A year after O.J. Simpson murdered Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1994, a Los Angeles jury infamously acquitted him. Years later, a black juror admitted that most of the jury felt that letting a black murderer off the hook was “payback” for Rodney King’s beating at the hands of white police officers. O.J.‘s lawyers played the race card, and it worked.

Less than a year after Decarlos Brown Jr. murdered Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte train — on camera — a judge yesterday agreed with a recent medical assessment that Brown is incompetent to stand trial “at this time.” Obviously, it remains to be seen if justice will ever be served there, either.

That brings me to a third fatal stabbing — that of Austin Metcalf by Karmelo Anthony. I wrote about that sad story last year. All three stabbings have the common thread of a black assailant murdering white victims. Yet the three cases are otherwise quite different.

For one thing, also yesterday, Anthony was found guilty by a Texas jury after only three hours of deliberation and sentenced to 35 years in prison. He’ll be eligible for parole after just 17 years, though it’s highly unlikely he’ll be set free at that point. People may wonder that 35 years seems light, but Anthony was 17 when he committed the murder, and his age factored into the sentence, even though he was tried as an adult.

“You may have just been given a sentence of 35 years behind bars. You can consider yourself lucky because I’ve been sentenced to a lifetime without my son,” Austin Metcalf’s mother told Anthony in court after the sentencing.

Austin’s father was less restrained. “We were robbed — don’t look down — of all these things,” he told Anthony. “I said from day one, this was never about race; please don’t politicize it. But what did you choose to do? Both. It’s about right and wrong. We’re all humans. We all bleed the same color. You’re free to make choices all you want, but you’re not free from those consequences. You will face those consequences starting today.”

“People think that grief is sadness, but it’s not. It’s rage!” he yelled while slamming his hands on the table. “Pure, unfiltered rage. You failed your parents, you failed yourself, and you failed society. You don’t belong in this community. You’re going to prison. You can’t even look me in the eyes right now, but you can stab my f***ing son in the heart.”

Even so, he showed grace. “Austin was the light of my life,” he told reporters outside the courtroom. “This person made a bad choice and affected both his family and my family forever. I forgive the other person because the forgiveness is not for him; the forgiveness is for me, so I can have peace. His life is destroyed. My life is destroyed.”

Meanwhile, because race remains an issue for people who still demand “payback,” a crowd gathered outside the courtroom, chanting “Free Karmelo.” One reportedly shouted, “This whole thing’s been racist!” Online supporters helped him raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for his legal defense. His family subsequently bought a new car and moved into a nearly $1 million home.

What doesn’t seem to matter to the race-baiters is the actual evidence. The Daily Wire reports, “Video footage and witness testimony — even from defense witnesses — generally indicated that Anthony provoked the situation with Metcalf and deadly force was not needed, contradicting the self-defense argument from Anthony’s team.” Several witnesses were black, and they spoke well of Metcalf.

Anthony illegally and knowingly brought a knife to a track meet. He refused several admonitions to leave an opposing team’s tent. Metcalf confronted him, but explicitly said, “I’m not going to fight you.” Anthony still stabbed him in the heart. “I’m not alleged, I did it,” he told the responding police officer.

His defense team tried desperately to throw spaghetti against the wall, hoping something would stick. He claimed self-defense, and his attorney even told the jury that Metcalf may have “impaled himself” on Anthony’s knife. Fortunately, the jury didn’t buy any of it.

What does The Washington Post want us to know? In an article about the Texas town where the murder took place, the Post says, “Frisco is one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities. That growth — and a partisan election season — has fueled racism and anti-immigrant bigotry.”

The “evidence” amounts to a “right-wing provocateur” from Florida and some unattributed vague references to hostile rhetoric from some locals about uncontrolled immigration of Muslims and Hindus.

Oh, and a quote from one of the courthouse protesters: “Americans have shown they don’t care about black people.”

In other words, the only relevant evidence is racism coming from black supporters of Anthony.

Well, and Anthony himself. “I practice law in Collin County, Texas,” posted Texas attorney Sholdon Daniels, who is black. “Karmelo Anthony … murdered that boy because he was raised to hate white people and to view himself as a victim in every situation. It’s a culture thing.”

It is indeed a “culture thing” that provokes such violence. The Civil Rights movement largely resolved the issue of equal treatment under the law. Perhaps it’s understandable that, six decades later, some grievances haven’t entirely faded. That’s human nature. Unfortunately, the real tragedy is that some folks perpetuate the grievances, causing young black men to commit violence at appallingly high rates. That’s ruining a lot of lives, regardless of color.

Follow Nate Jackson on X.