m and harassment in their own lives, but he has not.
The source of the conflict observed was thus not the case itself but the underlying and long-standing racial, class, and cultural differences dividing groups in society today, and the case only became the specific example being used by both sides in the argument to uphold their beliefs. The white student saw the case as proof that the criminal justice system was breaking down, while the black student saw it as a ray of hoe that perhaps the system was beginning to work as it never had in the past. This is a fundamental difference in perception about the nature of important societal institutions, the way those institutions work, and whom they benefit. The fact that this argument was taking place in a school setting points out how much these larger social issues affect the way students relate to one another, and clearly they bring the concerns of society into the school setting. The Simpson case brought these issues into the open, but they operate at some level at all times.
Carroll (1988) presents a series of essays on cultural differences and begins in an anthropological mode that shows that the anthropologist is not limited to issues of culture in distant lands but also finds cultural conflicts at home, as with those between French Canadians and English-speaking Canadians. He also notes the reason why there is a need for study at all:
Cultural analysis is necessary only because my culture is not the
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