fflo | no O.J. "confession"

I'm disappointed the O.J. interview/book thing is off.

Go ahead--- assail me if you will.

A portion of my disappointment is not having satisfaction for my personal curiosity about what (surely bizarre) stuff he was going to be saying. Another portion, however, is that something seems amiss to me in what we're scandalized by here.

We've got a crazy, celebrity exhibitionist culture, and that particularly sick potential money-making off of what is broadly thought to be a murder's quasi-confession doesn't shock me or even seem to me a new low, from Fox or any of the rest of 'em. Having the focus of scandal on the broadcasting & publishing of "sick" stuff is, to me, shining the flashlight in the wrong place.

If he did do it, and he wants to say he more or less did it, that such a thing could come to us via mass media that operate for profit is not terribly relevant to me. I could probably pull up some free speech concerns if I wanted, and also cite qualms about the powers of movements for "victims' rights" (and the related concern for surviving loved ones' feelings). But what keeps striking me when I hear talk of the latest thing is this: if he did it, to hear and read what he said would mean facing more directly that someone could get away with such a crime, and thus being forced to ask ourselves (in the real heart of the subject) why and how that could come about. To me, such a focus gets at the heart of the true scandal of O.J.-if-he-did-it: that silences surround certain kinds of violence, and that celebrity and wealth give an abuser even more power than our broad culture gives abusers. Perceptions about race, of course, are thrown into the mix, particularly once we're talking about what happened after the murders.

If he didn't do it, celebrity and wealth and race are still in the mix. But maybe that "confession" would have largely un-done the "if he did it" caveat in talking about that extraordinary story and its life among us.