How Is It That?-?-?

I t was so simple a surgery… Forty minutes tops….

But I was Gilligan and it was the minnow…

Short term anesthesia is not meant for a four hour tour and I have not yet been able to clear my head… They just kept pumping it in…

OF course on New Years eve things went bad and I quit urinating.. and I really feared death and kidney failure..

But who to call… Or why call??

The loneliest moment of my life was when the surgery began and the anesthesia was injected and I knew that the one person I cared for with all my heart did not care if I lived or died..  And also there was no one awaiting my awakening.. Just two dogs home alone..

How has my life come to this? Where are my friends? Wait I do not have any in Shreveport.. That is the problem.. I do not get along well with red necks and people who do nothing but drink and hunt and fish..

I know the verges of loneliness and insanity.. I have teetered…

Oh if only I could remember the feeling of being in her arms.. If I could feel that.. If I Could retain that warmth.. I would forever be ok…

The emotional temperpedic has retaken its shape and I know I lay in her arms.. I see the picture of her looking down at me and I think it love.. But… Was it?

I miss being cared about…

October 3, 1995

We were a small group of 20 odd people that worked together. We were all friends and all of us did things outside of work together. So that day at 1:00 I considered myself and 19 friends were together to watch the verdict in the most televised case in history. As I sat there I was sure that it would be guilty.

When not guilty was returned I was stunned and then very very angry.  First at the behavior of my professional black friends. All four got up and danced and cheered and slammed their booties and high fives in our faces. They did not scream anything to us directly, or at us, but their eyes met mine and everyone else’s in that room and the glares said it all. Whitey lost. The system could be beat.

I think I lost the next two days to thought about what I had just witnessed.  These people were no longer friends. These people were black acquaintances.  More worried about showing whitey something than caring that human life was lost and the man that viciously attacked and killed two people would be free and arrogantly so for the next thirteen years.  I think at that moment I became prejudiced.

These were not stupid people. These were people that had worked into professional places, gone to college and did all the right things as far as society goes. Yet here they cheered a murderer’s acquittal.

October 08, 2008

Funny that this trial garnered no real media coverage, only the arrest and the verdict were really given any attention.

But it meant nothing. Nothing until he was behind bars for good. Only then would justice be served. Only then would a criminal be where he belonged, one who should have been for thirteen years at this point.  And yes the whole deal was shady. Going to get memorabilia back that really belonged no longer to him from a man who should really have not had it in the first place, the videos of him walking through the casino, the swagger, the pompness – all reminded me of the dance 13 years earlier..

SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN his guilty verdict in Las Vegas  on the 8th and December 5^th Dr. Phil had his agent on the show who of course was promoting a book. And in the book he, the agent, had somehow had a act of atonement he felt he should be doing.  The agent talked to Dr. Phil about hiding assets for O.J.  and then told of how that magical moment was all his idea. Of course I am talking about “if the glove does not fit you cannot acquit” moment. The agent explained it was his idea on how to make the gloves not fit.  O.J. was arthritic, and if he did not take his medicine, then his hands would swell.  And the gloves would not fit. All that was left was to bait the prosecutor into getting him to try them on. The defense knew the gloves would fit and would not fit and how to make that happen.

It was a brilliant stroke if one were playing chess. But not if one were trying to get justice for a brutal murder.

December 5^th, 2008

O.J. is sentenced. Finally I sigh. The bastard will probably die in jail. He will be in there a minimum of 9 years and he is 61. I am sure some Aryan brother wants that notch.  And I  admit this is for RON AND NICOLE in my mind. That is the crime he almost got away with.

I am not as much concerned with today, his jailing, or his arrogance as I am with the justice system.

Why does the prosecution not get a chance to retry a case? Not all cases. And not at any whim.  But when there is evidence that is overwhelming ( the blood in the bronco), and the motive is there, and there has been violence in the past between the two, perpetrated by the one who we all knew got away with murder… Why does the prosecution not get the chance to do it right? We give that right to the defendant? Many cases are overturned or retried because of ineffective counsel.

I think that there should be one chance of review by the same appellate court that review the guilty person’s cases to see the evidence and if there is a more than likely chance that a retrial would be find the person guilty, the prosecutor should be allowed one more chance at trying the guilty. Not two, one – period.  Is this not fair?  If your child/mother’s/wife’s murder was set free by showmanship and ineffective counsel would you not want that? Would that not be fair?

Yes I am prejudiced. I am prejudiced against ignorance. That dance that day was not joy for someone who they really believed was innocent - was found innocent.  That dance was ignorant. It was a slap in the face to every one in that office that was white, and it was a thing that divided from that day forward.

Slowly the blacks quit attending dinners given by the whites and vice versa. The blacks became a clique, a professional gang so to speak. No they committed no crimes but they were definitely of a different mind than what we always thought they were.  They hung together, developed their own areas, and they were limiting on how close they allowed anyone not of their race to get to them on a personal level.  It was as if O.J.’s verdict had set them free or given them some power.

Was it a cultural thing that caused the separation of white and black in that small office? I do not know? All I know is from my stand point I believe in fairness.  And I will even in my disabled state physically defend against unfair actions if needed.  It is something I have done all of my life and will continue to do so until I die.

But that October 3 – I admit all the prejudice I had came out in me and it was for the unfairness of the system, the joke the trial had become, and of course the in your face response of people I cared for and respected.  They did not win the trial on fairness and by disputing the evidence. They won the trial by having the best team money could by and by putting on the best show any troupe could. I personally was embarrassed by Chochran wearing the black knit cap. He is from Shreveport where I reside and he looked the stereotype that blacks have fought for years to overcome. He put on the greatest show on earth that day.

Prejudice begets prejudice. And on that day, the reactions of the blacks when the verdict was read made every white  person in that room prejudice.  I still wonder what when through the minds of the jurors? How in the world could they find him not guilty? I could understand a hung jury with it being racially split – but not – not guilty.

Forget Foreman the idiot detective. Forget the compromised scene. REMEMBER NICOLES BLOOD BEING IN THE BRONCO MIXED WITH O.J.’s from the wound on his finger.  That was not compromised evidence. In any murder trial except for the Rich and Famous there would have been a guilty verdict and no one would have danced.  It was not at all fair. A second trial would have allowed the mistakes to be corrected. That is what we do with people in prison who are given new trials for inadequate counsel.

What if OJ had been married to Diana Ross or Oprah Winfrey?  Or any black woman who no one knew? Would there have been that joy and that reaction.  That reaction that was in the streets and bars and classrooms and offices did not set race relations back at all. It just reminded us all that prejudice and bias works both ways.

If only they would have had a chance to retry him in front of a judge that was not a clown, without a token black they felt needed at the prosecutions table and by a prosecutor that was not overwhelmed by the team she faced as well as the media that hounded her… Remember the numbers as well. How many famous attorneys did they face that O.J. could pay for?

In a second trial they would not have taken the bait. Maybe they would never have tried to make that glove fit and played right into the hands of the defense attorney.

I had always been told I would have been a good attorney. I argue with the best of people. And I do agree that defendants have the right to counsel. But I would never defend a murderer or a rapist or anyone that hurt a child. Just my personal choices. I could not sleep with myself knowing I helped someone get away with one of those crimes.  So I would not have been a criminal attorney.  I would have been a prosecutor.   

There are two things about this whole mess that make me the saddest.

First is how screwed up those kids must be.  Had I been in their shoes I would have found a way to kill my father.  I can say this as I had had those thoughts years ago against my own father who was brutal and cruel.  And I did act on them.  Had he ever killed my mother I would be in jail now and would have been since I had found the chance to take his life.

My father died a natural death at 88.

The second thing that makes me sad is that I believe the black man oppresses himself these days.  The people in that office that day, some still there, worked to get where they wanted to be in life. And we have great black people today that are fine role models.  Sadly black gangs and shootings and easy roads are taken by too many young black people. Prison to many is three hot’s and a cot and a thing that goes along with doing business if not a badge of courage.  Prison is not a true determent to crime.

If only OJ had used his fame and fortune as a leader and gotten into the ground level poor black people’s minds and given them two gifts -  that anything can be attained with work and with attitude - he could have been cheered on much more off of the field than on.  His legacy would have been one of such greatness. 

Instead when angered, or disrespected he went right back to street mentality.  Kill the person that disrespects you..  And that was the mentality I dare say I felt dancing around like five year olds in the office that day.  No sadness for Nicole or Ron.. Just glee that O.J. beat the system… Back to the streets..