In his much-publicized and hashed-over speech on race relations Monday, Barack Obama made a brief reference to the notorious O.J. Simpson murder trial, citing it as an example of the predilection to "tackle race only as spectacle."

Less noticed was the elaboration he provided in an interview aired Monday night on ABC's "Nightline" on the question that once so divided many whites and blacks: did Simpson butcher his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her wrong-place, wrong-time friend, Ron Goldman?

"You remember when, during the O.J. trial ... black and white culture just had these completely opposite reactions and nobody understood it. I'm somebody who was pretty clear that O.J. was guilty," Obama told "Nightline's" Terry Moran.

He continued: "And I was ashamed for my own community to respond in that way, but I also understood what was taking place, which was that reaction had more to do with a sense that somehow the criminal justice system historically had been biased so profoundly that a defeat of that justice system was somehow a victory."

For the full transcript of the interview, go here.

For Obama, the jury remains out on whether he has defused the controversy that enveloped him as attention turned late last week to inflammatory comments uttered over the years by his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But ...