The very week a 21st Century social justice movement was seeking to galvanize a new generation of activists (and revitalize an old generation of activists), the purest racial equality interests of Black America had to compete with the purest racial foolishness for the national media. Given a choice to lift up Black America, or make us look crazy — you know which one they’re going choose. And they chose it.  There is no more racially stigmatizing figure in America than O.J. Simpson. O.J. Simpson was accused and acquitted of committing the worse crime you can commit in America, killing a white person — and he was acquitted of killing two.

Then he used his money and celebrity to aid his acquittal. Never mind that whites have used means and money to escape justice for over two hundred years. Never mind that the whole Jena Six episode was (and is) a continuing reminder of racial inequities in the prosecutorial and criminal justice systems. Never mind the Jena Six was the most news worthy event happening last week. That fact that “O.J” racial hysteria foolishness, pushed the most significant racial justice issue, since Forsythe County, Georgia nearly two decades ago, off the front pages of America’s mainstream media, is a point to be noted.  For every one media hit the Jena Six event got, the O.J. Simpson “perp” walk got ten.

What the hell is wrong with O.J., anyway? O.J. Simpson should know can’t get in an argument with a waitress at a coffee shop without it becoming national news. It’s news when they refuse him serveice at a restaurant. Most people who got away with double murder, “if he did it” [sic], would lay low, for like, the rest of their life. Not O.J. I don’t know any person, celebrity or not, who has become so efficient at doing “dumb sh*t.” Well, maybe Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, but they haven’t killed anybody (yet)? Their issues weren’t really news. Neither is O.J.’s.

So, O.J. pistol-whipped a white boy he caught with his belongings in a hotel room. I mean, please. If it were Robert De Niro (you talkin’ me?), or Sean Penn, it would have been newsworthy for a minute. But it was O.J. Simpson, so it was news for a week. Of course, the argument could be made that De Niro and Penn have never been accused of killing anyone, but I still can’t see it being news in the way this O.J. dumbsh*t is being covered. It will be news when he goes back to court. O.J. will be news until they can kill him, or lock him up. They see O.J. as the “mad dog” or the crazed “N-word” (I see ya, NAACP) that got away. O.J. evokes racial passions that haven’t been seen since the 1950s and 1960s. White people turn beet red at the very mention of O.J. It’s still the quickest way to break up a mixed race cocktail party. Don’t believe me. Just bring up the subject of O.J. Simpson and then say something like, “O.J. didn’t kill those people." White people at the party will stop speaking to you…forever. That’s how much they (most of them) hate O.J. Simpson.

You have to admit, though, O.J. takes dumb sh*t to a whole new level. O.J.’s problem is that he’s been acting white for so long, his mentality makes him think that he can do anything and get away with it. But I don’t know too many white people, acquitted of double murder, who would be dumb enough to write a book called, If I Did It. That was the dumbest sh*t thing in the history of dumb-tivity. But then to turn around and pull a “sting” in Las Vegas (of all places) gets him the “Dope of the Decade” award. He beats out Michael Jackson, who still invited kids to sleep over after his near prosecution in the 1990s. But then, O.J. was a finalist for the dope of the last decade, too.  The only ones dumber were those who couldn’t successfully prosecute him after all the evidence pointed to him. O.J. was smart to hire a team of lawyers who got him off. The first law of America is not "obey the law;" it’s "don’t get caught." How the hell are you gonna go into a hotel room, jack somebody — even if it was his sh*t (O.J. word’s on the tape) — and not think it’s going to lead to an all points bulletin with all the cameras in Vegas. That’s audacity. But then that’s O.J.

Is O.J. hysteria really worth our time and attention? No. Particularly when you know he's trying to get some attention - any kind of attention. O.J. Simpson is irrelevant to anything of social significance, except that white folk got it out for him. But until they “get” O.J., the perpetual O.J. watch will always be news to white folk, and sincere social justice issues can be bumped to page 27 in the national news. Do we really need O.J. dumb sh*t right now? Not when we and the rest of society face more relevant issues, like war and Blacks still trying to seek social justice — even as I write in the 21st Century, O.J. fatigue has not only returned, it’s even more insane. I’m tired of it already.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad is a national columnist, managing director of the Urban Issues Forum and author of the upcoming book, Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. His Website is AnthonySamad.com. Click here to contact Dr. Samad.

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