A Tale of 2 Native Sons:
O.J. Simpson and Richard Wright’s ‘Bigger Thomas’
In the Richard Wright classic, Native
Son, the main character is a large young Black male named Bigger Thomas. In the
book, he carries a white female friend to her room because she is drunk. But as
he lays her on her bed he gets caught up in the white woman fantasy and lounges
over her kisses her only to be interrupted by her blind mother. He has to be
quiet but she begins to awaken. He clamps his powerful hands over her mouth to
keep her quiet until the mother finally leaves. By the time she does, he has inadvertently
smothered the white girl.
Like the Richard Wright story,
"Bright and Morning Star," the lead character is swept away by young,
white "communists" who are organizing. And, as it was in that particular story, a
black man acting as a "friend" finds himself much more committed to
the "movement" and to the white folks in it than the whites
themselves.
In an article on how he created his
classic character "Bigger Thomas," Richard Wright wrote a passage
which appears to fit Juice like a glove. Take note:
"The Bigger Thomases were the only Negroes I
know of who consistently violated the Jim Crow laws of the South and who got
away with it, at least for a sweet brief spell. Eventually, the whites who
restricted their lives made them pay a terrible price. They were shot, hanged,
maimed, lynched and generally hounded until they were either dead or their
spirits broken." (Wright, 1968: 542)
There can be no doubt that Juice was
publicly lynched after being "generally hounded" as Wright outlined.
But in terms of the "spirit being broken," O.J. didn't have to endure
this indignity; indeed, had O.J. any "spirit" that was black in the
first place, he would not have been in that situation. O.J's spirit was white, and it was this
Anglophilia which proved to be his downfall.
Juice, indeed, violated a number of
the more informal "Jim Crow laws" of today. In fact, he violated America
When asked why Bigger Thomas finally
revolted (out of frustration which lead to him accidentally smothering a white
woman to death with a pillow), Wright offers us more insights into the
"tommism":
"But why did Bigger revolt? No explanation
based upon a hard and fast rule of conduct can be given. But there were always
two factors psychologically dominant in his personality. First, through some
quirk of circumstance, he had become estranged from the religion and the folk
culture of his race. Second, he was trying to react to and answer the call of
the dominant civilization whose glitter came to him through the newspapers,
magazines, radios, movies and the mere imposing sight and sound of daily
American life. In many respects his emergence as a distinct type was
inevitable." (ibid.,)
Little could Wright have known that
what he described in Bigger Thomas was no "distinct type." There are millions of young people,
influenced by the misguided likes of O.J. Simpson, who also aspire and fall
prey to the manipulated manifestations of the media. They too, see Juice as a
role model and, as a result, they want to get where he was so that they can get
what he held most dear: his blonde haired, blue eyed white bitch. That is the
message that O.J. sent to young people, whether he wanted to or not. Before
turning himself in, he talked about how he loved his mother and how she had taught him the
difference between right and wrong. She didn't teach him good enough. He
divorced his first wife, who was Black, and immediately immersed himself in
whiteness. And he was so weak and impressed, that he never came back.
Let us look at how Wright eloquently
described the events of the night that Bigger accidentally killed
"Mary" and juxtapose them with what O.J. was about before, during and
following the night of the events in front of Nicole Simpson's house.
After carrying her into the house,
realizing she was drunk, note how Wright describes Bigger's lust:
"He lifted her and laid her on the bed.
Something urged him to leave at once, but he leaned over her, excited, looking
at her face in the dim light, not wanting to take his hands from her breasts.
She tossed and mumbled sleepily. He tightened his fingers on her breasts,
kissing her again, feeling her move toward him. He was aware only of her body
now; his lips trembled. Then he stiffened. The door behind him had
creaked..." (Wright, 1940: 84)
What is described above is the fascination
that Juice had with white women in general and later, with Nicole in
particular. After all, Nicole had not only white skin, but the blue eyes and
the blonde hair as well. She was young and worked out regularly. Juice was
obsessed just as Bigger was with this white woman. Like Bigger, Juice knew this
was taboo, but his fantasies got the best of him. He could not control himself.
The door which "creaks" in
the life of O.J. is represents the awareness of his status as a black man.
Mary's mother is blind but is still present, enough to make Bigger afraid. In
like manner, Juice becomes aware that he is a black man in a white woman's room
through Nicole's own actions. The house she lives in is his, but he must call
first; he has no rights that her boyfriends are any longer bound to respect. He
has heard rumors of other men and of Goldman playing with his children. Thus,
the "creaking" of the door represents an awareness generated by a
"third party"; in this case, the third party is white society taking
advantage of the divorce, O.J.'s absence and the white girl's sluttishness.
Juice finally realized that he was in a taboo situation.
Continuing:
"He turned and a hysterical terror seized him,
as though he were falling from a great height in a dream. A white blur was
standing by the door, silent, ghostlike. It filled his eyes and gripped his
body. It was Mrs. Dalton. He wanted to knock her out of his way and bolt from
the room. "Mary!" she spoke softly, questionably. Bigger held his
breath. Mary mumbled again; he bent over her, his fists clenched in fear ... He
held his hand over her mouth and his head was was cocked at an angle that
enabled him to see Mary and Mrs. Dalton by merely shifting his eyes ...
Frantically, he caught a corner of the pillow and brought it to her lips. He
had to stop her from mumbling, or he would be caught ... Mary's fingernails
tore at his hands and he caught the pillow and covered her entgire face with
it, firmly ... His muscles flexed taut as steel and he pressed the pillow, feeling
the bed give slowly, evenly, but silently. Then suddently her fingernails did
not bite into his wrists. Mary's fingers loosened. He did not feel her surging
and heaving against him. Her body was still ... " (ibid., pp. 84-85)
The events above describe what I
believe happened the night that Juice "visited" Nicole following her
return home to her house with their children. Juice knew she was home and he
was waiting i the bushes. He didn't expect Goldman to show up, but he did.
Juice attacked Nicole and Goldman (representing Mrs. Dalton) was there trying
to save her. Juice then turned on Goldman and Nicole, in turn, tried to pull
Juice away from the white man. Like Mary, Nicole was scratching and struggling
for life. I contend that her attempts to save the white man angered Juice all
the more. Here she was attacking her own ex-husband for this young white man.
And that is when Juice turned out her lights with the knife the same way that
Bigger turned out Mary's with the pillow.
Now comes the physical response to the
panicked act and the slow realization that a woman he was attracted to, but
knew he could never have, is now dead by his hand:
"He relaxed and sank to the floor, his breath
going in a long gasp. He was weak and wet with sweat. He stayed crouched and
bent,hearing the sound of his breathing filling the darkness. Gradually, the
intensity of his sensations subsided and he was aware of the room. He felt that
he had been in the grip of a weird spell and was now free. The fingertips of
his right hand were pressed deeply into the soft fibers of the rug and his
whole body vibrated from the wild pounding of his heart ... Had he hurt her? He
went to the bed and stood over her; her face lay sideways on the pillow ... Her
bosom, her bosom, her -- her bosom was not moving! He could not hear her breath
coming and going now as he had when he had first brought her into the room! ...
Then, convulsively, he sucked his breath in and huge words formed slowly,
ringing in his ears: She's dead ....
" (ibid., emphasis original)
Not just someone is dead. A white
woman. Next comes the realization, and the racial politics of the act make the
act all the more spine-tingling:
"The reality of the room fell from him; the
vast city of white people that sprawled outside took its place. She was dead
and he had killed her. He was a murderer, a Negro murderer, a black murderer.
He had killed a white woman ... He had to slip out of the house. Yes. He could
go home to bed and tomorrow he could tell them that he had driven Mary home and
had left her at the side door. In the darkness his fear made live in him an
element which he reckoned with as "them." He had to construct a case
for "them." (ibid., pp. 86-87)
So many similarities. Now, out of all
of those years, Juice realizes he is a black man and that his ex-wife is not
black. She is a white woman. The same feelings coursing through Bigger Thomas
were, in my view, going through O.J. Simpson the night of the alleged attack.
His being "O.J." the athlete meant nothing; he was nothing more than
a nigger to those who would look upon Nicole's pristine whiteness and the body
of her white male companion and realize that such an act, committed by a
nigger, would not, could not, go unpunished.
The need for an alibi comes into being
and, like Bigger, O.J. hopes to create one. Then confusion sets in because in
order to confuse white people, you have to think like them. In order to think
as they do, particularly during times of crisis, you have to submit to being as
sick as they are. This is very difficult for people who are not used to living
daily lies and who are not accustomed to having power or access to power that
they have not earned or deserved. Now, the legal issues come into play and,
when meshed with the racial variables, create a bone-curdling sense of
paranoia:
"Fingerprints! He had read about them in
magazines. His fingerprints would give him away, surely! They could prove that
he had been inside of her room. But supppose he told them that he had come to
get the trunk? That was it! The trunk! His fingerprints had a right to be there ...
He ... Yes! He could, he could put
her in the trunk! She was small. Yes;
put her in the trunk. She had said that she would be gone for three days ...
" (ibid., pp. 87-88-emphasis original)
But even as the alibi is being
prepared, more deviance creeps into Bigger's mind. As he lugs the trunk into
the basement, he notices the furnace:
"He stared at the furnace. He trembled with
another idea. He -- he could, he -- he could put her, he could put her in the furnace. He would burn her!
That was the safest thing of all to do ... He had all but her shoulders
in ... He got his knife from his pocket and opened it and stood by the furnace,
looking at Mary's white throat. Could he do it? Would there be blood? ...
Gently, he sawed the blade into the flesh and struck a bone. He gritted his
teeth and cut harder. As yet there was no blood anywhere but on the knife. But
the bone made it difficult. Sweat crawled down his back ... He whacked harder,
but the head would not come off ... He saw a hatchet. Yes! That would do it ...
The head rolled off." (ibid., pp. 90-91-emphasis original)
The similarity between Bigger's
situation and that of O.J. on that fateful night is that as each comes up with
a "plan," they become more involved in their own self-indictments. As
the night wears on, each man becomes so obsessed with the "white girl they
just killed," that logic appears to disappear along with their moral
compasses.
As Bigger tries to assume a normal
life even as the police look for Mary's killer, what goes through his mind must
be most similar to what Juice is now thinking and hoping for, especially when
it comes to wishing that he would have been a little more closer to the black
community and a little less obsessed with the white man:
"There were rare moments when a feeling and
longing for solidarity with other black people would take hold of him. He would
dream of making a stand against that white force, but that dream would fade
when he looked at the other black people near him. Een though black like them,
he felt there was too much difference between him and them to allow for a
common binding and a common life. Only when threatened with death could that
happen; only in fear and shame, with their backs against a wall, could that
happen. But never could they sink their differences in hope." (ibid., p.
109)
For different reasons, I am sure that
Juice is now wishing for more black support from civil rights groups and the
like. But Juice made a choice to surround himself with white people, and the
only blacks in his immediate circle were fellow athletes. He was out of tune
with the masses of black people, except for those who watched "Monday
Night Football" or, more recently, his telecasts with NBC. He was
alienated and knew it. But like Bigger, entertaining the thought of winning
some support is something which I am sure passes through Juice's mind each and
every day.
When Bigger is finally found to be the
culprit, he leads the police on a wild goose-chase, goes up on the roofs of
buildings, finally gets cornered, and is eventually drug down some stairs and,
as one chapter ends, finds himself lying in the snow, totally defeated and
humiliated.
Now, does this not remind you of
another wild goose chase, this one taking place on the interstate in California
At the end of the book Bigger has
become politicized as he faces death and waits in jail. A final ponit that he
makes is one that is warped, but may be viewed as an indicator of why O.J. did
what he did for the reasons that will come out as the trial progresses. But
forget about the trial; take note of the words of Bigger:
"What I killed for must've been good!"
Bigger's voice was full of frenzied anguish. "It must have been good! When
a man kills, it's for something ... I didn't know I was really alive in this
world until I felt things hard enough to kill for 'em .. It's the truth, Mr.
Max. I can say it now, 'cause I'm going to die. I know what I'm saying real
good and I know how it sounds. But I'm all right. I feel all right when I look
at it that way ... " (ibid., p. 392)
All of his life was spent
"playing." He played around in class so much to the point that he
spent time in juvenile hall and gangs. He "played" on the field and
received some notice and he went to college and "played" during a
time when most black students, all over the nation, were on campuses
struggling, petitioning, fighting, and protesting against the system. He was
"playing" when black people were in the streets and is not on record
making any statements of relevance regarding black people, black militancy or
his position on the struggle for civil rights or liberation.
Juice "played" right into
the white man's hand. He fell in love with "Delilah" and look what
she did to him: it was Nicole who turned Juice into the kind of person that
Bigger Thomas became at the end of Native Son.
Bigger comes to grips with his blackness only when he is about to die.
Will O.J.? Or will he continue to
"tom" even while claiming to be innocent of the charges brought
against him?
So in my view, Richard Wright's
character "Bigger Thomas" in Native
Son so reminds me of O.J.'s
situation. But that great work was written more than 20 years ago. Technology
and the times, in general, have changed America
"Any Negro who has lived in the North of the
South knows that times without number he has heard of some Negro boy being
picked up on the streets and carted off to jail and chaged with 'rape' ... Let
me describe this stereotyped situation: A crime wave is sweeping a city and
citizens are clamoring for jpolice action. Squad cars cruise the Black Belt and
grab the first Negro boy who seems to be unattached and homeless ... After a
few days this boy 'confesses' anyting that he is asked to confess, any crime
that handily happens to be unsolved and on the calendar ... When a black boy is
carted off to jail in such a fashion, it is almost impossible to do anything
for him ... " (Wright, 1968: 558)
And is Juice in any less a precarious
situation for having murdered, not only a blue-eyed white woman, but also a
white male? Is Juice any worse off by
having committed such a crime in California
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