death penalty for Simpson.

The defense team, meanwhile, was doing some integrating of its own. Just before Simpson was formally arraigned on Friday (asserting confidently that he was "absolutely, 100% not guilty"), the previously all-white team was joined by Johnnie Cochran, the prominent African-American trial lawyer who represented Michael Jackson against charges of child molestation. Cochran's arrival was regarded by some in the district attorney's office as a defense coup. "Johnnie Cochran is a better trial lawyer than the entire defense team put together," asserts one prosecution source. "Now add the race card. With Cochran in, you're going to have a hell of a time trying to find a black juror who will convict. All you need is a holdout."

The disparity between the races on the Simpson case is stark. In a TIME/ CNN poll, 63% of whites said they believe Simpson will get a fair trial; only 31% of blacks felt the same way. While 66% of whites think Simpson received a fair preliminary hearing, just 31% of blacks found the proceeding fair. And 77% of whites called the case against Simpson "very strong" or "fairly strong"; 45% of blacks judged it the same way.

Poll results like that mystify most white Americans. Yet blacks see little news in the numbers. "I don't know how we can be surprised about a poll that shows African Americans are suspicious of our system of jurisprudence," says the Rev. Cecil Murray, the influential pastor of the First A.M.E. Church, Los Angeles' oldest black congregation. Indeed, such poll results probably indicate less about how blacks view the evidence against Simpson than about how they regard the way blacks are treated generally by the criminal justice system. "For many blacks, every black man is on trial," says District of Columbia delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. "O.J. Simpson has become the proxy not because the black man is a criminal but because the black man is increasingly seen as a criminal by virtue of his sex and color."

The perception among blacks that the criminal-justice system discriminates against them is pervasive and deep. Why, many African Americans ask, does justice tend to be swifter when the murder victim is white? (While Simpson's trial is expected to start within 60 days, the suspected killers of Michael Jordan's father, who was slain a year ago, have yet to be arraigned.) Why are blacks so disproportionately represented on death row, and why, since 1977, have 63 blacks been executed for murdering whites while only one white has been executed for murdering a black? Not surprisingly, in the TIME/CNN poll, 59% of black respondents favored overturning death sentences in capital cases where statistical evidence points to a pattern of unfair treatment of minorities. Only 28% of whites felt the same way.

"Most black people feel they are considered guilty until they are proved innocent," says psychologist Richard Majors of the National Council of ( African American Men in Washington. Asserts Laura Washington, editor of the monthly Chicago Reporter, which focuses on race issues: "There is a long-held assumption, dating back to the days of lynching, that blacks on trial won't get a fair shake." Such attitudes make it easy for blacks to believe charges like those of racist behavior against police investigator Fuhrman.

Still, when news of the murders first broke, blacks, like whites, seemed disinclined to cast the case in racial terms. Most African Americans felt hard-pressed to identify completely with a man who was so rich, so celebrated -- and so unconnected to the black community. "Simpson did not function within our race," says Conrad Worrill, chairman of the grass-roots National Black United Front in Chicago. "His wife, lawyers and housekeepers were white." Many blacks faulted Simpson for not using his celebrity status to promote African-American causes. Says the Rev. Fletcher Bryant of the United Methodist Church in Englewood, New Jersey: "O.J. is a rich dude who runs with whites."

But as the Simpson case has grown into a national obsession, many of those same blacks have begun to perceive Simpson as one more victim of the white power system. There is talk of a "white-media conspiracy" to embarrass African Americans by toppling yet another black icon -- as happened to Clarence Thomas, Michael Jackson and Mike Tyson. The saturation of TV coverage appalls many blacks. "It's suspect when all networks on television turn into Court TV," says the Rev. Al Sharpton, a New York political activist. The proliferation of black talking heads called upon to comment on racial aspects of the case is even seen by some as racist. "Why don't they use black experts to talk about the legality of mergers and acquisitions, or matters unrelated to race?" asks Philip Eure, a civil rights lawyer in the Justice Department.

Now the race controversy is vying with the issue of spousal abuse for attention. As in the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill showdown over sexual harassment, many black women feel caught between the pressure to stand loyally by a black man perceived to be under attack by the white establishment and the need to assert their rights as women. Last week, after black male leaders urged Garcetti not to pursue the death penalty against Simpson, Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred wrote to the district attorney on behalf of the Women's Equal Rights Legal Defense and Education Fund: "Since you have chosen to meet & publicly with a group expressing support for Mr. Simpson's rights, I respectfully request that you now meet with those of us who are concerned about the rights of battered women and who are urging you to consider asking for the death penalty."

America's racial attitudes will continue to affect a case that stubbornly refuses to remain what it is -- a murder charge against a famous former football player. That is disturbing to some blacks, who are worried that the Simpson case is not the best vehicle for pursuing the struggle for equal rights.

"When people yell racism when in fact there is no racism," says Tavis Smiley, a black commentator for KABC in Los Angeles, "they become like the boy who cried 'Wolf!' Ultimately, it comes back to haunt you."

With reporting by Ann Blackman/Washington, Wendy Cole/Chicago, Sylvester Monroe and Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles