The refusal of white Americans - especially then, but even now - to understand how the OJ trial was a reflection of the un-reckoned-with circumstances that had most recently rocked the land with the Rodney King incident, trial, riots, etc has always bothered me. Of course murder was "legal" in the state of California - what were the people beating King to within an inch of his life expecting to happen to that dude after they were done with him? He survived, of course, but in spite of their intent. The line's only a successful bit if you didn't consider it murder when cops gun someone down.

I think the greatest social failure of that day isn't that he walked, it's that half the country didn't have the self-awareness to take stock - to understand both the legal and social system that we'd set up that lead to that outcome, to see how we'd been manipulated by the media - and to maybe have the grace to let it go. (The last time someone brought it up to me, in person, was a scant 3 years ago, in a context so ridiculous that I don't know that I should relate it.)