| PART 12 YTN-Yeah. And, you know, I can certainly understand that there's a great deal of disenfranchisement among teenagers today, as there's always been...but I just fail to understand how listening to music that advocates violence, and mistreatment, of your own race, could possibly help to ease some of that angst, and those feelings of disenfranchisement? How does it even begin to answer for that disenfranchisement? I just don't GET IT. That whole scene just absolutely misses me. Doesn't seem to be going away though. Okay. Speaking of festering resentments...Going back in the news a few years...only because of the fact that O.J. is back in the news today (Concerning his alleged altercation with another motorist in Florida.), it got me to thinking about a very touchy situation from way back when, and I wanted to kind of see where you stood on it...What did you think of the whole O.J. Simpson debacle? How did that whole thing strike you? Because, I know when this happened, I was in the state prison. When the verdict was supposed to be coming in...and the blacks...both out in the street, and especially in the prison...made no bones about it...if the verdict came back 'guilty', they were gonna riot. Or, as they put it, "It was gonna be 'on' in our (referring to the 13, out of 56, white inmates in my tank, at that time.) motherf$%#ing lives!" Okay? And, now, that was the thing...everybody knew he'd done it. Hell, I don't even believe for a minute that most black folks believed he was truly innocent...And they held the cities, white folks everywhere...basically, they held this nation hostage...Now, when it came back "not guilty", they didn't do much of anything. But to this day, I'll never forget that feeling. The fact that if justice was served, as it should have been, in Simpson's case...if he was sent to prison, or Death Row, as any other less affluent man, of any ethnic persuasion, would have been, on a great deal less evidence...then they were gonna riot. It was gonna be "on" in our (white folks) lives. I still get angry today when I think back to that time, and what could have happened. How about you? How did that whole scene play out for you? Here in Crowley? A black man killing 2 white folks. Now, the system doesn't always work...and that's with anybody. That I could live with. What got me was the way blacks in this country held this country hostage for that time. Basically saying, "You'd better pray justice isn't served, in this case." Even though we all, even they, knew he was guilty. JR-Right. I listened to a whole bunch of this stuff. Followed it very closely. And I knew they weren't gonna find him guilty. But the police bungled the whole damn investigation. They screwed it up, and that gave them room to plant reasonable doubt in the jury's mind. They came back, under the circumstances, with probably the only verdict they could come back with. But I'm just like most everybody else. I believe the sonofabitch done it...he done it, you know? But...to prove it? I was more upset with the damn pressure they put on the police, with regard to this Rodney King episode. That's what tore me up! I mean, here was this damn criminal...the way they crucified these white cops...and what they did to Reginald Denny? YTN-Oh yeah! The guy was just a truck driver...doing his job. I remember seeing the videotape. The threw a brick at this man's head...beat him to the ground...and bounced a BRICK off his head, and said, "That's what you get, white boy!" JR-And that man didn't give a damn if he killed him, at that point, or not. Right there before the whole world...and nothing happens. YTN-They made him apologize. He went on national television and said, "I'm sorry". JR-Yeah! (Speaking in a disgusted manner.) I'm sorry I bashed your head in with a brick, Mr Denny. YTN-And on the tape, you could hear him say, "Now you know what Rodney King felt like, white boy!" Yep. That stuff had my hackles up. And folks can't understand where a little of the resentment comes from? JR-Yeah. That's the kind of bulls$%t I don't like. That Simpson stuff I could swallow, a little bit. Cause, you know...listen...that wasn't a couple of white people...she was living with the sonofabitch...she was married to him...so, hey...I'm not gonna say anything more than that...but, I'll tell you the truth...I could only feel so sorry for her because she was a white person at that time. Shouldn't have been living with him. She shouldn't have been married to him. YTN-You feel like she was setting herself up for that one, huh? If you listen to those 911 tapes, he'd been beating her ass for years, prior to this incident. JR-Yeah...didn't have to be a rocket scientist...she shoulda been gone a long time ago. YTN-Yeah. Probably should not have ever been there. To be continued.... |