OJ Simpson will be a free man in October (he'll be the big trick-or-treater in the Michael Myers mask) thanks to a parole board's decision to let him out early for committing armed robbery because he had "no prior criminal convictions."
Wow.
Of course, he did have a prior civil conviction, in which he was found to be responsible for brutally chopping up former wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. But apparently the parole board didn't consider that salient in making their determination that Simpson probably constitutes no threat to any member of the general public unless they piss OJ off.
Simpson's parole brings back unpleasant memories of his original trial, in which the race card was played as the ultimate "Get Out of Jail Free" card thanks to a jive-talking defense attorney who made his simple-minded arguments in hippity-hop rhyme, a liberal white female prosecutor who believed that her "sisterhood" with black female jurors would outweigh racial solidarity, and a pair of gloves that unsurprisingly didn't fit OVER a pair of unforgiving rubber gloves - especially when OJ spread his meaty fingers into a fan shape as if he had no experience whatsoever with how gloves are supposed to work.
When it was finally time for the OJ verdict to be announced, we were personally watching a recording of "It's a Wonderful Life" and paused it just before poor old George Bailey prayed on the bridge to live again. Foolish optimists that we were, we thought the jury's remarkably short deliberation must mean that they'd voted OJ "guilty" owing to the superabundance of incontrovertible evidence. (For the record, Mrs. Jarlsberg, who is wise in all things, thought the exact opposite.)
But no, it turned out that thanks to ignorance and a heaping helping of anti-white racism and anti-cop sentiment, a homicidal butcher could literally get away with murder - and did.
And when we eventually returned to "It's a Wonderful Life," the ending felt hollow and meaningless. At that moment in time, we just couldn't buy the fable that justice will eventually triumph, and that diverse communities are comprised of inherently good people who will rally together to do to what's right in times of crisis.
Our enthusiasm for the film has returned over time, but not our naivete about what to expect from the justice system or those who churn race hatred for their own benefit. Among whom, we're sure, will be OJ Simpson yet again.
