Response to Hunt.

I have always been troubled by people who claim O.J. (and other people of color) "played the race card." Whether or not this particular case had an outcome predicated on race, people of color, especially African-Americans, are overrepresented in prisons. In his concluding remarks, Hunt states that everyone knows the criminal justice system has "disproportionately incarcerated deserving black-raced males" (417) (emphasis added). The use of "deserving" here is troubling, because the criminal justice system is heavily flawed and, as a part of a society that is not color-blind (no matter how much it claims to be), that system is also not unbiased. Hunt claims that white-raced people need to believe in O.J.'s guilt, and thus, the color-blindness of the system. It would surely be unfortunate for people to have to re-examine the raced partiality of the criminal and legal systems, as well as the larger social context of racial hierarchy. To do these things would mean relinquishing the top of the totem pole, as well as the ability to say that people of color are in a lower position (economically, politically, etc.) from their own laziness/uselessness/lethargy, rather than admitting some responsibility. In short, whites were hoping that O.J. Simpson would be proven guilty so they could be affirmed in their beliefs about blacks and how the system is fair for all. Luckily for them, despite Simpson's acquittal, the legal system hasn't changed, nor have the clearly biased structures in place.