Representing O.J.: Murder, Criminal Justice, and Mass Culture

by Gregg Barak

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0911577378
• ISBN13: 9780911577372
• Release Date: October 1996
• Publisher: Harrow and Heston
• Length: 228 Pages

Customer Reviews

Mass Media bias exposed!

In "Representing O.J.; editor Gregg Barak makes use of meta-analysis to present a broad spectrum of views and commentary pertaining to the controversial "not guilty" verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial. Supported by contributed accounts, the editor paints a very disturbing picture of the African-American people's plight under the country's justice system. Also of particular interest is the role that the mass communications media is described as playing in the orchestration of periodic themes of violence that tend to depict members of racial minorities as having a monopoly on crime. Frenzied coverage of O.J. Simpson himself, Mike Tyson, Clarence Thomas and the dismissed Afro-American male juror whose crime was to look at a non-black female juror is presented as indicative of suck bias, and that's not all. According to Barak and Co; themes such as the foregoing also have the effect of perpetuating the hegemonic order. As one contributor puts it, it is by means of legal fictions that the ruling class often criminalizes, manipulates, and otherwise controls political opponents and "uppity niggers" sic. He adds that occasional disorder actually serves to provide the ruling class with an excuse to tighten its grip on society by enacting harsher penal laws for society's so-called protection. With regard to the "not guilty" verdict, the prevailing view seems to be that, that was a mere fluke since the factors that combined to influence it are non-existent in the majority of cases where Blacks fall foul of the law. Not everybody can afford the high legal fees that went into the Simpson defence and therefore they end up having to plea-bargain. The system was never meat to work for the African-American and therefore it would be naïve for anyone of them to believe that now it does. The book is surely an eye opener to anyone interested in the legal system and its impact on certain sectors of American society.