White America Wants Simpson’s Blood : Justice: No punishment will be enough; the racist system bodes ill for black Americans.

The cry gets louder and louder every day, from more and more white people across America: They’re demanding O.J. Simpson’s blood. And they may get it.

Simpson’s enemies have challenged his right to rear his own children. They’ve mounted a spirited attack on the judge who gave him custody and are seeking to remove her from the bench. They’re demanding that the California Legislature change the law to prohibit any person convicted of killing his or her spouse from having custody of the couple’s children.

Enemies also fought to prevent the sale of Simpson’s video, which gave his version of what happened the June, 1994, night Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson were murdered.

Everywhere Simpson turns, he’s confronted with enemies, mostly white, waiting to attack, to revile, to deny freedom of movement.

Of course, there are blacks who also revile Simpson and think he’s guilty. But the relentless attacks, the open revulsion, the lynch mob mentality since Simpson’s acquittal comes primarily from whites outraged at what they perceive as a murderer who beat the system. To his enemies, Simp- son committed the most unforgivable sin: A black man, he killed two whites; to inflame matters even more, two young, white Hollywood types.

Simpson never was given the standard presumption of innocence until proven guilty, which is given even the suspects in the Oklahoma City bombing. Was Simpson’s alleged crime more heinous than theirs? Simpson’s critics argue that their outrage is justified because he committed a brutal murder and walked free. But people are brutally murdered in America every day without a national frenzy of hysteria. Throughout our history, blacks have been murdered by whites who routinely went free without even being charged. Only since the 1960s have whites in the South accused of killing blacks even been brought to trial. And white police officers who brutalize and kill blacks are routinely acquitted, almost always by all-white juries. The latest example is the acquittal of a white cop in the 1995 killing in Pittsburgh of motorist Jonny Gammage, which drew media attention because he was the cousin of Steelers football player Ray Seals. But there was no overwhelming outcry from outraged white citizens or media, which have been particularly vocal and one-sided in promoting Simpson’s guilt. The lesson is clear: Whites get outraged only when other whites are killed and particularly outraged when the alleged perpetrator is black.

It took 30 years to bring the killer of Medgar Evers to justice. But his widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams, got little help from a sympathetic white media in her campaign for a new trial for Byron De La Beckwith. Neither was there help from national talk show hosts like Geraldo Rivera or Charles Grodin, who have used their nightly broadcasts to ceaselessly “prove” Simpson’s guilt in the criminal and civil cases.

Other high-profile cases of the past offer no parallels. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago in 1929, the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the animalistic killings by Charles Manson and his “family” and hundreds of murders by Mafia gangsters all provoked public outrage. But when the perpetrators were caught and punished, the public’s outrage seemed vindicated. There were no extraordinary demands for additional “punishment.” Lawyers for Bruno Hauptmann, Charles Manson, John Gotti and Claus von Bulow weren’t reviled because they “defended a murderer.”

Simpson, it’s true, was acquitted in the criminal trial. But he was found liable in the civil case. The mostly white jury clearly believed that he killed his ex-wife and her friend and punished him for it. Simpson has been ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages. His chances of winning on appeal are slim and none; he will spend the rest of his life paying this debt and living as a reviled outcast. But this isn’t enough for his enemies. They demand that he be punished more: his children taken away, his ability to earn a living circumscribed, his only recourse to be paid for confessing. Whites call this justice. I call it vengeance, a singular vengeance reserved for only one person who most white Americans feel committed the ultimate crime: killing two white people.

Simpson’s fate has implications for other blacks in America. If whites will suddenly turn on someone like Simpson, who spent his life ignoring racism and seeking the approval and social acceptance of whites, what would happen to any other black who found himself or herself accused in a case where race is paramount? The issue is bigger than Simpson. The fallout will take years to settle.