Race and Justice: Rodney King and O. J. Simpson in a House Divided

Gibbs, a clinical psychologist, defends the mostly black O.J. Simpson jury against the perception that race was the key factor in its decision to acquit him of double murder. There was ample cause for reasonable doubt, she argues. Yet race, she maintains, was nonetheless an overwhelming factor in both the Simpson case and in the 1992 acquittal (by a predominantly white jury) of four white LAPD officers who brutally beat black motorist Rodney King. In this detailed, impassioned analysis of both cases and their aftermaths, she emphasizes that African Americans' rage at the King jury, and empathy with the Simpson verdict, reflects their daily personal experience with an inequitable criminal justice system, police harassment and brutality, systemic racism and discrimination. A social policy professor at UC-Berkeley, Gibbs insists the Simpson jury's willingness to entertain the defense's theory of a police conspiracy must be interpreted in the context of a long history of oppression and cover-ups--unpunished police beatings or fatal injuries of black men in police custody; suspected FBI involvement in the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Medgar Evers; the documented government infiltration of the Black Panthers; and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, in which life-saving medication was withheld from hundreds of black men with advanced syphilis. Her study makes a vigorous contribution to the debate over race, class and the justice system in America. 50,000 first printing; 50,000 ad/promo. (Nov.)