THE GREAT DIVIDE WILL RACE BE A FACTOR IN BRYANT'S TRIAL?

Byline: Joseph Honig

TO lawyers, reporters and courtroom railbirds, America's racial divides are sometimes most apparent when celebrated minority figures face criminal jeopardy.

And Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Laker phenom, may star in our latest legal drama of racial themes, traditional prejudices and tabloid justice.

For the 24-year-old Bryant, an outlandishly rich, iconic figure, faces what may be the uphill fight of his career: He is a 6-foot, 6-inch black male who must confront a 19-year-old white woman who says he sexually assaulted her last June.

A guilty verdict could mean life in prison. Without a change of venue - maybe a long shot for Kobe - he will be tried in a Colorado hamlet where about 1 percent of the population is reported to be non-white. Where a police investigator, assigned to Bryant's case, was found to have improperly stopped drivers because of their color.

Prosecutors indicate there is physical evidence. The basketball star maintains his innocence, saying intercourse was consensual. With 24-hour cable coverage, this trial could be next year's Son of Simpson.

For in Colorado v. Bryant, race may be the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about. It may offend the court. It smacks of bygone times. Tread delicately for fear of offending.

All this despite a recent USA Today poll reporting two-thirds of blacks believe charges against Bryant are false; white respondents were evenly split. Further, two-thirds of blacks reported sympathies with Bryant, while only 40 per cent of whites voiced similar feelings.

Clearly, there is some racial polarization over Kobe.

But could Bryant's potential courtroom problems be deeper and more ingrained than polls indicate?

In the republic's brief history, one of racism's ugliest and most enduring themes has been that of black males attacking white women. It was a trumped-up, ridiculous fear fanned by ignorance and evil. Still, it persisted, nourishing Klansmen and other villains for 100 years.

In the American South, uncounted black males were tried and convicted of rape by all-white juries on weak or manufactured evidence. Karl Fleming, the legendary civil-rights reporter, recently said he could not recall one southern rape acquittal for a black man tried by white jurors.

``It just didn't happen,'' he remarked.

This is not to say that Eagle, Colo., is Birmingham or Selma, Ala., in the 1950s. Nor is there any reason to believe Bryant's jurors - if all white or overwhelmingly so - will make decisions based on race.

Nevertheless, one hopes the portrait of Bryant, a black male towering over his white accuser, will be viewed without racial stereotyping.

One hopes.

He is, after all, what Madison Avenue calls a crossover personality; Bryant's former good-guy image has been used to sell everything from cereal to sandwich spread. His wife, an alluring young Latina, held his hand as he confessed adultery to news cameras. She skipped his arraignment, and it's anybody's guess whether Vanessa Bryant will be present when her husband stands trial.

And in the annals of racism, black males with non-African American spouses have long been targets of the twisted and treacherous. The late Sammy Davis Jr. received scores of death threats after marrying white actress May Britt. In the Deep South, the hate crowd smirked and catcalled when Sidney Poitier wed Joanna Shimkus, a white film ingenue.

Yes, that was then, though many contemporary bigots never fail to mention that Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas is the black husband of a white wife.

Moreover, rape trials in any era or locale are never decorous affairs. Evidence is often open to interpretation. Testimony can be terribly emotional. Mostly, there are no witnesses. As a reporter, I've interviewed many, many jurors who said they voted their guts. And somebody went to prison because their guts said so.

(On the other hand, I recall a San Francisco murder trial and a black juror, who voted for acquittal, telling me: ``There's just no way I am going to send another black man to prison.'' There was a hung jury.)

It isn't politic to say, but rape cases often hinge on appearances. And comportment. Ex-heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, convicted of rape in Indiana, was anything but a model defendant. He simmered. He looked like a clenched fist. Tyson faced a veteran, unrelenting prosecutor with a relatively inexperienced defense attorney. Maybe he never had a chance.

Though his victim was black, Mike Tyson's troubles sparked racial conversations in living rooms and barrooms across the nation. With a white accuser, defendant Bryant may be talk radio's newest going concern. Eventually someone will point to the elephant in the courtroom - race - and ask if it matters.

Only Kobe Bryant's jurors, if they are honest with themselves, will ever truly know.

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(color) L.A. Laker Kobe Bryant, here with wife Vanessa at the Teen Choice Awards, faces a legal drama filled with racial themes. But the question is: Who is going to point to the racial elephant in the room?

Steve Granitz/WireImage.com