I was gonna say that enough time has passed that we can have an interesting discussion about OJ. And then I realized that isn’t true, it’s not time it’s people. We are all caring people with high emotional understandings and intellectual abilities. I have faith that those of us who are already familiar with the ins and outs of what OJ Simpson meant to America can discuss him calmly, and that we can make the discussion open and welcome to folks who may not be as familiar.

America makes it very hard for a Black Man to succeed in any field. But slightly less hard in certain fields (entertainment, music, sports). If you are a Black Man who rises to prominence in one of those fields, it is hard to be seen as “Harmless”. There are few things more terrifying to white America than a Black Man succeeding. And so there is this careful balance of analyzing who is a “acceptable” and “non-threatening” and why.

Which brings me to OJ Simpson. He was an extremely talented athlete in the sport of Football. Football is/was even slower to integrate than other American sports. It came out of universities, it is seen as a sport for bright young men with “Leadership Skills”. And then OJ came along, the best college player of his year, the second Black player to win the Heisman trophy. And then as a professional, breaker of multiple records, and the second Black player to win the Most Valuable Player award for his year. He was handsome, he had a nice smile, he was well-spoken, and he became an acceptable Black Man to the American public. After retirement, he did funny film cameos, popular ad campaigns, and became a commentator on television. He was a remarkable athlete, but the career he built afterwards brought him even more into the mainstream.

His personal life was also nicely photogenic. His first wife was his high school girlfriend, they were married for 10 years and had 3 children. After their divorce, he started a long term relationship with Nicole Brown, 12 years younger than him and white. They eventually married and had two children. This wasn’t headline gossip news or anything, but it also wasn’t a secret. OJ was yet another famous man who married young, divorced, dated, and marred again.

And suddenly, in the middle of this pleasant California picture of upper middle-class life, there is a brutal double murder. Nicole had left OJ, she was living on her own, and she was casually dating a young man. They were killed together. This was stunning news. And even more stunning, pleasant friendly OJ was strongly suspected of being the killer.

OJ was a rich celebrity, and initially this would be handled like any other rich celebrity case. He would give himself in to the police, make a plea bargain, try to talk his way out, give some crying interviews, and so on. But then things started to slowly shift in the national conversation and this became a MUCH bigger news story.

The first reason it became a big news story is because it was just handled terribly! Leaks from the police department, cameras allowed in the courtroom, all kinds of things that snowballed and snowballed until the news story was out of control. This case, this one individual case, could easily have been an odd footnote (like when actor Robert Blake was accused of killing his wife, or when singer Andy William’s ex-wife killed her lover, or many other instances of murder surrounding American celebrities). But because it was handled poorly, a door was opened for it to become a LOT more than this one case.

OJ’s defense, in simplest terms, was to put the racism of the LA police department on trial instead of him. And, well, they were guilty. There is no question that the LAPD of the 1990s was riddled with racism and had wrongfully arrested, prosecuted, targeted, any number of Black men. It’s even possible, or probably, that racism was part of why they so quickly decided OJ must be guilty. But all of that doesn’t mean he was innocent.

The flipside of this is that OJ was a spousal abuser. The police had been called to his residence multiple times, but he was a charming celebrity so they let him go. The escalation of violence was predictable and yet no one did anything. And so now there was a new entity on trial, the court system and it’s unwillingness to protect women from their abusers.

The trial stopped being about “did OJ Simpson kill his ex-wife?” and instead became “Is this an issue of a Black Man being wrongfully persecuted, or a domestic violence victim crying out for justice?” The first question might be interesting for law students and a few super fans, but the second question related to All Americans.

When OJ was acquitted, that question suddenly remained open for all time. He was acquitted in the criminal trial, but was considered liable in a later civil trial (the family of the male victim sued him for wrongful death). He went bankrupt, was arrested for theft after trying to steal back his own memorabilia that he had been forced to sell, and maintained a very strained joint custody arrangement with Nicole’s family until his children came of age. All of these things were reported and added to the conversation about race, celebrity, gender, wealth, everything else. OJ’s life as a celebrity has a big line down the middle between Upstanding Promising Sports Star and Suspected Killer Whose Life Fell Apart.

Okay, if you accept the premise of how I describe things here (feel free to disagree of I missed something vital), then my question is, was the whole phenomenon of the trial and the aftermath a good thing for American society or a bad thing?

I’m gonna say it was a good thing. It started a public conversation that was needed. It didn’t end violence or injustice, but at least it brought these issues into the light. In Chicago recently we had two terribly tragic stories that echo OJ. A Black Man was killed by the police. No one is arguing that he was “innocent” or “guilty” or any of those smaller details. The argument is over what the police did and why. The police are truly the ones on trial, not because a defense attorney is spinning the narrative but because that is the reality, society needs to determine exactly what occurred.

And the other local story, an 11 year old boy was killed defending his mother and younger brother from her abuser. The abuser had just been released from jail for a previous attack, despite the mother’s pleas for him not to be released. The discussion is not about how the abuser should be punished or if there is justification or any analysis of his relationship with his victim. The discussion is about the parole board and why he was let out of jail in the first place. How did the system fail?

And I think this is partially thanks to the OJ trial. It was a big kick towards American society looking at tragedies in context, considering how the system could be blamed.

I can also the argument for why it was a bad thing, but on the whole, for me, I think it was good.

What do you think? Or, alternatively, what is your clearest memory of the trial?

My sister and my Mom and I were at the library when the verdict was supposed to be announced. We ran down to the car so my Mom could listen on the car radio. And then when we went back into the library, the librarians were asking her what it was, guilty or not guilty. It was strangely unifying experience, all these strangers wanting to know and talking about the same thing?