Let's talk about Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and how unbelievably fucked up this all is

I was too young to know or understand anything about the OJ trial. I remember overhearing a bunch of second-graders loudly insisting that he was innocent.

every time I think of Darden's "please put on these gloves, Mr Simpson" finishing move, I start giggling

i was in 8th grade & we also watched during school, had a TV wheeled in on an AV cart into the English classroom. When the verdict was announced, there was no immediate reaction where I was (small posh private school), but we definitely heard a (celebratory?) reaction from the public high school 2 blocks away. iirc the rest of the day was passed in discussion about the verdict! spectrum otm, tho, it does seem kind of insane now

I was also in 7th grade and they stopped class to let us know the verdict

The post trial romance of Darden-Clark was one of the many frosting layers of the OJ debacle.

Also, Johnny Cochran Remembered:
http://www.nbcuniversalarchives.com/nbcuni/clip/5116440693_s41.do

CLIP FROM "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE"
Clip shows Tim Meadows performing parody including the couplet Cochran made famous: "If it don't fit, you must acquit"

INT
MS: Couric: "Well, where did you get that? I mean, in the shower, and you were just like, do you read, do you read "The Cat in the Hat" at night?"
MCU: Cochran: "Yeah, I'd just seen it. I love, my favorite book, of course, is "Green Eggs and Ham" and I want you to know all about that. No. We kept looking at this evidence, and we kept, you know how you, you plan ahead, you plan ahead. And we're looking at, and one day Jerry Omen said, you know,`This doesn't fit. This doesn't, this, this whole thing doesn't fit.'

RIP, Johnny.

I was in 11th grade German class when someone stuck their head in to tell us the verdict. There was one black kid in our class and he gave a little "yes!"

I remember watching it cos I was in class and the teacher put on the TV and I was all, "Great, I don't have to pay attention to anything for the rest of the class, think I'll draw doodles for the next half hour". I had no idea what was going on in the trial but yes between SNL and Seinfeld and Letterman jokes and a million other references I got the gist of it. Whoever said they were in a movie theater watching "Speed" is OTMFM.

I was in a terrible spanish 3 class in high school when the verdict came out.. my cynical ass was happy that I guessed the right outcome

OJ verdict story: we heard there would be a verdict so my office went over to a bar on madison and 81st, now gone. roughly 1/2 black and 1/2 white crowd, each half jubilant or stunned, respectively. i'll never forget that.

to watch it on the TV there, obv.

i remember watching it during a high school class, and some kids were legit outraged and pissed that he walked, i was surprised that anybody gave a shit, on that level! i was kind of out of it tbh.

as a 12 year old the only thing that outraged me about the OJ trial was they always preempted Simpsons reruns for trial coverage.

btw my hometown is lilywhite and conservative. it really never occurred to me that 'OJ needs to be in jail' is an opinion anybody would bother to have.

the TV then showed lots of tape from viewing parties around the country that were very racially segregated; jubilant black folks, stunned and disgusted white folks. i remember being really surprised by that (like i said: out of it) and thinking it was all kind of fucked up.

I feel like every time I saw a black person out in public for the next week or so after the verdict, we would do a small but jubilant "not guilty, lol" exchange

I was working in a group home at the time, and the tv/trial was always on. When the verdict was read, a lefty coworker and I exchanged a "Yep, right on" nod, while our bosses freaked the fuck out. One shouted "HE GOT AWAY WITH MURDER!" (scaring the group home residents) and the other ran to the front door and locked it.

Parent upset at OJ verdict hopes entire Zimmerman family and their asshole son thrown out with next day's trash, straight into incinerator leading to hell.

have no clear memories of what i was up to during any part of the oj "incident"/trial/verdict. i do remember that i was watching tv when i saw a clip of the white bronco on tv.

It was Reality TV mark I.

A student in my Yeats class asked the professor's permission to turn on the TV and listen to the verdict. The prof, a classic ivory tower type, was so amused he said sure why not

Yeah, the bronco chase stopped the party I was at cold. Don't really have any memories of the verdict being read.

The M.O. of an evil industry, portraying the worst acts of humanity, exploiting murder while trolling for TV views, etc. And once the verdict was in no doubt there were all these reporters running around looking for people to comment on it and "Eh, i don't really care one way or the other" (which is probably most people on the planet) is far less engaging than "____insert race-baiting/fear-mongering/conspiracy here____".

It was Reality TV mark I.

just, no.

I feel like every time I saw a black person out in public for the next week or so after the verdict, we would do a small but jubilant "not guilty, lol" exchange

― "Post-Oven" (DJP), Thursday, July 11, 2013 2:49 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I knew it!

i remember kinda being stunned at (white) ppl i knew being stunned oj was found not guilty, it seemed super apparent that prosecution had bungle the case a million different ways and then the fuhrman thing sealed the deal. mind you oj was definitely guilty. there's an espn 30 for 30 about the day of the oj chase that's incredible, they had the phone calls between ac and oj and the cops (oj practically confesses), i can remember that night clear as a bell, i was at ft. ben in indianapolis watching the knicks-rockets game w/ some shipmates and we just watched in stunned silence except for one guy who just kept saying 'i can't believe oj went out like a punk'. we just assumed we were all going to see oj commit suicide on national tv. crazy that that whole process took a year, it really feels like ground zero for reality tv in some ways though thank fucking god reality tv basically didn't exist yet cuz it took long enough to wash all those tertiary characters out of the culture as it was. haven't followed the zimmerman case, i think most of my coverage has come from hearing hannity rant about it being illegal to be white now in obama's america etc., assumed when he was finally arrested he'd get off, as much of a monster he is my real hope was maybe it exposing light on these incredibly fucked up laws and on a not atypical police force that saw this situation, knew the background (to the point of having warned him 'do not follow'), and still decided 'o well dead black kid, it's happens, the important thing is we get you washed up'.

BTW this guy has been pretty thorough about the Trayvon trial

http://www.talkleft.com/

i've read a few ppl making elaborate contrarian "o.j. was innocent" arguments, they always sound about as plausible as "there were two oswalds" etc. i was in eighth grade and was walking to second period and i remember no one was in the classroom, everyone'd run off to find a room with a tv. so my friend and i started walking down the hall to find them and suddenly a kid ran out into the hallway and screamed "O.J. IS INNOCENT!!" then we all went back to class and my teacher explained that "acquitted" was different than "innocent."

Everywhere I've gone for the last few weeks--hospital waiting rooms, the bank, stores--the Zimmerman trial has been on tv and everyone stands quietly and watches every minute of it--it gives me some idea of what the OJ or King trails were like, which I pretty much barely even noticed when they happened. I'm fearful of the reaction to the verdict because it's going to hurt so many, many people. I wish we could all by force of will stop this terrible, sad, betraying thing.

Re OJ, I didn't know who he was, didn't know about football, never understood what I'm sure now must have been a shitstorm of racism.

the TV then showed lots of tape from viewing parties around the country that were very racially segregated; jubilant black folks, stunned and disgusted white folks. i remember being really surprised by that (like i said: out of it) and thinking it was all kind of fucked up.

― goole, Thursday, July 11, 2013 6:48 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same here and i was 9

mexicans didn't really gaf afaict but i was really confused by the segregated reactions on tv

Yeah, my vague memory is that he was clearly guilty and was acquitted of murdering his wife for being a rich, famous athlete. I remember being told that black ppl were happy about it and at the time that seemed like a morally bankrupt side to be on. I was somewhat unpleasant as a young person.

though thank fucking god reality tv basically didn't exist yet cuz it took long enough to wash all those tertiary characters out of the culture as it was.

haha otm

I was happy about the OJ verdict because before that point the expectation was that the book was going to be thrown at him because he was black, whereas a rich white person in the same situation would likely have been acquitted. It was the first instance I strongly remember of money trumping race in the judicial system and, as such, felt fair if not just.

(of course the flip side was that a black man successfully navigating the system using his money suddenly made a whole bunch of previously apathetic people notice the flaws in our judicial system that had been there for years; HMM I WONDER WHY THAT WAS)

xp Huh. I never knew that.

there was a grotesque response around here (don't think I even need to say why), buncha white people talking about rioting. Yes, Whites, let us all assemble and riot in protest of the famous Black football player who was acquitted by a jury of his peers because you believe he killed a white woman that none of y'all had heard of or gave a fuck about prior to the trial, one who will become the butt of Dave Chappelle jokes that you will laugh at ten years later.

(i mean fwiw I thought he was guilty as hell but come on fuck on, ppl)

I still think its bad to kill people who I haven't heard of actually

it is, just pointin out how full of shit those 'let's riot' folk were

I thought then and still think now he's guilty, but rich people more often than not evade justice and it was about time a rich black man could benefit. That a guilty man was found not guilty hardly raised an eyebrow.

rich people generally do not commit murder

YOU'VE never watched soap operas!

xxxpost yeah, there was this dude I knew who tried to seriously argue with me for weeks that the only reason O.J. got off for murder was race. I didn't even bother pulling out the statistics reflecting that minorities are on average punished more harshly because he really seemed to believe that O.J. got let go because clearly what history has taught us is that juries never successfully prosecute minorities for murder

OJ winning at the criminal trial ("beyond a reasonable doubt") and getting hammered at the civil trial ("by a preponderance of the evidence") was EXACTLY how the cases should have turned out. Was watching them closely because Harvard LOL School.

^^^ agreed (only without the Harvard LOL School connection)

Wow, reading your posts, the american justice system is really fucked up, huh? I was a kid at the time, and in Europe, so I don't remember anybody giving a damn. I'm actually a bit shocked reading about your responses, it's been filtered through pop-culture so thoroughly that it's always been like some sick joke for me.

between o.j. and clinton the '90s really was the high water mark for celebrity trials.

i kinda felt the way you did, in orbit: obv the dude was clearly guilty, why are people pleased that he got away???

now i realize that this:
OJ winning at the criminal trial ("beyond a reasonable doubt") and getting hammered at the civil trial ("by a preponderance of the evidence") was EXACTLY how the cases should have turned out. Was watching them closely because Harvard LOL School.

― Three Word Username, Thursday, July 11, 2013 4:32 PM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is pretty otm

i remember reading somewhere that an often-overlooked reason OJ may have been acquitted is that a popular mis-understanding of what DNA evidence really *was* allowed a "reasonable doubt" that most jurys today, after 30 odd years of DNA permeating the culture in all kinds of ways and not least tv proceedurals, wouldn't have. don't really know how much water that holds (given shady Mark Fuhrman and all that) but it struck me as an interesting moment just before DNA was really a concept with some popular currency (a true "scientific" understanding of it notwithstanding).

point being that "reasonable doubt," quite interestingly, is often a culturally and historically specific thing.

fwiw I had a very "above-it-all" take on OJ at the time, like "What gives you the right (white people who think he's guilty in particular) to give so much of a personal fuck about this trial?"