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Watching the 30 for 30 special on OJ. I was young and didn't understand what was going on during the whole frenzy. Was it public knowledge that he rarely if ever associated with black people during his adult life? Apparently, his defense wanted the jury to make him racially conscious when in reality he didn't care for race relations and had membership in the Hollywood/LA elite.
Watching the 30 for 30 special on OJ. I was young and didn't understand what was going on during the whole frenzy. Was it public knowledge that he rarely if ever associated with black people during his adult life? Apparently, his defense wanted the jury to make him racially conscious when in reality he didn't care for race relations and had membership in the Hollywood/LA elite.
Maybe, I know he was tight with the local police so it really didnt make a lot of sense that they framed him.
Yes, O.J didn't really associate himself with black America whatsoever. He had a very Madison Ave crafted image that allowed him to transcend race...to the extent that such a thing is possible. He was a trailblazer in that regard.
When he got in trouble, he basically had nowhere else to turn so he framed his dilemma in such a way that saw him furtively sneaking back to black America for support. But hell, that's what guys like him always do when the poop hits the fan.
I always regarded him as something of a clown, but I admired his success. But I wasn't buying the whole racial angle offered up by all sides involved. I never supported the dude. I thought he was a phony.
Blacks and whites played themselves like fools during that episode. Blacks conveniently forgot that he couldn't care less about his people, and that he wasn't some persecuted black man who was being taken down by whites for being uppity. Please! He was a wealthy criminal on trial for murder.
White folks...after years of holding him up as some shining example of how wonderful a black man CAN be, and who accepted him as some sort of magic kneegrow, all of a sudden cast him aside and conveniently placed him back into the black community as if he was some Crip from Compton. It was like, "oh yeah...we forgot that HE IS BLACK after all!"
The whole episode is a joke. Thankfully, I was living out of the country at the time and paid only scant attention to the whole laughable affair. I just shook my head in amazement at what dopes the majority of Americans are.
Why is it they are showing the LA riots? just wondering I know it's around the same time period. I find it interesting.
But looking at the OJ case. I can't help but think what social media would do during that whole circus.
The L.A. riots were in 1992, based on a trial that the black citizens didn't like the outcome of. It was generally accepted at the time that if OJ was found guilty, there would be even worse riots.
I used to work with law enforcement (not in L.A.) at the time and used to hear a lot of what was going on during that time. It's a shame that so much evidence was not allowed to be presented in court--OJ got his money's worth from those attorneys.
Yes, O.J didn't really associate himself with black America whatsoever. He had a very Madison Ave crafted image that allowed him to transcend race...to the extent that such a thing is possible. He was a trailblazer in that regard.
When he got in trouble, he basically had nowhere else to turn so he framed his dilemma in such a way that saw him furtively sneaking back to black America for support. But hell, that's what guys like him always do when the poop hits the fan.
I always regarded him as something of a clown, but I admired his success. But I wasn't buying the whole racial angle offered up by all sides involved. I never supported the dude. I thought he was a phony.
Blacks and whites played themselves like fools during that episode. Blacks conveniently forgot that he couldn't care less about his people, and that he wasn't some persecuted black man who was being taken down by whites for being uppity. Please! He was a wealthy criminal on trial for murder.
White folks...after years of holding him up as some shining example of how wonderful a black man CAN be, and who accepted him as some sort of magic kneegrow, all of a sudden cast him aside and conveniently placed him back into the black community as if he was some Crip from Compton. It was like, "oh yeah...we forgot that HE IS BLACK after all!"
The whole episode is a joke. Thankfully, I was living out of the country at the time and paid only scant attention to the whole laughable affair. I just shook my head in amazement at what dopes the majority of Americans are.
What?! The white community held OJ up as an example of what black people could be? Hmm, I don't remember that. He was just a guy who happened to be rich and famous. People who liked him just fine until they found out he was a wife beater and murderer.
White folks...after years of holding him up as some shining example of how wonderful a black man CAN be, and who accepted him as some sort of magic kneegrow, all of a sudden cast him aside and conveniently placed him back into the black community as if he was some Crip from Compton. It was like, "oh yeah...we forgot that HE IS BLACK after all!"
Yes, I remember sitting around with all the whiteys, pre-double-homicide of course, talking about how it would be wonderful if more blacks can be like OJ, after all, he was a magical "kneegrow" being rich, seemingly well-adjusted from the public eye, and in some movies.
Then I hypocritically and conveniently cast him off his pedestal the second he started stabbing to death people and I found out he was a wife beater.
Quote:
Originally Posted by desertdetroiter
The whole episode is a joke. Thankfully, I was living out of the country at the time and paid only scant attention to the whole laughable affair. I just shook my head in amazement at what dopes the majority of Americans are.
Thankfully your "scant attention" paid was enough to offer such smug insights from your superior intellect.
Just keep shaking your head and laughing, we are laughing with you, not at you.
I was young as well, and I couldn't understand why people were so invested in the case. Guess because my parents are immigrants who could have cared less about so-called race, the emphasis young and old put on it was strange to me. When it was time for verdict, the teachers put on TVs in class. A pin could have dropped in the halls that held over 2,500 students. I remember wondering why in the world instruction should be put on hold.
When the verdict came white students looked sad, mad or stunned and black students smiled...two black guys ran down the hall outside the class screaming yeeeeeess.
It was all very strange to me then. Of course, I came to understand later. I did learn about how OJ behaved as far as race later. And IMO, the case did not deserve so much attention. SMH.
I agree with desert detroiter. I was a teen when the trial occurred, but I remember it vividly and I also knew that OJ wasn't really considered a "black" actor or sportsman in a sense.
I also do feel that in general, in America, any time a black man doesn't speak of being black or doesn't associate with black people to any wide degree that society in general will view him as an example of a "successful" black man and will, like desert detroiter mentioned, make him out to be "different" (i.e. better) than other black men.
But I will point out that OJ was initially married to a black woman and he did grow up in a black family. I feel as he got older he went Hollywood and felt that him having money and moving beyond the country negro class made him more important and less able to be categorized in the same respect as a street negro.
IMO the whole racial thing was polarized and brought to the forefront by OJ's legal team, not OJ himself. It was a defense strategy that coupled with the horrible police work and behavior of the LAPD at the time, paid off for OJ, nothing more.
In regards to the trial being seen by black America as symbolism, I do feel that many black people at the time felt that it was an example to white America of how black Americans have felt for hundreds of years when at the behest of our criminal justice system. They felt "we" finally won one and whites finally could feel a sense of injustice that blacks have felt for hundreds of years in America. I don't think that black Americans embraced OJ just because he was black and I don't think that OJ sought out his blackness just because he got in trouble. I think his legal staff did that for him and I do think he did realize that no amount of money can make people treat you any different as a black man in America when it comes down to it.
Last edited by residinghere2007; 06-16-2016 at 08:37 AM..
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