Happy Belated b'day by the way!
Your cousin was just being honest in a sense. But it's not always about race in
just the AA community. Perhaps after being slighted so often - we're quicker to call people on it (let's see if this can be an intelligent discussion w/o the eye rolling and name calling).
I think backgrounds and experiences shape what many of us believe and how we see things. Some simply can't fathom that there are still racial issues because they've never experienced racism (and that's anyone of any race - some AA's with different backgrounds don't believe it). Some see race in everything.
Look at the Susan Smith case. When she first described her children's "kidnapper" my supervisor at the time & I had a major disagreement (we were like that - we could disagree, still like each other, & still work together). She was all up in arms as were alot of white people at work- looking out for this assailant - going off at the lunch table. I told her (& everyone else there) the pic looked like a stereotypical "Sambo" and I thought she made it up. They looked at me like I was crazy. I was so mad. I didn't think she was racist - but I couldn't understand for the life of me why she couldn't see the image as I saw it. Turns out - that heffa.... I mean woman... drowned her children.
Anyway, that's my opinion. Oh - & I don't think OJ killed Nicole either.
Too old & decrepit. But I do think he was involved and he's not completely innocent - and I don't know too many people that thinks he's completely innocent either.