(crayons sold separately)
I did not intend to write an essay about Trayvon Martin and/
or George Zimmerman. To say the
same thing slightly more emphatically, I intended not to write about Tayvon Martin and/or George Zimmerman. I did not regard myself as competent to
do so. Early on I did not follow
even the journalistic presentation of the matter thoroughly or
thoughtfully. Daily summaries of
the actual course of the trial left me with impressions but no confident
conclusions, certainly with none that would authorize me to give public
endorsement of—let alone second guess--a jury that showed every sign of having
taken up its unpleasant duties with seriousness. Furthermore, though I hope I sometimes have interesting
contributions to make on the often whimsical topics I take up in my blog, I am
far from believing that my political or social opinions are of general
interest. As for their authority,
they rarely win approval, let alone agreement, even within my own family.
We
now arrive at the but. I just came upon a brief article, based
in a supposedly objective statistical survey, concerning public attitudes
toward the acquittal of Zimmerman.
More than half of white people asked felt certain that the jury’s
decision was the right one. Less
than ten percent of black people did.
A few days ago President Obama spoke movingly and convincingly to white
Americans in the following terms: “I think it’s important to recognize that the
African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of
experiences and a history that -- that doesn’t go away.”
Mr.
Obama referenced his own personal experience, as I must reference mine,
comparatively trivial though it be.
I was immediately taken back in my mind to the afternoon of October 3,
1995. About 1pm (Eastern Time) I
was sitting around a large conference table with fifteen or more other members
of the “Race Relations Task Force” of Princeton University: an impressive group
of student leaders, professors, and administrators, about half of whom were
black people. The brown-bag lunch meetings
of this earnest and well-intentioned group were generally useful but also
sometimes somniferous. Not today. People came and went, discreetly, as
their schedules demanded, and about one o’clock a newcomer arrived bearing the
news of the O. J. Simpson verdict: “Not Guilty!”
I
have possibly experienced a more ironic moment of professional life, but if so
I cannot think of it now. All the
blacks broke out in more or less effusive expressions of delight. Most of the white people, certainly
including me, succumbed to the affect of having recently ingested a bad
clam. That is how the “Race
Relations Task Force” of a great university related to race on this particular
occasion.
This
was for me a difficult moment, for I fear that I had indeed come to a rather
firm conclusion concerning O. J. Simpson’s role in the death of his wife
Nicole. But I could still tell
myself that I hadn’t been there, I hadn’t heard everything that the jury had
heard, and that “the jury had spoken”.
Perhaps I succeeded in convincing myself that it was at least conceivable that Simpson was
innocent. But there was a greater
challenge yet to come.
Among
my most distinguished colleagues at that time was Toni Morrison, winner of the
Nobel Prize in Literature. Soon
after the conclusion of the trial our excellent student newspaper ran its own
article on “campus reactions” to the trial’s outcome. A student reporter interviewed Toni Morrison, who was quoted
as saying something I found quite fantastic. She could think of no way in fact or in fiction that Simpson could have been guilty of the
murder! I am working from memory
here, but Ms. Morrison’s general views on the matter have been documented
elsewhere, and can be consulted.
Now
when one of the world’s great imaginative writers tells you something
empirically probable is so impossible that she cannot allow even a fictional version of it, it may be time
to reassess the meaning of meaning, and revive the doctrine of the plurality of
truths. In the thirteenth century
some Christian followers of the Arab philosopher Averroës (1126-1198) developed
a doctrine of the “double truth”. Philosophical truth was one thing,
theological truth another. For
example, Aristotle had held that the world was eternal; but the Scriptures
spoke of a creation in time. So
the eternality of the world was “philosophically true” while the temporality of
the world was “theologically true”.
So long as there was no
forced confrontation or reconciliation of the two, an uneasy intellectual
equilibrium could prevail. Though
few people realize it, our term “politically correct” had a similar theoretical
origin in Marxist thought. What is
“politically correct” is the secular equivalent of what in the old sacred realm
was “theologically correct”.
I
conclude that in the matter of Trayvon Martin and/or George Zimmerman an appeal
to the truth is predestined to
fail. This is not merely because
of the contested interpretations of meager and ambiguous evidence, but because
different interpreters seek a definitive privilege for one or another of plural
truths. There is only what might
be called instrumental or functional or legal truth in the verdict of a jury of
one’s peers, supported by protocols of judicial review, but it is a truth
nonetheless. It is too much to
hope for philosophy or theology. Nobody
sentient is likely to judge the American system of jurisprudence to be
perfect. But sins of commission are here worse than sins of omission. That is why the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti will remain an "everlasting wrong" and that of Orenthal James Simpson a bizarre episode in popular culture. Nobody with even a vague
historical sense should lightly badmouth one of the undoubted foundations of
our precious liberties, let alone replace it with the judgments of surveys in the
popular press, the opinions of talking heads, or the organizers of on-line
petitions.
