Birth of a Nation'hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O. J. Simpson Case

The best part of this collection of essays remarking on the O. J. Simpson case is the reminder that what we saw on television and read in the newspaper wasn't the whole story. The authors--lawyers and academics for the most part--aren't primarily interested in questions of guilt or innocence. Instead, they look at the marketing of the Simpson trial and the falseness of the "race neutral" concept when applied to the trial and its aftermath. In the end, it's hard to disagree with Ann Ducille, who concludes that "If we are not actually the worse for it all . . . we have most certainly been shown at our worst by it."