So, what do we say now about dear O.J., who was sentenced last week to 9 to 33 years in prison for robbery, felony assault and many others? This time, there was no great national divide. The O.J. trial had to compete with the crashing economy, with the national gasp over our daily discovering of just how completely inept the Bush Administration really was, at the panic-inducing scope, width, breadth and depth of that incompetence and how it has literally eaten away the very foundation of this country. In that context, O.J. was old news. Black America did not rally to his defense. White America did not bristle or even gloat all that much over his conviction. We have other things on our minds, other things that have finally united this country in a way it has not been united in decades. We are all far too afraid of ending up in bread lines and sleeping on the street to care all that much about O.J. That his unrepentant behavior surely proved White Folk right and Black Folk wrong seems wholly irrelevant to both parties.

Did the jury convict and the judge throw the book at O.J. because of the 1994 murders? I doubt it. In reviewing the judge’s sentencing, I thought she was actually kind of lenient. Throwing the book at O.J. would have meant maximum and consecutive sentencing on all counts. The judge instead used mandatory minimums with most of the sentencing running concurrently, making the Juice eligible for parole at age 70.

I perhaps felt sorriest for the father of Ronald Goldman, whose appearance at Simpson’s sentencing and subsequent vitriolic ad-hoc interviews display a kind of sad mirror pathology to that of Simpson himself: an inability to come to terms with his life. I didn’t know Ron, but I doubt Ron would have wanted his dad to go make a spectacle of himself. I doubt Ron would want his family to be so consumed with hate that hate would, ultimately, become all their lives were about.

I grieve most for Simpson himself, to whom an enormous gift was given: an opportunity for redemption and a chance to lead, to inspire, to dedicate his life to warning others about the incomprehensible evil he himself succumbed to. Instead, Simpson apparently learned nothing from his brush with disaster and squandered his second chance, somehow mistaking acquittal for innocence and freedom from incarceration for liberty, not realizing that, at the end of the day, he’s been in prison all along. Last week’s verdict just gave substance to it.

Back in 1999 I made a quip on my radio show about how, “I hate grits, Ebonics is stupid, O.J. did it, and now let’s all get on with our lives.” For months thereafter, Church Folk wagged fingers at me for capitulating to White Fear about blacks in general and O.J. in specific, which wasn’t what I was doing. What I was doing was chastising black folk for defending the indefensible: defending under-achievement and poor academic performance as having some virtuous cultural significance. Nonsense. Failing schools? Well, I don’t doubt there are problems at school, but the bigger problem is at home: parents not taking responsibility for raising and teaching their own children. Got a bad school in your neighborhood? Start your own. Band together with other parents, get some of these do-nothing churches to open their doors for after-school mentoring programs. Stop whining while your kid goes down the drain.

The O.J. thing was harder to deal with. Lots of folk thought we should defend O.J. on spec because of the dozens of famous white people (half of them named “Kennedy”) who bought their way out of a prison sentence. The O.J. trial seemed historic because there, for the first time, was a black man buying his way out of a prison sentence. Black folk were so happy for O.J., many of them actually talked themselves into believing he was innocent. He was acquitted. And, in my opinion, rightfully so. My argument with White America is not over whether or not Simpson committed the crime, but whether the trial was fair. I believe it was.

From my earlier post:
The certain truth is this: God spared this man’s life. Even if he, likely, did not spare the lives of others who’d hurt him. I believe O.J. Simpson brutally murdered his wife and Ron Goldman. In doing so, he certainly earned God’s wrath in judgment. In fact, each one of us have earned God’s wrath in judgment at one time or another, first and foremost by simply being born.

But God spared him. I believe that from the bottom of my heart. I get really angry when I hear folks—usually white folks—call the Simpson murder jury stupid or accuse them of acquitting O.J. simply because he was black. That really irritates me (and, I presume, them). Given the judge’s instructions, that jury had no choice but to acquit Simpson. Convicting him just because they know, in their hearts, the man is guilty—now that would make them as ignorant as many white folk seem to think they are.

These were intelligent, informed, thoughtful people who made a painful decision under extreme duress. Given the rules of evidence and the instructions from the judge, given the prosecutor’s failure to offer alternative charges they might have convicted on, they had no choice but to admit that key evidence had been tampered with and the LAPD’s lead investigator had been caught flat-footed in a lie.

By law, they had to acquit Simpson. Which doesn’t mean he didn’t do it, it just meant that God spared his life. Spared it for better things than shockingly exploitative books, trying to cash in on a heinous crime. Spared it for more than golf games and autographing memorabilia, skating around the civil judgment and causing more suffering to the families of his alleged victims.

God spared O.J. Simpson’s life that he might turn to God. That his life might be transformed and that Simpson might become, from his shame, one of the greatest living testimonies to the cause of Christ as ever existed.

But, instead, O.J. kept on his path. Kept up his foolishness. And now, incredibly, he is charged with enough felony counts to keep him in prison the rest of his life. Charges hurled at him not on the merits of the case but on the notoriety of the defendant. This Vegas prosecutor wants him so bad he can taste it, wants him so bad he’s making deals with liars and, like Detective Mark Fuhrman, zealously prosecuting the case to the point of obsession. To me, this prosecutor is exactly what many if not most whites accuse the Simpson murder trial jury to be: biased. And, perhaps, a less intelligent and less dutiful all-white Las Vegas jury may likely ignore their conscience and the law and send this guy up, not for this nonsense about the footballs, but for what he should have been jailed for in the first place.

This sad episode is, unmistakably, what Jesus meant when He warned us not to tempt God.