rip oj simpson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKfEtYYqSl4

I was in my high school cafeteria when the verdict was announced, and the one thing I remember is that a group of African American kids loudly cheered, while the rest of us sat there awkwardly.

When the verdict came out I was in the room with a Pulitzer Prize winning writer who celebrated the verdict because Toni Morrison had convinced her that OJ was innocent.

yeah, it was almost as though it didn't matter to some folks whether he actually did it or not, it was all about Mark Fuhrman and the racist LAPD

The look on Kardashian's face--standing beside O.J.--when the verdict is read is impossible to forget.

OJ’s trial simultaneously proved of both institutional racism and the fact the rich and famous get a different brand of justice in the system. Heisman winner like moves there.

I wonder if the people celebrating the verdict actually believed he was innocent or were just thrilled to see one of their own beat the system for once. it feels a lot like what you're seeing with Trump right now.

I was sitting in my undergrad Yeats class when a student asked if our prof could let us listen to the verdict on the radio. He said yes.

The center did not hold.

'one of their own'.. Trump?

The Bronco cannot hear the Bronconeer

That same job I mentioned upthread, the foreman's father ended up being the juror foreperson on the civil trial.. he got a bunch of offers to write books, etc. but declined them all

I don't think most conservatives really believe Trump is innocent (kinda hard to when he's committing all these crimes out in the open) but I do think they believe they're being oppressed and that the deck is stacked against them, which is why they get so much joy from seeing Trump skirt consequences for anything time and time again

I was in my high school cafeteria when the verdict was announced, and the one thing I remember is that a group of African American kids loudly cheered, while the rest of us sat there awkwardly.

― jaymc, Thursday, April 11, 2024 12:44 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Same here, except it was German class and there was only one Black kid.

xp OJ did go to prison, probably for much longer than someone else would have for a similar crime (the sports memorabilia heist thing)

one of the all time great makeup calls

wonder if the Bills are gonna win a Super Bowl this year now

I saw a documentary re frogs question--can't remember the title; pretty sure it wasn't the great ESPN documentary, though--that specifically addressed how Black citizens (mostly older) from L.A. viewed the verdict today. And, at least in this one documentary, it was overwhelmingly tilted towards "We were sure he was guilty, but we were just happy to see the system work to our advantage for the first time ever" (especially in terms of Simpson's wealth allowing for high-priced legal representation).

I was in my high school cafeteria when the verdict was announced, and the one thing I remember is that a group of African American kids loudly cheered, while the rest of us sat there awkwardly.

I was in my dorm room. I had decided not to watch the verdict mostly because I had a huge test but also because I'd grown tired of the whole media circus around it. In the room on one side of me a group of suburban white kids were watching it, on the other side a group of Black kids. The difference in very loud reactions between the two rooms was very striking and I still think about it quite often.

my wife kinda speaks of the same thing as Mr Shasta, she lived at UCLA for the oddest three year period in the history of the city, 1992-1994, she was there for the riots, the quake, the pursuit, the violence in L.A. at the time was absolutely mind-boggling (there was one year where L.A. county averaged half a dozen murders per day iirc.)

i remember watching the pursuit during a party at a ranch back in rural IL.

We watched it in math class and one kid basically started saying all white people should riot afterwards. This was a school full of homophobic, racist prep kids so no shock there. the teacher said nothing.

Did not take long for racist concern trolling from the same people who victim blame women regularly. Obviously there were many valid reasons to be upset at the verdict but "an affront to white people" was a true Galaxy brain take

I used to write for a Miami Dolphins blog and I left because of the shitty right wing politics of the staff, one of who continued to claim for years that OJ was let off because he was Black (wealth had nothing to do with it, according to him), as if he'd missed the entire two hundred years of history.

I was curious enough google Fred Goldman today: "The only thing I have to say is that today is just a further reminder of how long we have missed my son, how long he’s been gone, and the only thing that is important today are the victims," Goldman tells Rolling Stone. "That’s it. I have nothing else to say."

I was on a supply-teaching job in the library of a school where I'd soon start teaching full time for the next 20 years when the verdict was read; I think about 10 teachers were gathered around a TV.

I must have been in school or class or my dorm when the verdict was read. Can't recall. But I do recall going to see "Speed" with friends in the middle of the car chase.

i would be interested to know if CTE contributed to the crime.

It was weird that you had to be up on all these esoteric trial elements if you wanted to have a conversation with someone back then.

Ha, the Friday night when Speed opened was the same afternoon as the car chase iirc. The friend I saw the movie with was talking to me about it that night (he had cable, I didn't).

it was smart but also fucked up for his defense team to frame the trial as a referendum on the racism of the lapd. if they hadn't done that, i don't think he would have gotten off. but it definitely didn't help the cause of holding police accountable.

that was one of the last great public spectacles before the mass adoption of the internet... everybody was still getting all their news from cable TV and talk radio

Besides Fuhrman, the other guy who most did in the prosecution was Dennis Fung.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-01-16-me-20335-story.html

i would be interested to know if CTE contributed to the crime.

https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/ford-recalls-nearly-43000-bronco-sport-escape-suvs-due-to-gas-leaks-that-can-cause-fires/

lol, Ford isn't the only one recalling Broncos and Escapes today ...

I think it has to be a factor - we know now that people suffering from CTE are prone to fits of blackout rage and an inability to control their emotions. it puts a lot of OJ's weird behavior at the time in a different context - one kinda eerie thing about watching footage of him while the trial is going on is that he never really seems quite sure what's going on. I actually believe him when he says he doesn't remember exactly what happened that day. I mean, to leave so much evidence....

and the helmets they used in his heyday were thin shells compared to what they use today

xp does it make you stalk people as well?

At the exact moment the verdict was read out, hundreds of Minneapolis cops were driving in a motorcade behind the hearse carrying the coffin of my uncle the vice detective to Lakewood Cemetery for his funeral. Probably would’ve been a good day for a heist in the Twin Cities.

CTE could have played a part but his behavior wasn't atypical for abusers, OJ's abuse was pretty textbook, right down to rewriting the narrative in police interviews,blaming Nicole by saying she had a bad temper, and telling Nicole that her very protective sister was jealous and delusional or whatever he said. Classic gaslight tactics really. He was charming and manipulative. I don't know that I really buy the out of control blackout rage stuff, as much as I buy the idea that he was abusive, calculating in his control, and then tipped over into murder. I mean he was clearly following her, which is a bit more measured and requires a bit of forethought. I don't know what his public behavior was like leading up to the murder, but I was never into the impression that he was publicly losing his mind or anything.

frogbs, I gotta disagree with your assessment of OJ during the trial. My recollection was that he was fully engaged with the defense including whispering in the ear of defense counsel when a witness said something he thought wasn't right.

Yeah I have to say I don’t give a single fuck about whether his behaviour was caused by CTE or not and I doubt Nicole cared if the reason he beat, raped and stalked her was due to his brain being mush or just being a piece of shit. Hope he dies in agony.

mean he was clearly following her, which is a bit more measured and requires a bit of forethought. I don't know what his public behavior was like leading up to the murder, but I was never into the impression that he was publicly losing his mind or anything.

he was tweeting shit like a week or two ago... he certainly wasn't holed up in some long-term care facility

well I don't think CTE is what made him abusive or a stalker but I do think it factored into his decision to commit an impromptu double murder out in the open and leave behind a trail of evidence

He had the police called on him multiple times and got away with it. His neighbours told the police they saw Nicole walking around with black eyes often. He did, in fact, get acquitted. That’s not CTE, that’s fame and wealth.

He also carried around a knife and gloves in case he got an impromptu urge to kill some people

From the charm and the manipulativeness to the ease with which he indulged in violence this sewage was a classic sociopath.

I mean I think all those things are contributing factors, just saying if this happened today it might come off in a different light. tbh I'm still not sure how the NFL survived the Aaron Hernandez thing with its reputation intact.

for people older than me, how widespread was the knowledge of his abuse before the murder

not widespread, from my recollection. that's not the sort of thing that got widely reported in those days.

there was no TMZ

can only imagine how this whole thing would've played out in the era of Twitter

I was 9 when this all happened so I don't remember much, but I do remember the split screen where they aired an NBA Finals game and the Bronco chase at the same time. gotta be the strangest moment in the history of live television. what else, outside of 9/11, would've gotten that kind of treatment?

I need to tell the kids how watching that car chase and then the Bronco sitting in the driveway was like the 90s version of the moon landing.

During the coverage, when our phone would ring, my roommate would pick it up and loudly go, "WE KNOW!" into it and hang up.

Yeah I don't think anyone knew about the abuse beforehand.

Got to tell my friend at work about how I remember watching the Bronco chase on the TV in the bar at my parents restaurant. She asked when it happened and when I told her and she said, "No wonder I don't remember it. I was two!" :|

Too many people had seen The Fugitive perhaps

two days ago my wife and I were watching an episode of Seinfeld which had several OJ references - it's the one where Kramer tries to sue a lady for wearing a bra in public

since she's from Mexico and didn't know anything about the OJ trial (she only knew the basics - he was a famous athlete who killed his wife but was found innocent) it made me hyperaware of how many OJ references there are in like, every comedy within the span of a decade. so many jokes she just didn't get. hard to imagine anything like that ever happening again, where even the minor details became huge elements of pop culture lore. you'd think the 2020 election/insurrection stuff would be like that but outside of the QAnon Shaman and the Rudy/Dildo shop thing it really hasnt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWjKHuCca9Y

Wow, that joke went way over my head.

Yeah it's funny I remember that and not making the connection.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/G7vxCwEB7FJJViuo/?mibextid=oFDknk

I met Johnny Cochran at a wedding in Florida a few years before he died. He was charming and funny. I asked him point blank if he thought OJ did it.

He laughed and said, "I can tell you are a smart man. You don't even need to ask me that question!" Then he winked and laughed and that was that.

Meanwhile, Alan Dershowitz tells NBC News he's saddened to learn that his onetime client had died. "I knew he was very sick, so I'm upset that he died. I got to know him fairly well during the trial."

FWIW, I remember when William Rehnquist died, Dershowitz pulled nothing back and trashed him. But hey, shed your tears for a wife beater.

Sure he was successful, handsome, a great football player, and a minor celebrity, but in the grand scheme of things that's diddly squat. After he wrote the book called If I Did It, he removed the last possible doubt about whether he was an unrepentant double murderer who escaped conviction and a morally loathsome human being.

I mean when he died the collective response was "good, fuck you OJ" so yeah not exactly a great legacy he's left

Which somewhat similarly-named actor will get OJ's role?
https://www.vulture.com/article/liam-neeson-naked-gun-reboot-release-date-details.html

https://www.cracked.com/article_41808_special-guest-star-oj-simpson-nearly-ruined-a-classic-simpsons-episode.html