{"id":177,"date":"2006-11-26T17:06:00","date_gmt":"2006-11-26T23:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/2006\/11\/26\/the-oj-arbuckle-discrepancy\/"},"modified":"2006-11-26T17:06:00","modified_gmt":"2006-11-26T23:06:00","slug":"the-oj-arbuckle-discrepancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/2006\/11\/26\/the-oj-arbuckle-discrepancy\/","title":{"rendered":"the o.j. – arbuckle discrepancy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

erin aubry kaplan<\/a> of the los angeles times <\/em>penned a head-scratcher of an op-ed<\/a> this week. in the la times, <\/em>it was titled, “The O.J.-Kramer discrepancy — Recent PR disasters reveal greater tolerance for a white man’s unsavory behavior than a black man’s,<\/em>” while the strib<\/a> <\/em>named the piece, Kramer-O.J. discrepancy says a lot about inequality — Richards’ racist rant is brushed off as an isolated incident, while Simpson is condemned for his character<\/em>.<\/p>\n

huh? i understand the idea of a racist double standard when it comes to crime and Justice, and to public opinion about crime and Justice. as a criminologist, i’ve seen racial disparity in the operations of the Justice system and i’m personally committed to uncovering and redressing these inequities. while michael richards’ racist comedy club meltdown<\/a> was awful, however, mr. simpson was accused of murdering two people<\/em>.<\/p>\n

ms. kaplan reassures us, after 11 paragraphs, that she isn’t “equating racist invective with charges of double homicide.” fair enough, i suppose, but isn’t this comparison precisely the point of her editorial?<\/p>\n

Richards’ “racist rant” has been described as a terrible but isolated incident. O.J., meanwhile, is condemned for his character.<\/p>\n

if ms. kaplan believes that o.j. simpson has been unfairly condemned because of his race, couldn’t she have found a more fitting comparison? i dunno, perhaps the situations involving senator ted kennedy<\/a> and roscoe “fatty” arbuckle<\/a> were somewhat <\/em>more comparable to the accusations against mr. simpson — at least when stacked up against mr. richards’ cringe-inducing speech.<\/p>\n

though the now-senior senator was never tried for murder, his behaviors were alleged to have contributed to the death of another person. senator kennedy’s public image has never quite<\/em> recovered from chappaquiddick, but he remains a powerful and generally respected public figure to this day. mr. arbuckle’s career was pretty much cooked after he was tried for manslaughter in the death of a young actress, but it may have been even worse for him if he hadn’t been white. mr. arbuckle never wrote an if i did it <\/em>book like mr. simpson; given the public outcry over his alleged crimes, however, would it stretch credulity to suggest that a black <\/em>fatty arbuckle might have faced a lynch mob?<\/p>\n

so, i am sympathetic to ms. kaplan’s larger point about race and Justice, and i think some<\/em> data could be martialed in favor of her assertions about mr. simpson’s public image. but c’mon, comparing OJ and <\/em>michael richards<\/em>? unlike brentwood in 1994, only one person died at the laugh factory that november night: the formerly-likeable actor who played cosmo kramer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

erin aubry kaplan of the los angeles times penned a head-scratcher of an op-ed this week. in the la times, it was titled, “The O.J.-Kramer discrepancy — Recent PR disasters reveal greater tolerance for a white man’s unsavory behavior than a black man’s,” while the strib named the piece, Kramer-O.J. discrepancy says a lot about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/pubcrim\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}