OJ And Me in the Lonely Crowd

Ever try to imagine the internal conversations of people who turn up in the news?

Did Michael “Kramer” Richards think to himself, “I’m a great comedic actor, but I’m having trouble getting roles these days. Hey, why don’t I try stand-up for a while? That’s got to be easy.”

Maybe the Pope thought, “I know what will show Muslims I’m cool. I’ll go to a predominantly Muslim country and let my people drive me around in the Pope-mobile and show them all how cute and harmless I am. They’ll love me for sure!”

I’m not going to try to guess exactly what OJ was thinking when he came up with that book idea of his. I’m afraid that if I ever got myself to think that way my brain would get stuck in that state and I’d never be able to fake normal again. But I’ll guess part of what he was thinking was “Hmm, money.”

Let me risk seeming to change the subject entirely. I’ve been noticing a pattern in the news lately. A lot is coming down to conflicts, real and imagined, between individual and group rights.

Example: Why should we have hate-crime legislation? Doesn’t that give rights to groups that individuals can’t share in? Why should it be worse to beat up someone because you don’t like the group they belong to, than to beat the same person up because you just don’t like their looks?

Come on, people, that one’s simple. The hate-crime beating is worse to the extent that, in addition to the immediate harm done to the immediate victim, other people are also threatened with future violence. Such threats amount to terrorism.

Here’s an example where the conflict appears genuine: Recently in Montreal the police had a brief internal discussion over whether it might not be good, when engaging with certain extremely patriarchal ethnic communities within that diverse city, to leave the police women in the back seat of the police car, so to speak. Apparently the discussion lasted just long enough for someone to write a memo about it, and then the decision was: no way that’s going to happen. I learned about this from an editorial I found that framed it as a case of women’s individual rights vs a minority group’s rights. But is it?

Wasn’t the decision really to go with offending the tiny minority groups rather than offending the one huge majority group of women? I’m betting the Montreal police department wasn’t looking out for any one woman’s individual rights.

If I’m wrong about that, then what do we make of the veil controversy in France? Veils are losing out there. Why? Because the majority of French women don’t care if they wear veils, that’s why.

Getting back to the questions that started this, the news says that the hecklers that Richards spewed racist language toward are interested in receiving monetary compensation. That puts the whole Michael Richards’ career-in-flames story in a whole different light, one that swings the focus radically from group to individuals.

Suddenly it becomes an issue not of how racist Richards is, or how offended African-Americans everywhere are by the man’s language, but how hurt were these two guys in the audience, and how much would it take to make it better. What we have here is a triumph of the individual-right perspective over the group-right perspective. The hecklers are individualizing the common demand for reparations.

I’m warming to the idea slowly. I’m seeing possibilities, as my individual sensibilities are pummeled wherever I go.

Just the other day, a motorist gave me the finger for delaying him while I used a crosswalk. I’m thinking, that could be $5, right there.

If Benedict XVI sets off World War III by stirring up trouble in Istanbul, I am personally holding him responsible, and I will sue him and the Vatican $100 for each day I am made miserable by the consequent global conflagration. After all, I can’t leave for another planet.

Hmm, money.