Below is a partial transcript from yesterday’s Oprah Winfrey Show. Any repeated words and such are because I recorded the person actually saying it. The transcript is my own and my best attempt to capture the actual spoken words. It is from Winfrey’s discussion with former Los Angeles assistant prosecutor Christopher Darden, about former Los Angeles Police Department detective Mark Fuhrman and the OJ Simpson murder case.

Oprah: How does it make you feel when you see Mark Fuhrman on television? Who?s written books and is leading a very successful life and has become wealthy?

Darden: I think in a lot of ways Fuhrman is far more a disgusting a figure than OJ Simpson. And you really can?t be a friend of mine if you?re a friend of Mark Fuhrman?s. And to see Fuhrman with his success. To see some of the relationships and friendships he?s developed with people in the media and celebrities and the like, it just makes me want to vomit.

Oprah: Why?

Darden: We made some mistakes. But the things he did, the thing he did on the witness stand was intentional. He had every opportunity to tell me, to tell Marcia Clark, to tell someone about these epithets. And about..

Oprah: About use, using the word nigger?

Darden: Yea. Yea, and ah and I gave him plenty of opportunities. But did he do it? No. Then what did he do? Take the stand, take the oath and then tell a lie.

Oprah: So did you hear it as we heard it?

Darden: The it?

Oprah: The n-word?

Darden: Yea. Yea. I had heard rumors about?

Oprah: Them having a tape?

Darden: About them having a tape and then I heard rumors about a transcript, I heard rumors about a secret witness. And Johnnie warned me not to put Fuhrman on the stand, he said, he said ?brother [chuckle], don?t put that White boy on the stand?.

Oprah: He told you?

Darden: He told me, don?t put him on the stand. Mark Fuhrman was going to be my witness, however ah Mark Fuhrman, he really didn?t want me to be the one to handle him on the witness stand. And that?s why Marcia Clark?

Oprah: Wouldn?t that be a little sign to ya?

Darden: Yea there are plenty of signs.

Oprah: Yea, I don?t want the Black guy to talk to me. Wouldn?t that be a sign?

Darden: I mean there were plenty of signs even before that.

Oprah: So my question is, you heard about it as we heard about it there in the courtroom?

Darden: Yea [nods]

Oprah: And so when that moment happened, did you know you were sunk?

Darden: Well I thought we were sunk way before that. We were always I think in a in a in a desperate situation in terms of trying to win that case. But I knew it was over.

Oprah: You knew it was over?

Darden: I knew it was over. I mean I had always wanted to prevent the case from turning it into a race case.

Oprah: Fuhrman was before the gloves right?

Darden: I can?t recall.

Oprah: OK, yea you can.

Darden: I can?t recall. It would take me 3 years of therapy.

Oprah: You?re gonna take the 5th [joking]

Darden: I don?t want to recall. Yea.

Oprah: Because after Johnnie did the ?if it doesn?t fit you must acquit? then that?s when I thought it was over. I think Fuhrman was before that.

Darden: Oh yea, yea. I mean that was closing arguments.

Oprah: Yea, yea.

Darden: So ah, you know, by then they had lots of fodder. I mean I always thought with the quality of lawyers that he had and some of the problems with the evidence and the jury, I always thought that they had a shot of winning it anyway. I don?t think they ever needed to drag these racial epithets into the courtroom.

Oprah: What would happen if you ran into Fuhrman today?

Darden: Nothing.

Oprah: Nothing would happen?

Darden: Nothing would happen. No, I’m not a violent person. Unless Fuhrman did something to me. [crowd laughter]

Oprah: Do you feel though that you have been a victim here? Do you feel that you have in any way allowed yourself to be the victim here?

Darden: I was taken aback by the way I was treated. You know in my own community. Uhm. Which I had always supported and been a part of and involved in. I think I had always been pretty much politically correct in terms of what the average Black man…

Oprah: What does that really mean when you say I was taken aback?

Darden: Yea, I mean to be treated that way in the LA Times and in the local Black press. To hear the things that people were saying about me. Calling me an Uncle Tom and a race traitor and all kinds of crazy, crazy wild things, that other people read and heard and then just assumed that they necessarily had to be true. You know. I never ever could have imagined being in that. Being in the situation like that.

Oprah: So is that what ripped the cord for you?

Darden: You know losing, letting the families down, the way I?ve been treated, um you know the threats, you know all of that. I mean that?s a huge, huge burden to carry and then in the end you know, you get a letter, you know from the DA saying you know, your position?s been terminated, have a good life?shhh?wow.

Now it’s a given that most people reading this post probably feel “OJ did it” and you fume every time you see his face on a TV screen. But I really wonder how many of you express any anger when you see Mark Fuhrman on TV and radio day after day? When you see him on FoxNews or hear him on Sean Hannity’s Show, playing the role of “legal expert” and hocking his various books? The man is a stone cold lying racist, who helped to destroy the biggest murder case of modern times! But he gets face time on some of the biggest media outlets in the nation. Outlets I enjoy myself, but lets not act like their coverage of the issues excuses them from criticism. It’s a shame that they trot out that racist bastard, as if he’s some kind of expert every time a major case breaks. And if the case has all or mostly White victims, he just happens to produce a book about it, which for him is far from ironic. (No disrespect intended towards the victims in those cases.)

I don’t even watch Oprah and even I had to tune in when her show was going to cover the angle of the case many often avoid. Which is that a cop who abused the privileges associated with having a badge ruined a case and today is treated like some kind of hero. Honestly I disagree with Mr. Darden regarding the OJ case. I’ve personally never been convinced that “OJ did it” beyond all reasonable doubt and Mark Fuhrman helped to produce that doubt. I believe OJ probably does know WHO carried out the murders, but don’t believe HE actually performed the murders himself. I feel there is an angle of investigation that has some potential and has been ignored.

Also during the show, Mr. Darden mentioned that Johnnie Cochran actually sent him work after the OJ case. I’m not saying JC was a saint, but he did look out for someone that was being trashed by his other “brothers and sisters”. Darden, like myself dared to disagree with the Civil Rights establishment. (Although on a different issue.) For that Mr. Darden learned the treatment one gets for actually holding the courage of your convictions, even if it means you disagree with a pack of race hustlers. Because although my view of the case is based on my review of the facts, we know from the Duke lacrosse rape case that there are some race hustlers that always see Blacks as innocent and Whites as guilty, simply because of skin tone.