I feel like a lot of folks were cheering the LAPD taking such an embarrassingly public L for doing a bunch of racist bungling of the case. If Mark Furman was on vacation that week, OJ probably would have gotten the Jussie Smollett silent treatment.
Because it took a "rich guy" to combat the bottomless coffers of the state in court. Which is why reperations is needed. Of the people exonerated of wrongful convictions black people make up 60+%. Wete only 13% of the damn population.
@Dogtubee If you don't remember, or weren't alive when it happened, that was what a majority of his defense team leaned on at the time. That it was racial discrimination at play and white people "going after an innocent black man". He wasn't though, he had a history of violence against women with his first wife, but he had the best team of lawyers at the time, so they got him off. It's still an extremely contentious topic to this day with random weirdos coming out of the woodwork to defend him every time it's brought up.
@@DigitalRag3X No, I've seen and heard several people make this same joke, in fact I didn't come up with it independently, I'm just repeating what I heard. 🙂
His "stabbing joke" at the end is so weird, especially for someone who claims to be innocent. Imagine you get falsely accused of killing 2 people, one of them your wife. Why the fuck would you joke about that? Someone killed the mother of your children, you got the blame for it, and they got away with it. That should be one of the most traumatic events of your life. Not a joke.
I can't believe I've never seen that clip before. It seems like the sort of thing that would get reposted on a monthly basis, and it's not even in the other videos I've seen about OJ.
Something I didn't understand at the time: it's not so much that Cochran played the race card so much as he played the *racism* card, meaning that he clearly demonstrated just how racist the LAPD was and then asked "So how can you believe anything they say?" Which I mean...he wasn't wrong. To some extent, his defense had nothing to do with OJ; he put LAPD on trial. No wonder so many (mostly black) folk cheered at the verdict, they were cheering that the LAPD had been effectively proved racist in a court of law.
You nailed it. So much of the cheering had to do with outrage relating to the long-standing racist LAPD and the injustices relating to police brutality culminating in Rodney King
It feels like it's playing out right now, almost like the youngsters are making up for lost time. And for context, I'm really only on Reddit, but the number of pontificating by current 30 and younger crowd is weird. They know even less than those of us who were middle/high school at that actual time.
I agree. Pretty sad that someone would have the audacity to offer O.J. Simpson 5 million dollars to have a fictionalized book ghostwritten for him to exploit the notoriety of the case.
yep, he beat her for years and she told her friends leading up to her murder that she thought he was going to kill her. and then terms like “domestic abuse” weren’t allowed in the court room.
Marguerite was the real victim. Nicole used to terrorize her. Brown's family knew about his ways yet they took full advantage by getting all sorts of financial kickbacks.
It was by no means perfect, but it's the closest time to now that didn't have anything approaching the hellscape/timesink that is today's internet, so there's a lot to be said for it.
Well, that and he just leaned into the whole thing. He made being a violent asshole his personal brand and drew in plenty of guys who wish they could do what he did.
There's a really silly thing I noticed. OJ Simpsons white wife divorces him, he gets pissed at her and her Jewish boyfriend (Ron Goldman). This eventually leads to the Kardashians, where Kanye's white wife divorces him, starts hanging out with a Jewish boyfriend (Pete Davidson) and Kanye gets pissed.
Bladder cancer took my dad at 53 a couple years ago. If you can, get regular check ups and tests!! Keep track of your health. It’s so easy to miss something serious
@@jusletursoulglobaby We were all trailer trash. We didn't have any rich kids to compare to so it was just assumed everyone's uncle had a record. By the time we got to high school we knew the rich kids had everything we wanted, but the idea they would get nothing more than a pat on the head from the cops just wasn't a reality because it never came up.
@@williamgeorge2580 that's fair. my schools were in small cities so everyone went to the same place regardless of money. kids would get warnings not to hang out with such and such bc you the one who gone get in trouble if yall do something. you dont get it until you see it happen and be like wtf
A detail from the case that I think is illustrative of what you are taking about is when Nicole had called the police on OJ during an abusive episode(he was abusive and violent throughout their relationship). She was afraid he was going to kill her, and the police sided with OJ, believing him over Nicole. OJ was fine with police incompetence and corruption right up until it didn’t benefit him. If it wasn’t for the police siding with OJ, Nicole and Ron Goldman may have lived. It’s just police incompetence all the way down.
"gold digging ex-wife" to be specific. there was a lot of talk about how much she was getting in alimony and how people felt like this white woman didn't deserve to get to enjoy his money (and presumably spend that money on her boyfriends)
Having worked with a lot of cops: once they decide who they think did a crime their focus shifts to how can we convict this guy. And because OJ had money to afford good lawyers, they knew they had to have a really airtight case; the half-baked circumstantial evidence that is usually enough to convict a poor black man wouldn't be enough here. So they had to beef up the evidence. Now a logical mind might've said "This case is going to be under a microscope, we better play everything by the book." But that's not how most cops think - they are so unused to accountability that they never think they'll get caught. And even if they do: from their perspective if dude gets off because there wasn't enough evidence, or dude gets off because they tried to frame him and it didn't work, is the same result.
I was a senior in high school at the time, and the take that hit me hardest then: "OJ got off because the LAPD went after him like he was a black man, and not like he was a rich man." Sloppy work from a racist department for years, and eventually a jury decided not to take it anymore when the right defendant came along.
Nobody has mentioned that the jury was biased all along. The murders happened in Beverly Hills therefore the jury should have also been from Beverly Hills ie a rich, majority white jury which would have most likely changed the outcome of the trial.
I mean, he was definitely treated like a rich man in that car chase. But yeah, the LAPD's racism definitely backfired on them in this case. It would have been nice if the jury could have looked past their behavior to get justice for the victim. But that's human nature. That's why you have to stay clean if you want a position of authority.
@@krampusx9784 They SPECIFICALLY kept that case in LA County because of what happened with the four policeman in Rodney King's trial getting off because they moved the case to Simi Valley. That was a Gil Garcetti decision and STRICTLY political; he was up for re-election or wanted to be mayor or something like that. It's also why there was a military presence in LA that day - in case people got out of hand anticipating the repeat "carnage" from the King verdict.
OJ also benefited from a society where it was not as widely understood that the domestic violence to spouse murder pipeline is basically a waterslide. I feel like more people are aware of the statistics on that stuff now because of the internet.
Actually people in Antiquity already knew that. People in the medieval period knew that. The Renaissance and Enlightenment period knew that. Industrial revolution people knew that. The beatings-to-murder predictions have ALWAYS been made about abused wives. And to a lesser extent abused husbands.
Just because we add current cultural specific words to the end of social issues like adding "pipeline" after it doesn't change how OLD the information on a social issue is. Characters in ancient Greek and ancient Roman PLAYS discussed how if they don't get X abused person out of a situation they won't have anyone to get out of that in a few days because they will be murdered. This is not new information for the public.
Nah, they would have made tiktok memes about the trial and dug up shit about the victims. Nothing unites the human species like defending the reputation of popular, rich men from the stigmata of abusing women. That's kind of the corner society screwed itself into by pretending to care about VIOLENCE against women while not actually giving a damn about women as human beings.
In a documentary, I heard Norman Mailer saying : "The trial of OJ simpsons was the worst things that could happen to american society because it showed that if he got away with it, it meant that money was the only thing that was meaningful in the american society, but if he loosed, it was irredeemably racist."
"You won’t ever know the worst that happened to Nicole Brown Simpson in her marriage, because she is dead and cannot tell you. And if she were alive, remember, you wouldn’t believe her." I suggest everybody go read "In Memory of Nicole Brown Simpson" by Andrea Dworkin. The perpetrator is dead, it's time we start talking about the victims.
Agreed. All I can think about whenever OJ and this case comes up is poor Nicole Brown Simpson :( I feel awful for her. I’ll definitely be checking out this book.
Just remember that Andrea Dworkin isn't without bias too - she once wrote that all hetero sex is r*pe, because of male power and privilege. Not that I don't believe that OJ was guilty af, and that he was an abuser. Just that Dworkin isn't necessarily the best source of information.
Nicole is not forgotten. Ron isn't forgotten. They'll always be remembered and discussed. This video isn't about them. This is black history, whether we like it or not. This black man can talk about whomever he chooses whether you feel it's warranted or not.
The most craziest thing I found out about OJ and all of that is that he was not even married to his wife at the time. There is a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of her cheating on him and he got in a rage about it. THEY WERE DIVORCED. They had not been togethr for a whole year. That is wild to me. He definitely did it and he's a terrible person even allowing rrumour that his son did it but he helped him cover it up. He was beating up his wife and had rage issues thats why she left him.
@@afrosamourai400 How about O.J.s son Jason that no one seems to talk about? He was infatuated with Nicole. He threatend his ex girlfriend with a knife and was arrested a few months before the murders. A knife🔪 matching the one at the crime scene was found in his locker. A nit cap🧢was found at the crime scene. O.J. doesn't own any nit caps but Jason owns tons of them. Jasons whereabouts during the murders are unknown? Blood at the crime scene not O.J's was found. Jason has never been questioned nor has his DNA ever been taken. When the verdict was read and O.J. was cleared for the double murders at the court house and on live tv look at the smirk on Jasons face. O.J. had arthritis in his hands and couldn't have stabbed Nicole and Ron that many times. It is believed that O.J. took the fall for his son Jason. 🏈🪦🩸🧤
What surprises you so much is well known to folks familiar with domestic violence. OJ was a longtime abuser. Though folks who work in areas connected to DV have tried for decades to educate the public about this, the common view remains stuck in myths that allow people to ignore and then be “shocked” when the same tragic things happen over and over. In this case it’s that the most dangerous time for someone in an abusive relationship, the time with the highest rate of deadly violence, is during or after leaving. People trying to escape these situations know this; it’s why the question “why don’t you just leave?” is so offensive and unhelpful. It’s when the abuser has lost control over their victim, and that generates a different level of rage, and limited “options” to regain control. Killing someone is permanent control, after all. Sadly, what OJ did was textbook, and happens in many other cases. It’s a famous example because he was rich and famous, not because the act was unusual. I mean, I’m not even the only person in this comment section who has survived an attempt on their life by an abuser. And yes, mine happened months after I left.
@@literaterose6731 I am not surpised that he did it after she was split from him. I know about all of what you said. I am just surprised that if you ask most pople to remeber what happened alot of people remember it incorrectly and she is remembered as a cheater who was having an affair. I think even some people think the man deserved to be killed because he was the affair partner. I was a kid when it happened and i kind of remember how they portrayed it. I think it was classic mysogyny and the patriarchy at work. They werent even together. Yes I totally understand what you are saying. Very dangerous for her and I think he was a classic abuser who couldn't bare to let her go. Its a shame an innocent man was killed too. I can't remember clearly now what I learnt about the man but I think I am right in thinking there was not much eveidence there was any relatioship between them. Only that he was returning something to her that she had left at the restaurant that he worked at or something like that. He was someones son and his family seem forever devastated that he was murdered and the perpatrator was set free due to the political temperature of the time. Very sad that two people died and their families didn't get justice.
@@SuperMarioBrosIII I'm not sure Nicole called the police on Jason nine times though when he was her stepson. She didn't tell her friends and family in private conversations about how scared she was of her ex-stepson. She was scared of her ex-husband. Hopefully know that OJ has died he can be screened for CTE. He was very troubled.
@@signifiedbsides1129 It wasn't about fame. It was about being wealthy enough to pay for competent legal representation that actually provided him FAIR trial, preventing him from being just another black man railroaded by the system. This exposed the LAPD's corruption and gross mishandling of evidence.
@@rickyandreou OJ would not have spit on you if you were on fire. It was a circus of a trial with a lot of white lawyers making hash of their reputations for a pile of cash.
No, you are very right about how OJ viewed the black community. It was even more damning than you suggested too. He mentioned wanting to move away from black people, and also having no desire to "give back to the community." The more he could distance himself, the better. In a way, it worked for him. People really didn't treat him as "black," either. He was a star, and white folks loved him.
Just to the point of the book too, The families of the victims had to sue and eventually instead of banning the book from being released, the proceedings went to the families (Preveting OJ from profiting from his first hand acount of the murders) and they got final decision on the books covers.. which is why so many editions of the book today have a miniscule "if" in the tile, or even an invisible "if" made of varnish that you can only see from a certain angle against the light, effectively making the book be called "I DID IT" by OJ Simpson. which i think its fair
I was in college during the OJ Simpson murder trial. I happened to be in the Student Union when the verdict was announced. There was a large group of Black students gathered around a television in the first floor lounge, and when Simpson was declared not guilty, they cheered. This was a pivotal moment for me. A white farm boy as ignorant as a stump, I was completely baffled by why anyone could be happy that a brutal double murderer (Simpson killed both his wife and a friend of hers, Ron Goldman, with a knife. He slit Nicole Brown-Simpson’s throat so ruthlessly she was nearly decapitated) had been set free. But it set me on a very slow path to finally coming to grips with the truth about just how Black people, all kinds of other minorities, as well as non-wealthy people, are treated here. It’s weird that an act of injustice was what started to open my eyes to an incomprehensibly greater injustice, but that’s what it took to shake me out of my complacency.
This is crazy because it's such an absurd situation, black people cheering for a monster just because he escaped the white man unfair system..it's still makes me sick..so many innocent black people were executed but it's OJ the one who was celebrated? Thank God the prosecutor was black too it was my only relief..
@@afrosamourai400I mean... the system botched the case. big time. I dont think anymore cared about him doing it or not doing it. for a lot of people, it wasnt about that and sickness seemed to stem from not understanding that.
It seems that the moral high road game doesn't really work. Even with this guys comment, black people being willing to not care about the guilt or innocence and prefer a non-guilty verdict based solely on race is what opened his eyes. Trying to play fair doesn't win you anything. Showing you're angry or determined enough to forgo morality is how groups of people win in this world.
@@tacrewgirl No, I was there. The Rodney King incident, and trial was not a shock to me even though I was a child. If anything the Simpson trial gave me hope that the criminal justice system was moving forward... as as long as you had enough money.
He likes that narrative better, because otherwise he'd have to acknowledge the reality, which was 40 million black Americans were ROOTING for OJ like he was their hero, and acted like they won the lottery after finding out that he got away with murdering two white people. They were HAPPY that two white people got murdered, and that one of their race did it and wasn't held accountable. They'd like to see that happen a lot more often, in fact. So of course FD is pivoting to something less evil.
If your rich enough your ethnicity is just rich, you arent white or black or middle eastern, you arent asian or pacific islander or native american, you're rich, your race is now money and ethnicity is rich.
This is honestly so true and it makes me sick to see my parents' values and actions shift from when they recently moved here to now when they act like careless rich yt bastards. Completely ignoring how said bastards would hate our family under any circumstance. It's sad when people willfully erase themselves to fit in (they don't even fit in tho, they just think they do). Damaging to us all
I think another angle I’ve been thinking about is escalating DV and how many abusers DO get away with DV until they go too far and kill their victim. It weighs heavy bc there was an obvious pattern leading up to the murder like there is so often
Nicole Brown Simpsons abuse was ignored for years, there are police recordings of her saying OJ is beating her. This isn't just a one time good lawyering situation where OJ lucked out, I strongly believe if OJ had murdered a man he would have died in prison. NBS was brutally brutally murdered, it ain't a Kyle Rittenhouse situation. OJ got away with it at least to some extent because his freedom and liberty was more important than NBS life. I think it's a shame not to mention the glaringly obvious feminist reading and understand of OJs case.
One of the only positive things that came out of the OJ Simpson trial (beyond exposing the racism of the early 90s LAPD) was the conversation it started about domestic violence. This was not a topic of discussion in any real way (that I remember) in the zeitgeist. I had just graduated college and was working my first "real" job when the killing (and later the trial) occurred. Learning that men beat women in their homes (women they supposedly "love") was a new thing for me. Nicole's family & sisters talked about OJ's brutal treatment of Nicole in the media whenever they got the chance. It empowered domestic abuse survivors to speak up & start nonprofits, etc. And as a young woman just entering the dating pool, it taught me that jealous men were dangerous men. Nowadays we talk about "red flags." This OJ event was one of the roots of that conversation.
@@chrischika7026wait until you realize a lot of talented black people are purposely looked over and actively need laws and programs to make the same people that used their ancestors as forced labor to intergrade deserving black candidates into the business class.
Let’s not forget, the POLICE are responsible for him getting off; NOT black people. They behaved in a manner that is still typical today. They operated above the law, and tampered with the evidence. Trying to execute the white superiority they felt they had, backfired. That will forever be on them. Also, Nicole Brown’s family got to treat OJ like he was found guilty for the rest of his life. Every misfortune OJ experienced after the trial, was talked about by the national media, as if somehow, God, was acting on Nicole’s behalf. Her family would do multiple interviews each time, expressing their feelings about whatever was happening. They got to capitalize off of the book, and other things OJ did. That’s way more than black people get, when someone “gets off” on killing a black CHILD, let alone an adult. Didn’t Zimmerman sell the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin? I don’t think they stopped the many ways he profited from Trayvon’s death, and we KNOW Zimmerman killed him. He admitted it. I’m not capin’ for OJ, I just don’t think these two things need to be forgotten. I’m neither happy, nor sad about the fact that OJ has died.
I think when people say that it was black people who got him off, they're talking about the black jury members who knew he was guilty but voted not guilty anyway.
Learn how your court system works @@matan.saster. To be acquitted the jury must be unanimous. A few black people voting him not guilty would mean a deadlocked jury and most likely a retrial. #mericaneducationalproduct
I was born in 1997, and I knew the quote “If the glove does not fit, you must acquit” at least a decade before I knew anything about the trial. It was that major
Many women have suffered physically violence from intimate partners. 1 in 4 by todays stats. Those numbers garentee if it didn't happen to them, then it did to someone they love. I imagine seeing an abuser get away with murder weighed heavy on their minds.
The Violence Against Women Act was signed into law in 1994, and I think there's been a lot more public education about domestic abuse since then, too. The stuff I heard diminishing OJ's previous violence toward her back then...it's not good now but it's still a lot better.
Not *that* much better. If back then it was at 100, now it's at like a 98. Hardly much of a difference. Women get beat, sexually assaulted and killed all the time and nothing really gets done about it. Swipe it under the rug and find some way to make it about how badly men are treated by the courts or some such nonsense.
Every time you see a case like OJ or Kyle Rittenhouse or the Bundy's(those assholes in Nevada and Oregon) where they are so obviously guilty, but still get away with it, it really makes you wonder what is going on when law enforcement is so bad at putting people in jail when faced with even a slightly competent defense counsel, but somehow our court system sends industrial quantities of people to prison every year. It's almost like our criminal justice system isn't designed to uphold the law, but rather to put poor people in prison.
The modern American legal infrastructure is set up so it can't afford to try the large majority of people who get charged with a crime. It's designed to channel those too poor or vulnerable to afford a lawyer or fight the DA's office into plea bargains so the government doesn't have to actually prove their guilt. No wonder lawyers and law enforcement falter when it comes to an actual trial
That one interview he did was unhinged as hell. The one where he pops up on the interviewer with a knife like its a joke. Like nah dude you definitely did it.
If Oj did it.....what did he do with the murder weapon? How did OJ kill two people with a knife and only have a scratch on his finger? What did he do with the bloody clothes?
I remember those times. I was in high school. The LA Riots had already happened thanks to the LAPD's very real and very severe racism problem. Today we have cameras everywhere but back then it was rare to get such a clear case of police brutality displayed for all to see. America had had enough and I think the jury just didn't believe the police's version of events, and I think that's because the LAPD had firmly established that they were untrustworthy. I believe that and OJs dream team legal defense team made this case a slam dunk for the defense, but I could be wrong. They stopped my high school to announce the verdict, too. I remember being surprised, but in retrospect I shouldnt have been. You just can't have a police department that does stuff like beat the snot out of Rodney King, far past the bounds of ant sort of appropriate response, and expect a jury to believe anything coming out of their mouths at that time.
uhhh, you know the Rodney King footage was heavily edited by the press to make it look bad right? They guy was out of his head on drugs and repeatedly attacked the police.
Yeah, it would've been essentially impossible to prove his guilt beyond all reasonable doubt when the LAPD had created a situation where doubt was inherently reasonable.
His wealth is the most prominent part of the answer. I asked a lot of people why they supported OJ at the time. The answer I got from most of them boiled down to this: White conservatives (many of whom they know have committed crimes and gotten away with it-Reagan administration anyone?) get on the news with a gaggle of slanted statistics and headlines to argue that black men aren't being incarcerated all the time because they are black; it's because "they" haven't figured out how to succeed in America. OJ was the poster child for a successful man by that white conservative definition, reaching a kind of apotheosis through his talent and wealth. The line was, "He's not black; he's OJ.". So he should be too "successful" to go to jail, just like those rich white people, right? Strangely, they seemed to think if OJ could get acquitted when pretty much everyone knows he murdered his wife, then that proves the power imbalances in this country are less about race than about wealth. That gives people hope. You can't change your birth parents, skin color, or cultural origin, but you might be able to change your income. OJ getting away with murder, weirdly, seemed to prove to some people that the American Dream was open to them. Personally, that would make me question whose dream it was and how it managed to get so fucked up that getting away with murder has become part of it, but I digress....
Good video. As a white person, particularly one who grew up in LA at that time, the black response was perfectly understandable. That was my naïve 16-year-old view then, and it's still basically my view now. My main concern is justice for Nicole and Ron. That's all. Ultimately they deserved better regardless of the social context of white supremacist tyranny that black people rightly denounced. I hope their families can rest a little easier now.
I've been saying it since before he died: OJ: Made in America and the story it tells is a perfect distillation of everything someone needs to know about modern America. From race relations to domestic violence to the economics of criminality to the depths of celebrity worship and so much more. I watch it every other year, but this year might be my last. Like FD said, end of an era
I’ve seen it on Netflix but never watched bc who cares about some washed up football player who murdered his wife? But idk… I never really understood until recently why this case mattered so much ( I was born years after, so i wasn’t around to see it), so I’ll definitely give it a watch. Thanks for the recommendation 👍🏾
@@Notimportant253it’s SOOO good. Like I’ve watched it 3x. It’s an ESPN documentary doc so I watched on Disney+. Wile thing is, the show the crime scene and the bodies of Nicole and Ron Goldman and it was horrific. They looked like they’d been viciously attacked by an animal. I could never look at OJ the same ever again.
@@Notimportant253it's interesting that you initially dismissed it the way you did (washed up football player etc.). I can get not understanding or fully grasping the impact he had on society (sport, entertainment and the trial) but I kinda thought even people sorta gravitated towards it bc I mean.... the infamy.
Was a young adult at that time. What I saw around me were people who knew he was guilty, but definitely felt some kind of way when OJ got the same justice as a rich white man. Also, Susan Smith murdered her kids and blamed a black man around the time of this trial which was a whole 'nother issue.
Yeah, I remember that's how my cousin (a black man) framed it to me: Finally white people got to experience the justice system the way black people had historically experienced it.
This was my experience too. I didn't know anybody who thought he wasn't guilty but everyone was so tired of the justice system being so corrupt and unfair that it became some weird victory where it really shouldnt
I'm surprised we haven't seen more discussion of OJ's violent behavior in the context of football trauma brain damage. He's just one of many examples of football players turning violent against their partners likely in part because of personality changes brought by football head trauma.
As a product of 2003, I was always raised with the notion that none of us actually thought oj was innocent, but we were all celebrating the fact that he won a white man's game. Now that I'm old enough to actually understand the details of the case, I genuinely don't know how black ppl let him slide like this lmaooo
He was innocent though. Most of us still understand that The LAPD simply got caught trying to frame him. The nonstop white media propaganda of "OJ did it and got away" has definitely swayed some weaker minded black people though.
To be fair, LAPD fucked up Royal. I am sure some people rooting for him at the time were just doing the math. "LAPD is a clown show, they mishandled evidence and are on recordings saying racist shit, Prosecution is a clown show, OJ is rich, he has the best lawyers... will he get off like a Rich white dude in the same situation?..... yep he did.
@@pisceanbeauty2503 details as in, what actually happened. Being a child and hearing “yeah he definitely did it” and being a teenager/adult who can comprehend a court case makes a world of a difference. now, not only do i think he’s guilty, i also can’t see how anyone defended him in the first place. perspective and whatnot.
@@Universe1413 That's common practice these days. It helps get more views. So many people skip a video because of title or thumbnail, so changing them gives the channel a second chance at grabbing that person who skipped it the first time. It's kinda annoying cause I end up watching the same video twice sometimes cause I'm dumb.
They turned on CNN in my 6th grade classroom to watch the OJ verdict being delivered. A few classmates of mine started sing "The Juice is Loose" which was a jingle from a commercial at time. I was 12 years old and didn't really follow the trial and I'm not a football fan so I had no idea who this OJ guy was. My teacher had a discussion with the class about for like 10-15 minutes about how well felt. I forget who said it and the exact wording but it was to the effect of "It's better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent in a US courtroom." and that framing of that trail has stayed with me.
10:21 correction: the original printing never came out, and the 200,000 (It think) copies were destroyed. However, the courts awarded the IP to the Goldman family as part of the lawsuit, since OJ couldn’t pay it in full. They then went on to publish it with the extended title “If I did It: Confessions of the killer”, with the If being extremely small to the point where the book appeared to just say “I did it”, but they *technically* weren’t libelling him since if you look closer it doesn’t say that.
I was a kid at the time, so i didn't understand a lot of what was happening..., but OJ definitely did it. Looking back, he didn't deserve an ounce of the support we gave him.
@@afrosamourai400she meant we as in the black people involved in the support. literally said she was a kid and didn’t understand. you must wanna argue or something bc what was even the point of that question?
No he didnt. He had no marks indicating he killed anyone, and Goldman was a martial artist that had all kinds of defense wounds. Plus if you're familiar with LA (I live here) there's no way he could have done all they said he did in half an hour.
As a non-us white person born almost a decade after the case, it is *definitely* baffling to look back at the reaction and seeing people celebrate him going free. Even knowing about some of the context with rodney king, I think i can understand it intellectually but never emotionally. I guess it was a celebration that you no longer had to be a filthy rich white man to get away with murder, you just had to be a filthy rich man. Progress!!
As a non us person also i realise yes race played a big part in the whole mood at the time but as FD notes the wealth/fame may be even more to the point. As far as i'm concerned it paved the way for the rise of people like Trump. In general Americans of all colours seem to worship the almighty dollar.
It's easier to understand (and especially in retrospect) people were cheering that the LAPD rightfully got its ass handed to them on national television in court. Unfortunately the murder of 2 individuals pales in comparison to the death many communities face daily in the US. So while it may seem callous to an outsider, who doesn't experience violence on the same scale as Americans (it's wild I know that America has more interpersonal violence than the countries yt people are afraid of), it does make a lot of sense considering the largest system of murder and oppression the states has had actually been ... Made a mockery of. In a society where cops murder civilians without reprimand, seeing some level of acceptance that the LAPD is incompetent is relieving.. And boy are they incompetent
the OJ trial became about Mark Fuhrman and racist cops, and not about Nicole Brown, and that was the cynical genius of the attorneys, which....i mean they did their job well i guess.
holy crap I thought my middle school was the only one that announced the verdict on the freaking PA! I was in woodshop (Only woman there) and all the boys started jumping up and down chanting "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!" It was unsettling.
@atrckr-bf7de both were acquitted of crimes that lots of people agree they actually did, if you're genuinely confused and not just making Sea lion noises to be annoying.
@@twistysunshine ok, that makes sense it's just that my understanding Rittenhouse had a fair trial; unlike OJ where the jury, and various other things were manipulated to paint him in the best of light. But it seems I live under a rock as a lot of people think he should have been punished more. edit: oj later on in a civil case a couple years later was punished so there's the possibility for justice for whatever crime people think he is guilty of .
Thanks so much for posting your thoughts! I was living in Los Angeles when the murder and the trial happened. I was even serving on jury duty when the Trial of the Century was coming up. I remember lots of reporters and camera operators setting up around the courthouse and all of us in the jury pool discussed whether we'd serve on that jury -- while we all were intrigued by the significance of it, we could see that it would be a long term commitment that no one was comfortable with. My personal take was the statistic that when women are murdered the husband/boyfriend is most likely the killer. That O.J. Simpson vowed that if he was acquitted that he would spend the rest of his life hunting down Nicole's killer -- then proceeded to do nothing, told me all that I needed to know.
One thing I think is worth adding. Black folks tended to say he was framed, but it's really clear that he was both framed and guilty. Like the police definitely took every shortcut and were racist AF in their case. Like, big surprise, cops want to pin it on the easiest person as possible and bonus if they are black. There's a billion times cops have done this, but yeah they did it to the right person and it happened to get him off. White folks were livid because they actually thought he got off because he was black and couldn't even begin to acknowledge systemic racism. IMO this is a big reason why boomers refuse the idea of systemic racism because they only choose to remember this one time the racism actually worked to free a killer why ignoring all the times they threw good innocent black men in jail, or just lynched them outright. Idk about rooting for Johnny either, as like he was taking it to the cops, but like at the same time he pulled some BS himself. I was around a lot of black and white folks at the time and there wasn't a conversation to be had, it was like trying to have a conversation about Trump today. It's wasn't white people being right or black people being right, it was about two wrongs making a wrong. That's what I can't stand, even 30 years later people still can't just accept that the evidence, motive, history, character, everything says he did it and at the same time the cops framed him. Like, nuance is necessary in all conversations and this trial didn't prove or disprove racism. It just was another chapter of Cops being bastards and money getting people out of shit they shouldn't get out of. This was an embarrassment for the country, but no where near as big of one than Rodney King beatings, systemic racism, Reagan or W or Trump Presidential terms, or one of a long list of other horrible things. But it should be something people should be able to agree on, it was a lowlight for the 90s culturally.
CW: DV/IPV Fiq, I'm about 4 or 5 years older than you, I was 16/17 at the time and we stopped my college class to hear the verdict. It was a really core memory for me, actually--seeing the black kids jumping up and down punching the air, and the white kids looking hella uncomfortable. 😂 As someone who almost lost their own life to DV fairly recently, this whole thing hits. I hate that OJ got 30yrs of experiences and time that Nicole didn't. It shouldn't be him who was around to see their children grow up; I know the trauma my own little girl is dealing with and I cannot imagine what those kids have had to cope with. It burns my ass that OJ had a chance to live and laugh and then go off peacefully into that good night surrounded by family in a nice soft bed instead of terrified and in pain on a cold, hard floor like Nicole did. I speak from experience it is a very lonely place to lie. But....I'm also old enough that I remember what the Rodney King verdict had felt like to me, as a white kid, just two years earlier...and how intensely intertwined those cases were. I kinda get why black people wanted OJ to get acquitted so badly, especially in L.A. I'm not saying I'm glad OJ was acquitted; I think it set DV/IPV advocacy back by a hefty chunk when he walked with so much evidence (tho DNA in criminal trials was super new, which was a huge factor.) But I do wonder how much *worse* everything would have been if OJ had been found guilty so close to when Rodney King's attackers had been found innocent. Or maybe more horrible, how much more hideously awful the LAPD would be if they hadn't taken that L. The LAPD we are blessed with today is the one we have after they got publicly smacked in front of the whole world; after tapes of their racist jokes and white nonsense was played out for the public and it had an actual cost. There is no answer, I know. Sh!tty people suck. Sh!tty systems suck worse.
@@anastasis-cm5hw Nicole was a wealthy white model, and she got dragged for filth over this. I remember guys saying that OJ just saw red because "another man was in his house with his wife." But what I keep thinking about is that anyone without her royal flush of privileges would be treated far, far, far worse in the system, and by society at large. Thirty years on, we still have a culture just desperate to side with charismatic men--trust me, people will find the most astounding reasons to drag victims. (In my case it's that I'm spinal cord disabled so my ex was "probably stressed out being married to someone disabled.") I've never thought of it until this moment but I wonder how differently this would have played from start to finish if Nicole had also been black. White people probably would have cared about the trial less, as awful as that sounds. OJ was the famous one, but Nicole allowed the "but I have a black friend at work!" crowd to truly have something to grab onto emotionally. All that said, I get (as much as I ever could) why the black community needed the win, especially with the LAPD. And I'm real grateful my ex is in another state for a few days instead of 2mi away.
@@Kimmaline Oh absolutely, 100% to everything you said. This case would have been dead in the water had she been a black ex-wife and there would have been plenty more shaming and victim-smearing and god knows what else. But it's just hard to balance both: the racial dynamics and the need to just like... do Nicole some honor as the dead victim. Especially because she was victimized by a black man and that falls into stereotypes of its own. But I just have to say- OJ rejecting black folks is another stain on his record, but when it comes to this case where he almost certainly did it, and absolutely definitely was a DV perpetrator, and bragged about it, should it matter wrt the reception of the case? He was a monster. I just don't think the answer, here, is to completely avoid talk of how this is yet another twisted page in the "precursor to #metoo" playbook. Another dead white chick for people to obsess over hardly needs to be a new conversation, to be clear. I guess I just don't want her to become a footnote to her own tragedy
@@anastasis-cm5hw should it matter that he was black and rejected his own community? That is not my call. I only know that it definitely does to a lot of people I've been listening to. This was 30yrs ago, but what Fiq said about how OJ wasn't really seen as black is my memory too...though someone can correct me on this. But I don't really remember the typical BS narrative of "scary black man" being a thing around the case. Scary abuser? Yeah, totally. But until the trial I don't remember race being a huge part of it. That being said, I was a white kid...I didn't need to pay attention to race and racial dynamics to survive. I was free to be oblivious, and I'm certain I was most of the time (proof that privilege is a thing, I was in my 30s before I found out that most white women in the U.S. have no close black friends.) My heart aches for Nicole so deeply--but I also know that the injustice of my own situation and everything that happened after means I'm never going to see this clearly. The way that people have responded--after my partner of 19yrs did the literal worst thing one human can do to another--simply for my disabilities is astounding...but what if I was also black? Or trans? I likely wouldn't even be here for my kid right now and I'm really aware of that. I guess what I was trying to say is that as much as white people wanted it, as much as I feel for Nicole, I don't know that convicting OJ way back then would have been the best thing. I'm glad they found him culpable in the civil trial and I'm glad he wrote that audacious book, because it gave a fairly definitive answer and stopped a lot of the people who'd been just openly defending OJ; a man who had beaten this woman bloody repeatedly and used his connections to face no consequences for doing so. But so soon after Rodney King...I understand why the black community so wanted him to walk, and I don't know that locking him up right then would have done anything except for the families of the victims. Cochrane did an excellent job during the trial of making it all seem like it was the LAPD vs OJ instead of being about Nicole or Ron Pearlman at all, so it became a lot easier to root for OJ even knowing he abused the hell out of Nicole. I just keep coming back to the fact that he was able to get away with doing this to a rich white able-bodied model with family and community and connections. Nicole is not representative of the typical victim, and her case got legit a thousand times the resources of the average person living with less privilege. I want to keep that part in everyone's heads, too....because the women who are typically losing when powerful, charismatic men beat the system don't typically look like Nicole.
@@Kimmaline Yeah I agree with all of that completely, and I appreciate the unimaginable weight you bring to bear on the topic; you speak with a lot of grace about it. I do see that _it matters_, but the framing that *anything* would obscure the domestic terror he inspired doesn't sit entirely right. I'm just mulling over how we talk about victims here--and not just the murder victim but the kids, who were most certainly there when those horrible 911 calls were made. Like, there's contextualizing Nicole's privilege, which should be done, and then there's making her and the others a footnote in her own murder case. As a side note, I definitely got a racial angle from my slice of Americana in the evangelical Texas suburbs, though I was in elementary school so I can't remember clearly... at any rate, they ignored it mostly but were quick to say he got away with it because he was black. But I do think this was because those people were already all-but-openly racist already.
I'm a criminal defence and family lawyer because of this case. I still remember where I was when the not guilty verdict came out in the UK and my parents celebrating. This case was and will always be bigger than OJ. Also the mini series is dope
They really did a great job on the mini-series. It was cool that it did focus on the lawyers. I came out feeling bad for all of them except Cochran and OJ. Never thought in a million years I'd feel so bad for a Kardashian! Lol
I remember when I first learned about this case (it was before my time), I was like "why did Black people support this guy? He's so obviously a murderer!" But then I learned about the LAPD, in general and specifically in the 90s, and I understood. I think it's a lot easier to understand the issue more as "Opposing the LAPD/criminal injustice system" rather than "Supporting OJ"
Yes, this case (and the reaction to it) was a product of its time. It cannot be understood outside of the context of 1990s Los Angeles and the state of race relations in America at that particular moment. They will forever be interlocked.
Yeah, you can’t fully understand the OJ trial without understanding the Rodney King beating, the LAPD Four trial, and the ensuing riots. There’s other factors, but that was huge. Like, lots of people hoped that if there was video, then the police would FINALLY be held accountable. It was shocking, but also not shocking, when they were acquitted.
The OJ Made in America doc series is def worth the watch/rewatch, covers everything you mentioned really well. Just rewatched yesterday and so many powerful moments. Also the compilations of Norm SNL jokes are an interesting time capsule of the time. Also agree Michael Harriot is amazing and everything he writes is worth reading 🙌🏼
And the details of tampering of evidence is clear to see... Shocking behaviour by the police. How they weren't all in prison by the end of the trial is beyond me
There's no way OJ should have been convicted for that trial... not because he didn't do it (he definitely did), but the LAPD and LASD screwed his case up so hard that there was no option BUT to acquit him. That's how our justice system works, bc letting a criminal free is better than imprisoning an honest man (allegedly. ideally.) The fact that the state dept also set up a black man and a woman as the prosecutors and then failed them, horribly, is just another level of discrimination and disappointment. When a racist cop says "hey man maybe I shouldn't be there, this is not a good look for our investigation" and his CO doesn't listen you know the dipshittery goes all the way down.
100% agreed. Being from the UK (but just old enough at the time of the case to follow it in the media, which it dominated), I didn’t understand the fullness of who this man was and what he meant. That doc is a masterpiece and I’ve watched the full 8 hours of it at least 3 times. Simply one of the best pieces of media ever made.
I was an adult but the only thing I had watched was the “car chase.” I do remember the post-verdict. I was in college in a mostly white school and people were shocked. Now that I watch your video I wonder, knowing people as I do now, if white people were so upset with the verdict because (along with a Black man accused of killing a white woman) of all the things coming out about the LAPD’s racism. Because I don’t think any white people around me at the time believed it even after Rodney King video. You’re right about the 90s being just as wild as today. The US isn’t going backwards, we never even moved in the first place.
When my grandfather was alive I would take him to the restaurant where the "OG's" would hang out and that is all they would talk about 20 years after the fact.
Watched the entire trial (I'm 53). I still think it was a case of a rich person getting away with murder, and very little about race, despite the ethnicities of defendent and victims. The dude had money and he had a very good lawyer. You don't have to like Cochran to know he was on the ball.
No he got away with it explicitly because of his openly racist the people specifically the cops trying to prosecute him were they were recorded saying he liked setting up n words
That sorta was my take on it even back then. BUT! You also have to take into account the reasonable doubt aspect that had a lot to do with race, something that could have been maybe an open & shut case was tainted by an actual racist cop who felt the need to plant evidence. Just to make sure, now would he have planted evidence if the prime suspect was white? Maybe even probably. But once it comes out that this guy is in fact a racist & the suspect is black & the victims are white & you get the history of misconduct based on race involving this particular police department. Of course this type of thing likely wouldn't have came out with your average defendant regardless of race because the average defendant couldn't afford that legal team, especially Johnnie Cochran who was in the position of being a former prosecutor in that area & actually knew how they railroaded people especially folks who couldn't afford the type of defense that he could provide. Have you ever read Johnnie Cochran's book? Because this guy was a great attorney because honestly I thought that OJ was guilty even after the trial, but after reading Johnnie Cochran's book some years later & what all was going on even with the defense team, I honestly don't know if he did it or not. One thing that I can say that I do believe is that Johnnie Cochran was sincere in his defense of this man.
Little to do about race yet you had racist detectives who helped botch the whole case. This was proven in the trial you claim to have watched in it's entirety
@@shawngreetingsfromthesouth111 The cops did not plant evidence. OJ was buddies with cops. Fuhrman was a virulent racist, and he made the cops look even worse, but nobody planted anything.
@@shawngreetingsfromthesouth111the evidence was tampered with beyond belief. Blood samples in particular. The entire case collapsed essentially because of these things. I genuinely don't know what happened that night, but it really ain't as presented by the prosecution.... OJ Made in America is a great Oscar winning documentary that goes through the evidence methodically.
They didn't plant any evidence though. The defence theorized they did to create reasonable doubt. There is absolutely no proof that evidence was planted.
There's absolutely no evidence of that. If you look you into the case, it's interesting to study the confluence of factors that lead to the outcome, the racial dynamics of the time, etc. But on the level of the case's facts, it's almost laughable to find the defense's DNA arguments compelling.
The cops were good friends with him. They absolutely botched the investigation, were completely irresponsible with evidence because that sort of incompetence was normal for them. In a way, they did get help get free. But not on purpose.
@@carsonwall2400 There were at least 3 main instances where evidence was questioned, one where evidence was planted. He still did it, but there were overzealous cops that tried so hard to make a conviction that they messed it up. He got off. And this was part of it. Cry all you want. Your inability to digest nuance isn’t at all surprising but overall pathetic and tired.
I was in 8th grade when OJ’s wife was murdered. I grew up in LA county and in my circle of friends and family, outside of the most racist of family, were saying the opposite of what we saw in media. Meaning all my Black friends were saying he did it and was guilty and all my white friends and family were saying he’s innocent. I know that in subsequent years we’ve heard of these white people who were pissed by his acquittal but I just did see it in my personal life. I specifically remember my next door neighbor talking to my dad about him being afraid (my neighbor was a Black man and father of 5 kids) that him being afraid that the acquittal giving license to other men thinking they could kill someone’s child and get away with it. My dad was in shock that he as a white man and the neighbor as a Black man were on opposing opinions in a way that my dad had never experienced before
Holy hell the idea that there are people TOO YOUNG to know about OJ Simpson is throwing me for a loop. Like are Gen Alpha kids just never hearing about this? I never liked football or true crime, I was born in 2004, and I’m white, and I STILL cannot remember a time before I knew about OJ like what are these people teaching their kids?
@@TheRealSly14Cat it was 10 years before I was born! Why should the last five years since it happened make more of a difference in public knowledge than the first decade? And I’m 19 thank you very much, the high school kids still know about the Juice, they’re at least Gen Z. I conceptually understand why preteens today wouldn’t know about the OJ Simpson trial, it just is freaking me out lol
I'm white and was born the same year as you and still never knew much about the OJ case aside from the fact that his trial was for murder and he got acquitted. People seldom talked about it. But if it matters, the city I live in is pretty white
I was just about to go HAM in these comments when you put the post narration in at 5:14 and stopped me lol. Ya boi Michael Harriet came through for you lol. I'm black and I'm old enough to VIVIDLY remember this trial. My pops recorded every single day of that trial on VHS. Every single day. I remember my pops commentary and discussion with his friends during the trial. NO ONE in our black cultural orbit thought or dare I say cared if, OJ was innocent. The spectacle was the exposing of the American justice system, for once, in full display of the entire white world. It was hella cathartic. I appreciate my pops for giving me perspective on it at that time. Living in that moment and appreciating the significance of it at the time was a very defining moment for me. The revelation of the moment was that the foundation of America is classism. Racism is just a function of classism. We all know and knew this, of course, but it was PRICELESS seeing white America collectively realise it for the first time, in stunning 4k.
@@deathbird909 I dont think you could even get 480 if you didnt have those special laserdiscs or propriety vhs formats Converted to a digital format a *high quality* VHS would be 320i iirc due to it being an interlaced format
@@eightcoins4401 You're probably right. I looked it up and DVDs (which were like, amazingly sharp compared to VHS) were up to 720p, but were usually 480p.
First off I fully agree it does feel like the end of an era and Oj was not a good dude. You brought up Jay-Z's ballad of Oj and I did see your joke on the timeline and laughed pretty hard because.....yea. As a black woman....he is wild to me. I grew up with people making Oj jokes and then I hit young adulthood and I said let me figure this out, let me learn my history. I learned all about his trial and then kinda was hearing about Rodney King...and I was like how do these things connect. Run it back and a year before his trial to the La riots. I am not old enough to have lived as a poc during this time. I would have popped out shortly after. And this is hard for me. Because Rodney King was no saint because humans are not perfect. He also did not deserve the disgusting beating he took at the hands of those cops and the bullshit show trial that got nowhere. But another key part of those riots was money and a conflict between Korean store owners and Black people who saw them as... profiting off of black people as well while treating them the same way white store owners treated them while in the Black Neighborhoods. A Korean store owner killed a young black woman in cold blood and the judge said she did not see a criminal she saw someone who made a mistake. The store owner shot the young woman because she THOUGHT she was stealing. This happened before the Rodney King verdict. And then the Rodney King verdict popped the top on the pressurized container of race relations. And... God. OJ getting acquitted was the most massive lucky over correction. And personally... yea its rough. I am a woman and a black woman. He beat and terrorized Nicole. Murdered her and Ron. Got to not only get away with it but also got to drag her publicly by throwing all of her secrets on the stage. And Ron is hardly remembered, a footnote to his own murder. Because oj was rich and because he leaned on the black community and monopolized a rare flashpoint. As an educated person who has consumed all this... yea I think you're right. It is the end of an era. And I'm hanging my head heavy because... fuck. In the 1950s I believe there was a riot in the same area in California as the 90s riot. The press and certain people called the 2020 protests riots. They were not in my opinion. But its just... I tell myself perhaps things will be different because we live in the technology age and because I have to be positive for the future generations of my family and because we do legitimately live in a time when racism EXISTS but is not ok/acceptable/palatable. But then I think about Johnathan Majors and yea. Woah. Thats.... too much like Oj. And all the young women who are telling the cops they are being stalked and attacked and harrassed only to have to be murdered for anyone to take notice. Poc still can't trust the cops and despite how much it is preached that cops should police communities they come from because they will understand and give them more support staff to help them handle the situations in a tailored way and put the investigative unit for cops outside of the cops.... When is it going to happen though?
@@Cdr2002 I mean… that’s the most charitable explanation I can think of that allows for him to be innocent. Plus, the glove the murderer used didn’t fit. But how writing a book about how he would’ve done it means he did, I’ll never know. I took the fact that he wrote a book about how he would’ve done it as a way of mocking the actual guilty party instead of an indirect confession.
I tell my bf all the time that the black community wanted the OJ treatment for Tory Lanez too. It’s the whole underlying “we know he did it” but aloud we’ll say he didn’t because that’s a black man and “we dOnT wAnT tO sEe a BlAcK mAnE lOckEdt uP” ontop of “buT dA wHiTe mAne dId iT toO!” It’s like I get what you’re trying to say, but this isn’t the guy you pull the race card for. Wrongly accused people deserve celebration upon release not killers but I’m not even surprised anymore with this community. We praise the killers and ignore/ridicule the victims.
As a Gen Xer who was in my mid-teens during the trial, looking back on it now, it seems like a rare time when misogyny trumped racism. Because of patriarchy, fame/wealth, and also the LAPD just being demonstrably the worst.
Oh my gosh yes, it's kinda freaky the consonant dissonance. Like they're so desperate to say he has to be innocent or that he "repented and did his time in jail". Bro even if he didn't kill those 2 people, he committed armed robbery AND kidnapping. Like? People gloss over the kidnapping, which is insane. Armed robbery happens daily and makes sense. Kidnapping is a deranged individual that will kill or SA somebody, point blank.
There's several "big" TH-cam channels with white guys just defending OJ and Michael jackson, making that their whole platform. It's weird, idk what to make of it, feels not like the best intentions somewhere
@@christianandjesse7370 I've never heard of "consonant" dissonance so I'm assuming you meant cognitive dissonance. In any case, what's shocking to me is how (mostly white) people are so religiously committed to the "OJ did it narrative" that they completely ignore the loads of unresolved problems with the case against him. Also, Robbery and kidnapping? Talk about cognitive dissonance. Even most ardent "OJ did it" people admit that OJ going to jail for trying to "steal" his own property a total setup & revenge for the Not Guilty verdict in the murder trial.
@rickyandreou lol sorry that's the music term, which is kinda tied to the idea of cognitive dissonance. How opposing things create displeasure. Dude I literalky said even if he didn't kill those 2 people, he did some wild and heinous shit after that so. Yeah. Like? He also wasn't found guilty for murder. So people thinking he is still guilty doesn't matter. There were a few missing things from the Casey Anthony trial, but she did that shit. Would you let her babysit Lol? Like people who knew Oj before and after were like "yeah he probably did it". He wrote a book detailing how he'd do it, which lined up with how things played out lol. That's not what nice, friendly, non murderers do. If a good person was accused of rape and had evidence against them of rape, it'd be wild to turn around and write a book saying "if I did rape somebody, this is how I would do it". Good people don't do that.
You should check out “OJ: Made in America” it’s a 30 for 30 series from 2016 that uses the OJ Simpson trial to explore race in the 20th century. It basically an oral history that traces a path from the great migration to the Watts Riots, the murders of Eula May Love and Latasha Harris, Rodney King, the LA uprising to the OJ Trial and helps lend a lot of historical and cultural context that led up to the eventual verdict. It’s a truly amazing cultural document.
I was 17 and in my junior year of high school when the verdict came down. Our English class was put on pause while a TV was wheeled in. I was furious when all my black peers starting cheering and I couldn't bring myself to ask why. I just finished a re-watch of "OJ: Made in America" and one of his lawyers, Carl Douglas, bluntly said that had he been Mexican with a Latino jury, they (his lawyers) would have presented him in a sombrero and brought in a mariachi band (this was after a jury field trip to Simpson's house which was previously covered with pictures of white people). The theatrics from Johnny Cochran were just so condescending that I couldn't believe these were allowed in a court of law. I think back to the R. Kelly episode of the Boondocks and Huey's speech at the end. Many innocent black men have been accused and convicted in a system that was specially built to do so but OJ didn't fit into this category. Yes, the verdicts in the Rodney King and Latasha Harlins cases were completely unacceptable but finding this man not guilty just so that black people could get a win in LA is not something I could ever understand. Maybe that's the point
Best joke Ive heard through this whole thing is from the Toronto Sun (I think) "Somewhere prostate cancer is writing a book entitled 'if I did it'." Btw, take it for what it's worth, but family knew people in LA. OJ was a horrid person for decades. Everyone knew he beat her and all of his romantic partners. I visited LA personally yeeeeeears later and during an event Al Cowlins came up to my GF, with me standing right there, and told her OJ wanted to meet her. So OJ could avoid accountability for it. That same evening another friend did "meet" him, got the sh!t beat out of herself, and the cops told her "grab your coat on the way out". 🤷🏻♂️ If there is a hell, OJ is in it. Love the video. You're an inspiration to my household, and that ain't no BS. Just keep swimming ✊🏻 (subscribe to Nebula, y'all)
I'm about the same age as you, and the thing I took away from the trial most was that it was less about supporting OJ and more about seeing the LAPD lose one. ESPECIALLY after Rodney King.
Something I’ve thought but never really looked into was the idea that the jury felt a lot of pressure to look the other way for the betterment of the community. “What’s gonna happen across the US if we find this guy guilty?” Had to have been a fear to a lot of people, right?
I know at 7:19 you said you found it "hard to believe the race-card helped OJ," but literal jurors from OJ's case have come forward and said they knew he was guilty but wanted payback for Rodney King which is why they sentenced OJ as "innocent." Happy to email you those sources (which includes video evidence of a juror admitting this) if you'd like. Now yes, the prosecution also seriously mishandled this case, but, it was still extremely obvious OJ was guilty despite all of that. I'm also Black & tbh, I'm so disgusted with how OJ got off for a double-murder and it's deplorable to watch fellow Black people still celebrate/support OJ to this day. You should listen to the 911 call where Nicole called police bc OJ was beating the HELL out of her! The video of this call is on TH-cam and it's horrific.... OJ routinely assaulted Nicole in the same home their CHILDREN were in. Devastating.
The excessive hype surrounding the case is what made it so extremely divisive. There was no reason for this case to be in the news every day for years. Every. Single. Day. It created an entire cottage industry with dedicated analysts and several books. Why? Because this famous Black man who many believed was inoffensive and unthreatening was accused of brutally killing a white attractive blond woman. It seemed like a betrayal. They felt they gave him his fame and fortune only to be betrayed. To me, it was simply a rich man getting the best justice money could buy. Mark Fuhrman’s involvement in the investigation didn’t help either.
My dad told me when I was a kid that the jury found him not guilty as a spite thing to the LAPD after the Rodney King riots Add to that how terrible the cops handled the case. In my law classes we’ve looked at his trial as a what not to do
they may have... I mean they had/have a horrible reputation. They bumbled it and casually thought (likely bc of the culture of the dept) it would be fine
Of course the one time the LAPD gets held accountable for their racist bullshit it's to help a rich guy that actually did it.
I feel like a lot of folks were cheering the LAPD taking such an embarrassingly public L for doing a bunch of racist bungling of the case. If Mark Furman was on vacation that week, OJ probably would have gotten the Jussie Smollett silent treatment.
Because it took a "rich guy" to combat the bottomless coffers of the state in court. Which is why reperations is needed. Of the people exonerated of wrongful convictions black people make up 60+%. Wete only 13% of the damn population.
Right? If it was some nobody represented by a public defender, no one would've cared.
Someone on Twitter said a similar thing; “racist corrupt cops don’t just put innocent people away, they also let guilty people get off”
LA Riots were fresh in mind also
So OJ didn’t see himself as black until it kept his ass out of jail?
EXACTLY
That's it!!
How did being blk kept him out of jail?
@@Dogtubeehe played the “yall doing this to jail me BECAUSE i am black” hence fd putting it as him “playing the black card”
@Dogtubee If you don't remember, or weren't alive when it happened, that was what a majority of his defense team leaned on at the time. That it was racial discrimination at play and white people "going after an innocent black man". He wasn't though, he had a history of violence against women with his first wife, but he had the best team of lawyers at the time, so they got him off.
It's still an extremely contentious topic to this day with random weirdos coming out of the woodwork to defend him every time it's brought up.
OJ can rest in peace knowing his wife's murderer is finally dead.
Did you type this thinking you were the first person to think about this?
@@DigitalRag3X No, I've seen and heard several people make this same joke, in fact I didn't come up with it independently, I'm just repeating what I heard. 🙂
@@nimged8952and this is still funny af😂😂😂
Bars!!!
Ex wife. Nicole had DNA from her attacker under her fingernails examined. It didn't match OJ
His "stabbing joke" at the end is so weird, especially for someone who claims to be innocent. Imagine you get falsely accused of killing 2 people, one of them your wife. Why the fuck would you joke about that? Someone killed the mother of your children, you got the blame for it, and they got away with it. That should be one of the most traumatic events of your life. Not a joke.
I can't believe I've never seen that clip before. It seems like the sort of thing that would get reposted on a monthly basis, and it's not even in the other videos I've seen about OJ.
@@alchemist2188different times.. if it happened around this time, you better believe it would
is it bad i found it fucking hilarious? like it's in possibly the worst taste ever, but just the absurdity/audacity of it is crazy
Son did it.
And he wrote a book about too and it seemed like he was mocking the whole situation or was hinting at the fact that he did it.
Something I didn't understand at the time: it's not so much that Cochran played the race card so much as he played the *racism* card, meaning that he clearly demonstrated just how racist the LAPD was and then asked "So how can you believe anything they say?" Which I mean...he wasn't wrong. To some extent, his defense had nothing to do with OJ; he put LAPD on trial. No wonder so many (mostly black) folk cheered at the verdict, they were cheering that the LAPD had been effectively proved racist in a court of law.
This is an underrated comment.
Truth.
Absolutely
You nailed it. So much of the cheering had to do with outrage relating to the long-standing racist LAPD and the injustices relating to police brutality culminating in Rodney King
that was definitely a really big part of it
Twitter would’ve been the wild wild west during the OJ trial
I can only imagine lol
I'm so glad that it's currently a polite and civilized marketplace of ideas 😂😂😂
ok so who would be jim west
It feels like it's playing out right now, almost like the youngsters are making up for lost time. And for context, I'm really only on Reddit, but the number of pontificating by current 30 and younger crowd is weird. They know even less than those of us who were middle/high school at that actual time.
You're talking about what happened during the Depp/Heard trial. Would have been exactly like that.
"If I Did It" is just the highest audacity
Of the highest level
I agree. Pretty sad that someone would have the audacity to offer O.J. Simpson 5 million dollars to have a fictionalized book ghostwritten for him to exploit the notoriety of the case.
Lol it basically 'i did that shit' 😂
He totally did it
Thats what great lawyers can afford you; audacity
He was a domestic abuser… that was a known fact and he never paid for it.. nicole was his victim long before she was mudered
Facts!! He's a monster!!
yep, he beat her for years and she told her friends leading up to her murder that she thought he was going to kill her. and then terms like “domestic abuse” weren’t allowed in the court room.
Orenthal was nothing but filth for that fact alone. The world has lost nothing
Marguerite was the real victim. Nicole used to terrorize her. Brown's family knew about his ways yet they took full advantage by getting all sorts of financial kickbacks.
@@squarebear619 Who is Marguerite and how is she more of a victim then the women who suffered domestic abuse and then was brutally murdered?
Never let them tell you the 90s were normal or some utopia. Never.
I was a kid but yeah I don’t remember it the way people romanticize it
The 90s wasnt normal, neither the 2000s, nor the 80s, nor the 70s, etc.
It was by no means perfect, but it's the closest time to now that didn't have anything approaching the hellscape/timesink that is today's internet, so there's a lot to be said for it.
@@1angelsigh I was about to argue but honestly...yeah.
LA riots...
Acc thats the only thing i know from the 90s haha
Chris Brown is a good example of someone who continuously receives a pass because he's good at what he does.
Well, that and he just leaned into the whole thing. He made being a violent asshole his personal brand and drew in plenty of guys who wish they could do what he did.
He sucks as an artist tho
@@eightcoins4401yeah he doesn’t make a lot of good music. Just goes to show that singing well is only part of it.
Yep
@@eightcoins4401I swear he hasn’t made a good song since the late 2000s lol
One of the worst legacies of the OJ trial no one is mentioning is that because of that trial, we’re now stuck with the Kardashians.
😂😂😂 fair
There's a really silly thing I noticed.
OJ Simpsons white wife divorces him, he gets pissed at her and her Jewish boyfriend (Ron Goldman).
This eventually leads to the Kardashians, where Kanye's white wife divorces him, starts hanging out with a Jewish boyfriend (Pete Davidson) and Kanye gets pissed.
@@samuelkatz1124 life is like poetry, it rhymes. That particular poem is one no one wants to read tho haha.
Imagine how different the world woulda been if he hadn't asked Rob Kardashian Sr. to be on his legal team 🤭🤭🤭
Everything can’t be a coincidence
Prostrate cancer is what got my dad too. If they catch it early it’s no big deal, but if they don’t…it’ll kill you. Get yourselves checked!
Optimus Prime convinced me that prostate exams are a must as an older man
Bladder cancer took my dad at 53 a couple years ago. If you can, get regular check ups and tests!! Keep track of your health. It’s so easy to miss something serious
@@Smoxie804 oh yeah! I forgot Peter Cullen fought prostate cancer.
Big facts. It’s how i lost my great uncle
Pops got them p issues too. Checkups y'all! 👌🏿
This case was the first time I became aware that rich people have a different justice system from the rest of us.
It includes race, but not entirely reliant. The oppressors love elevating the occasional useful minority to keep the lie and hierarchy going.
really? you didnt peep that in primary school?
@@jusletursoulglobaby We were all trailer trash. We didn't have any rich kids to compare to so it was just assumed everyone's uncle had a record. By the time we got to high school we knew the rich kids had everything we wanted, but the idea they would get nothing more than a pat on the head from the cops just wasn't a reality because it never came up.
@@williamgeorge2580 that's fair. my schools were in small cities so everyone went to the same place regardless of money. kids would get warnings not to hang out with such and such bc you the one who gone get in trouble if yall do something. you dont get it until you see it happen and be like wtf
Yep.
A detail from the case that I think is illustrative of what you are taking about is when Nicole had called the police on OJ during an abusive episode(he was abusive and violent throughout their relationship). She was afraid he was going to kill her, and the police sided with OJ, believing him over Nicole. OJ was fine with police incompetence and corruption right up until it didn’t benefit him. If it wasn’t for the police siding with OJ, Nicole and Ron Goldman may have lived. It’s just police incompetence all the way down.
Seems like cops value enforcing misogyny even more than they value enforcing racism.
Too be fair- their incompetence benefited him in the end anyways
Misogyny was also a major part of it. A rich man murders his ex-wife and her new guy, and gets away with it. Less shocking than the racial angle.
"gold digging ex-wife" to be specific. there was a lot of talk about how much she was getting in alimony and how people felt like this white woman didn't deserve to get to enjoy his money (and presumably spend that money on her boyfriends)
Ron Goldman wasn't even her boyfriend. He was just a fairly new friend who happened to drop something off at Nicole's home at the worst possible time.
@@BALTHAZAAR58He was returning a pair of sunglasses her mom had left at the restaurant. Wrong place at the wrong time.
This is atleast discussed due to being somewhat recent.
Meanwhile everyone just shrugged and moved on when Norman Mailer imapled his wife.
The LAPD botched that case hard. Who tries to frame a guilty man?
Honestly, probably happens more than we imagine. Broken clock is still right twice a day.
The cops do it regularly to make themselves seem more moral and competent than they actually are.
They didn’t. He had amazing lawyers, and some of the jury really wanted to believe he was innocent.
Having worked with a lot of cops: once they decide who they think did a crime their focus shifts to how can we convict this guy. And because OJ had money to afford good lawyers, they knew they had to have a really airtight case; the half-baked circumstantial evidence that is usually enough to convict a poor black man wouldn't be enough here. So they had to beef up the evidence. Now a logical mind might've said "This case is going to be under a microscope, we better play everything by the book." But that's not how most cops think - they are so unused to accountability that they never think they'll get caught. And even if they do: from their perspective if dude gets off because there wasn't enough evidence, or dude gets off because they tried to frame him and it didn't work, is the same result.
@@manderly33 mark firman?
I was a senior in high school at the time, and the take that hit me hardest then: "OJ got off because the LAPD went after him like he was a black man, and not like he was a rich man." Sloppy work from a racist department for years, and eventually a jury decided not to take it anymore when the right defendant came along.
Whew! 🔥🔥🔥
Nobody has mentioned that the jury was biased all along. The murders happened in Beverly Hills therefore the jury should have also been from Beverly Hills ie a rich, majority white jury which would have most likely changed the outcome of the trial.
I mean, he was definitely treated like a rich man in that car chase. But yeah, the LAPD's racism definitely backfired on them in this case.
It would have been nice if the jury could have looked past their behavior to get justice for the victim. But that's human nature. That's why you have to stay clean if you want a position of authority.
@@krampusx9784 So what your saying is that if the jury was all white then they would have made the right decision?
@@krampusx9784 They SPECIFICALLY kept that case in LA County because of what happened with the four policeman in Rodney King's trial getting off because they moved the case to Simi Valley. That was a Gil Garcetti decision and STRICTLY political; he was up for re-election or wanted to be mayor or something like that. It's also why there was a military presence in LA that day - in case people got out of hand anticipating the repeat "carnage" from the King verdict.
OJ also benefited from a society where it was not as widely understood that the domestic violence to spouse murder pipeline is basically a waterslide. I feel like more people are aware of the statistics on that stuff now because of the internet.
67% of statistics are made up.
Actually people in Antiquity already knew that.
People in the medieval period knew that.
The Renaissance and Enlightenment period knew that.
Industrial revolution people knew that.
The beatings-to-murder predictions have ALWAYS been made about abused wives.
And to a lesser extent abused husbands.
Just because we add current cultural specific words to the end of social issues like adding "pipeline" after it doesn't change how OLD the information on a social issue is.
Characters in ancient Greek and ancient Roman PLAYS discussed how if they don't get X abused person out of a situation they won't have anyone to get out of that in a few days because they will be murdered.
This is not new information for the public.
couldn’t agree more
Nah, they would have made tiktok memes about the trial and dug up shit about the victims. Nothing unites the human species like defending the reputation of popular, rich men from the stigmata of abusing women. That's kind of the corner society screwed itself into by pretending to care about VIOLENCE against women while not actually giving a damn about women as human beings.
In a documentary, I heard Norman Mailer saying :
"The trial of OJ simpsons was the worst things that could happen to american society because it showed that if he got away with it, it meant that money was the only thing that was meaningful in the american society, but if he loosed, it was irredeemably racist."
Norm Macdonald "It is official, murder is now legal in the state of California". RIP Norm, you fought the good fight for years.
Dude even lost of job, with No Fu*cks given. He was committed. Rest Easy Norm.
OJ was rich. Murder has always been legal for the rich.
"You won’t ever know the worst that happened to Nicole Brown Simpson in her marriage, because she is dead and cannot tell you. And if she were alive, remember, you wouldn’t believe her." I suggest everybody go read "In Memory of Nicole Brown Simpson" by Andrea Dworkin. The perpetrator is dead, it's time we start talking about the victims.
Agreed. All I can think about whenever OJ and this case comes up is poor Nicole Brown Simpson
:( I feel awful for her. I’ll definitely be checking out this book.
💯💯💯
100%
Just remember that Andrea Dworkin isn't without bias too - she once wrote that all hetero sex is r*pe, because of male power and privilege. Not that I don't believe that OJ was guilty af, and that he was an abuser. Just that Dworkin isn't necessarily the best source of information.
Nicole is not forgotten. Ron isn't forgotten. They'll always be remembered and discussed.
This video isn't about them.
This is black history, whether we like it or not.
This black man can talk about whomever he chooses whether you feel it's warranted or not.
The most craziest thing I found out about OJ and all of that is that he was not even married to his wife at the time. There is a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of her cheating on him and he got in a rage about it. THEY WERE DIVORCED. They had not been togethr for a whole year. That is wild to me. He definitely did it and he's a terrible person even allowing rrumour that his son did it but he helped him cover it up. He was beating up his wife and had rage issues thats why she left him.
He was a pure monster
@@afrosamourai400 How about O.J.s son Jason that no one seems to talk about? He was infatuated with Nicole. He threatend his ex girlfriend with a knife and was arrested a few months before the murders. A knife🔪 matching the one at the crime scene was found in his locker. A nit cap🧢was found at the crime scene. O.J. doesn't own any nit caps but Jason owns tons of them. Jasons whereabouts during the murders are unknown? Blood at the crime scene not O.J's was found. Jason has never been questioned nor has his DNA ever been taken. When the verdict was read and O.J. was cleared for the double murders at the court house and on live tv look at the smirk on Jasons face. O.J. had arthritis in his hands and couldn't have stabbed Nicole and Ron that many times. It is believed that O.J. took the fall for his son Jason. 🏈🪦🩸🧤
What surprises you so much is well known to folks familiar with domestic violence. OJ was a longtime abuser. Though folks who work in areas connected to DV have tried for decades to educate the public about this, the common view remains stuck in myths that allow people to ignore and then be “shocked” when the same tragic things happen over and over. In this case it’s that the most dangerous time for someone in an abusive relationship, the time with the highest rate of deadly violence, is during or after leaving.
People trying to escape these situations know this; it’s why the question “why don’t you just leave?” is so offensive and unhelpful. It’s when the abuser has lost control over their victim, and that generates a different level of rage, and limited “options” to regain control. Killing someone is permanent control, after all. Sadly, what OJ did was textbook, and happens in many other cases. It’s a famous example because he was rich and famous, not because the act was unusual.
I mean, I’m not even the only person in this comment section who has survived an attempt on their life by an abuser. And yes, mine happened months after I left.
@@literaterose6731 I am not surpised that he did it after she was split from him. I know about all of what you said. I am just surprised that if you ask most pople to remeber what happened alot of people remember it incorrectly and she is remembered as a cheater who was having an affair. I think even some people think the man deserved to be killed because he was the affair partner. I was a kid when it happened and i kind of remember how they portrayed it. I think it was classic mysogyny and the patriarchy at work. They werent even together. Yes I totally understand what you are saying. Very dangerous for her and I think he was a classic abuser who couldn't bare to let her go. Its a shame an innocent man was killed too. I can't remember clearly now what I learnt about the man but I think I am right in thinking there was not much eveidence there was any relatioship between them. Only that he was returning something to her that she had left at the restaurant that he worked at or something like that. He was someones son and his family seem forever devastated that he was murdered and the perpatrator was set free due to the political temperature of the time. Very sad that two people died and their families didn't get justice.
@@SuperMarioBrosIII I'm not sure Nicole called the police on Jason nine times though when he was her stepson. She didn't tell her friends and family in private conversations about how scared she was of her ex-stepson. She was scared of her ex-husband. Hopefully know that OJ has died he can be screened for CTE. He was very troubled.
Say what you will about Chris Rock, but he had the whole OJ thing pegged back in his '96 special: "If OJ wasn't famous, he'd be in jail right now."
Orenthal the knife murderer
@@signifiedbsides1129 It wasn't about fame. It was about being wealthy enough to pay for competent legal representation that actually provided him FAIR trial, preventing him from being just another black man railroaded by the system. This exposed the LAPD's corruption and gross mishandling of evidence.
@@rickyandreou OJ would not have spit on you if you were on fire. It was a circus of a trial with a lot of white lawyers making hash of their reputations for a pile of cash.
Same
@@rickyandreou the wealth and fame were interconnected in OJ's case though.
No, you are very right about how OJ viewed the black community. It was even more damning than you suggested too.
He mentioned wanting to move away from black people, and also having no desire to "give back to the community." The more he could distance himself, the better.
In a way, it worked for him. People really didn't treat him as "black," either. He was a star, and white folks loved him.
Just to the point of the book too,
The families of the victims had to sue and eventually instead of banning the book from being released, the proceedings went to the families (Preveting OJ from profiting from his first hand acount of the murders) and they got final decision on the books covers.. which is why so many editions of the book today have a miniscule "if" in the tile, or even an invisible "if" made of varnish that you can only see from a certain angle against the light, effectively making the book be called "I DID IT" by OJ Simpson. which i think its fair
I was born in 1994 and my parents raised me with the common sense that this man was guilty af 😅
You never looked at the evidence.. you just following the crowd
@@anythingforclicksgood thing OJ was proven to always be a law abiding citizen later in life.
God bless them!!
No he wasn't
@@grayson0916 .... laughs as I remember the hotel holdup
I was in college during the OJ Simpson murder trial. I happened to be in the Student Union when the verdict was announced. There was a large group of Black students gathered around a television in the first floor lounge, and when Simpson was declared not guilty, they cheered.
This was a pivotal moment for me. A white farm boy as ignorant as a stump, I was completely baffled by why anyone could be happy that a brutal double murderer (Simpson killed both his wife and a friend of hers, Ron Goldman, with a knife. He slit Nicole Brown-Simpson’s throat so ruthlessly she was nearly decapitated) had been set free. But it set me on a very slow path to finally coming to grips with the truth about just how Black people, all kinds of other minorities, as well as non-wealthy people, are treated here. It’s weird that an act of injustice was what started to open my eyes to an incomprehensibly greater injustice, but that’s what it took to shake me out of my complacency.
This is crazy because it's such an absurd situation, black people cheering for a monster just because he escaped the white man unfair system..it's still makes me sick..so many innocent black people were executed but it's OJ the one who was celebrated? Thank God the prosecutor was black too it was my only relief..
@@afrosamourai400I mean... the system botched the case. big time. I dont think anymore cared about him doing it or not doing it. for a lot of people, it wasnt about that and sickness seemed to stem from not understanding that.
What evidence make you think he did it?
It seems that the moral high road game doesn't really work. Even with this guys comment, black people being willing to not care about the guilt or innocence and prefer a non-guilty verdict based solely on race is what opened his eyes. Trying to play fair doesn't win you anything. Showing you're angry or determined enough to forgo morality is how groups of people win in this world.
Most people never come to that realization.
If OJ has been on trail before Rodney King I think the support in the black community wouldn't have been there.
Bingo
@@tacrewgirl No, I was there. The Rodney King incident, and trial was not a shock to me even though I was a child.
If anything the Simpson trial gave me hope that the criminal justice system was moving forward... as as long as you had enough money.
Same
Saying people were supporting Johnny Cochran, not OJ, is a very, um…generous interpretation.
He likes that narrative better, because otherwise he'd have to acknowledge the reality, which was 40 million black Americans were ROOTING for OJ like he was their hero, and acted like they won the lottery after finding out that he got away with murdering two white people. They were HAPPY that two white people got murdered, and that one of their race did it and wasn't held accountable. They'd like to see that happen a lot more often, in fact. So of course FD is pivoting to something less evil.
If your rich enough your ethnicity is just rich, you arent white or black or middle eastern, you arent asian or pacific islander or native american, you're rich, your race is now money and ethnicity is rich.
This is honestly so true and it makes me sick to see my parents' values and actions shift from when they recently moved here to now when they act like careless rich yt bastards. Completely ignoring how said bastards would hate our family under any circumstance.
It's sad when people willfully erase themselves to fit in (they don't even fit in tho, they just think they do).
Damaging to us all
🎯
I think another angle I’ve been thinking about is escalating DV and how many abusers DO get away with DV until they go too far and kill their victim. It weighs heavy bc there was an obvious pattern leading up to the murder like there is so often
Nicole Brown Simpsons abuse was ignored for years, there are police recordings of her saying OJ is beating her. This isn't just a one time good lawyering situation where OJ lucked out, I strongly believe if OJ had murdered a man he would have died in prison. NBS was brutally brutally murdered, it ain't a Kyle Rittenhouse situation. OJ got away with it at least to some extent because his freedom and liberty was more important than NBS life. I think it's a shame not to mention the glaringly obvious feminist reading and understand of OJs case.
Came here to say this. Nicole brown Simpson was nearly beheaded.
One of the only positive things that came out of the OJ Simpson trial (beyond exposing the racism of the early 90s LAPD) was the conversation it started about domestic violence. This was not a topic of discussion in any real way (that I remember) in the zeitgeist. I had just graduated college and was working my first "real" job when the killing (and later the trial) occurred. Learning that men beat women in their homes (women they supposedly "love") was a new thing for me. Nicole's family & sisters talked about OJ's brutal treatment of Nicole in the media whenever they got the chance. It empowered domestic abuse survivors to speak up & start nonprofits, etc. And as a young woman just entering the dating pool, it taught me that jealous men were dangerous men. Nowadays we talk about "red flags." This OJ event was one of the roots of that conversation.
Those 911 calls are harrowing.
Clarence Thomas used the race card and it worked like a charm
wait to you realize a lot of black people do this
Coondace owens is doing that too right?
@@afrosamourai400 so is kamala
@@chrischika7026 Except she hasn't been accused of crimes and used her race to dodge the consequences. Not a bad try, though. Thanks for playing.
@@chrischika7026wait until you realize a lot of talented black people are purposely looked over and actively need laws and programs to make the same people that used their ancestors as forced labor to intergrade deserving black candidates into the business class.
Let’s not forget, the POLICE are responsible for him getting off; NOT black people. They behaved in a manner that is still typical today. They operated above the law, and tampered with the evidence. Trying to execute the white superiority they felt they had, backfired. That will forever be on them. Also, Nicole Brown’s family got to treat OJ like he was found guilty for the rest of his life. Every misfortune OJ experienced after the trial, was talked about by the national media, as if somehow, God, was acting on Nicole’s behalf. Her family would do multiple interviews each time, expressing their feelings about whatever was happening. They got to capitalize off of the book, and other things OJ did. That’s way more than black people get, when someone “gets off” on killing a black CHILD, let alone an adult. Didn’t Zimmerman sell the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin? I don’t think they stopped the many ways he profited from Trayvon’s death, and we KNOW Zimmerman killed him. He admitted it. I’m not capin’ for OJ, I just don’t think these two things need to be forgotten. I’m neither happy, nor sad about the fact that OJ has died.
You pretty much saved me a comment. Because everything you said is pretty much what I was about to say.
Thank you for this comment!. You said it all!
I think when people say that it was black people who got him off, they're talking about the black jury members who knew he was guilty but voted not guilty anyway.
Learn how your court system works @@matan.saster. To be acquitted the jury must be unanimous. A few black people voting him not guilty would mean a deadlocked jury and most likely a retrial.
#mericaneducationalproduct
All of this
I was born in 1997, and I knew the quote “If the glove does not fit, you must acquit” at least a decade before I knew anything about the trial. It was that major
Many women have suffered physically violence from intimate partners. 1 in 4 by todays stats. Those numbers garentee if it didn't happen to them, then it did to someone they love. I imagine seeing an abuser get away with murder weighed heavy on their minds.
"im not dead im OJ"
Ok
😂😂
OJ be like
...
😂
😂😂😂
The fact that Norm Mcdonald can mock his ass ghost to ghost right now makes me happy.
“Ghost to ghost” 😂😂😂
Norm is one of the most overrated comedians in Western culture.
Just wanted to say that.
Thanks for reading.
Peace.
@@geekylove3603 tragic take. reminds me of that tragedy
@@geekylove3603 Elaborate, gimme some more to read.
@11:07 was funnier than anything Norm ever did
The Violence Against Women Act was signed into law in 1994, and I think there's been a lot more public education about domestic abuse since then, too. The stuff I heard diminishing OJ's previous violence toward her back then...it's not good now but it's still a lot better.
Not *that* much better. If back then it was at 100, now it's at like a 98. Hardly much of a difference. Women get beat, sexually assaulted and killed all the time and nothing really gets done about it. Swipe it under the rug and find some way to make it about how badly men are treated by the courts or some such nonsense.
Every time you see a case like OJ or Kyle Rittenhouse or the Bundy's(those assholes in Nevada and Oregon) where they are so obviously guilty, but still get away with it, it really makes you wonder what is going on when law enforcement is so bad at putting people in jail when faced with even a slightly competent defense counsel, but somehow our court system sends industrial quantities of people to prison every year.
It's almost like our criminal justice system isn't designed to uphold the law, but rather to put poor people in prison.
That’s the point of the system
The modern American legal infrastructure is set up so it can't afford to try the large majority of people who get charged with a crime. It's designed to channel those too poor or vulnerable to afford a lawyer or fight the DA's office into plea bargains so the government doesn't have to actually prove their guilt. No wonder lawyers and law enforcement falter when it comes to an actual trial
00:04 I have thoughts, thoughts that aren't important enough for me to write a script. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
That one interview he did was unhinged as hell. The one where he pops up on the interviewer with a knife like its a joke. Like nah dude you definitely did it.
If Oj did it.....what did he do with the murder weapon? How did OJ kill two people with a knife and only have a scratch on his finger?
What did he do with the bloody clothes?
@@DamianoutlawOrenthal told you how he did it.
The fact that he still got his Heisman trophy but Reggie didn’t.
NOOOO I didnt know that wtfffff
Not guilty boy
Might have allegedly killed 2 people but he wasn’t paid under the table like Reggie!
@@RANDOMZBOSSMAN1he probably was paid under the table, it was the late 60s😂
Sheesh
I remember those times. I was in high school. The LA Riots had already happened thanks to the LAPD's very real and very severe racism problem. Today we have cameras everywhere but back then it was rare to get such a clear case of police brutality displayed for all to see. America had had enough and I think the jury just didn't believe the police's version of events, and I think that's because the LAPD had firmly established that they were untrustworthy. I believe that and OJs dream team legal defense team made this case a slam dunk for the defense, but I could be wrong. They stopped my high school to announce the verdict, too. I remember being surprised, but in retrospect I shouldnt have been. You just can't have a police department that does stuff like beat the snot out of Rodney King, far past the bounds of ant sort of appropriate response, and expect a jury to believe anything coming out of their mouths at that time.
Intresting
Not only that, you had the primary investigator pleading the fifth about planting evidence AT TRIAL!! It was just a wild time.
uhhh, you know the Rodney King footage was heavily edited by the press to make it look bad right? They guy was out of his head on drugs and repeatedly attacked the police.
Yeah, it would've been essentially impossible to prove his guilt beyond all reasonable doubt when the LAPD had created a situation where doubt was inherently reasonable.
That makes so much sense. Thank you for this context
His wealth is the most prominent part of the answer.
I asked a lot of people why they supported OJ at the time. The answer I got from most of them boiled down to this: White conservatives (many of whom they know have committed crimes and gotten away with it-Reagan administration anyone?) get on the news with a gaggle of slanted statistics and headlines to argue that black men aren't being incarcerated all the time because they are black; it's because "they" haven't figured out how to succeed in America. OJ was the poster child for a successful man by that white conservative definition, reaching a kind of apotheosis through his talent and wealth. The line was, "He's not black; he's OJ.". So he should be too "successful" to go to jail, just like those rich white people, right? Strangely, they seemed to think if OJ could get acquitted when pretty much everyone knows he murdered his wife, then that proves the power imbalances in this country are less about race than about wealth. That gives people hope. You can't change your birth parents, skin color, or cultural origin, but you might be able to change your income. OJ getting away with murder, weirdly, seemed to prove to some people that the American Dream was open to them.
Personally, that would make me question whose dream it was and how it managed to get so fucked up that getting away with murder has become part of it, but I digress....
Good video. As a white person, particularly one who grew up in LA at that time, the black response was perfectly understandable. That was my naïve 16-year-old view then, and it's still basically my view now.
My main concern is justice for Nicole and Ron. That's all. Ultimately they deserved better regardless of the social context of white supremacist tyranny that black people rightly denounced. I hope their families can rest a little easier now.
This
I've been saying it since before he died: OJ: Made in America and the story it tells is a perfect distillation of everything someone needs to know about modern America. From race relations to domestic violence to the economics of criminality to the depths of celebrity worship and so much more. I watch it every other year, but this year might be my last. Like FD said, end of an era
OJ: Made in America may be the greatest docu series ever made.
The police too lol
I’ve seen it on Netflix but never watched bc who cares about some washed up football player who murdered his wife? But idk… I never really understood until recently why this case mattered so much ( I was born years after, so i wasn’t around to see it), so I’ll definitely give it a watch. Thanks for the recommendation 👍🏾
@@Notimportant253it’s SOOO good. Like I’ve watched it 3x. It’s an ESPN documentary doc so I watched on Disney+. Wile thing is, the show the crime scene and the bodies of Nicole and Ron Goldman and it was horrific. They looked like they’d been viciously attacked by an animal. I could never look at OJ the same ever again.
@@Notimportant253it's interesting that you initially dismissed it the way you did (washed up football player etc.). I can get not understanding or fully grasping the impact he had on society (sport, entertainment and the trial) but I kinda thought even people sorta gravitated towards it bc I mean.... the infamy.
The trial also did a great job of overshadowing OJ’s terrible DV behavior before he committed murder.
Was a young adult at that time. What I saw around me were people who knew he was guilty, but definitely felt some kind of way when OJ got the same justice as a rich white man. Also, Susan Smith murdered her kids and blamed a black man around the time of this trial which was a whole 'nother issue.
Yeah, I remember that's how my cousin (a black man) framed it to me: Finally white people got to experience the justice system the way black people had historically experienced it.
This was my experience too. I didn't know anybody who thought he wasn't guilty but everyone was so tired of the justice system being so corrupt and unfair that it became some weird victory where it really shouldnt
Fitting that the video's runtime is 13:12.
I'm surprised we haven't seen more discussion of OJ's violent behavior in the context of football trauma brain damage. He's just one of many examples of football players turning violent against their partners likely in part because of personality changes brought by football head trauma.
As a product of 2003, I was always raised with the notion that none of us actually thought oj was innocent, but we were all celebrating the fact that he won a white man's game. Now that I'm old enough to actually understand the details of the case, I genuinely don't know how black ppl let him slide like this lmaooo
my mom straight up referenced Emmet Till when she described the case
He was innocent though. Most of us still understand that The LAPD simply got caught trying to frame him. The nonstop white media propaganda of "OJ did it and got away" has definitely swayed some weaker minded black people though.
To be fair, LAPD fucked up Royal. I am sure some people rooting for him at the time were just doing the math. "LAPD is a clown show, they mishandled evidence and are on recordings saying racist shit, Prosecution is a clown show, OJ is rich, he has the best lawyers... will he get off like a Rich white dude in the same situation?..... yep he did.
What details would make you change your mind, if you already believed he was guilty? What more would there be to know?
@@pisceanbeauty2503 details as in, what actually happened. Being a child and hearing “yeah he definitely did it” and being a teenager/adult who can comprehend a court case makes a world of a difference. now, not only do i think he’s guilty, i also can’t see how anyone defended him in the first place. perspective and whatnot.
That title is wild af my guy 😂
Love it. I knew we were right. LOL.
And they gone eat it up too
@@anardi7112 alright. You win this time😞
@@anardi7112yeah but you still lost though he was let free lol
Give him 12-36 hours, the title will probably change. And the thumbnail, too. Gotta optimize for that algorithm! (no tea no shade, its works)
Im screenshotting all of your titles before you edit them
😂
Thumbnails change too
@@Universe1413 That's common practice these days. It helps get more views. So many people skip a video because of title or thumbnail, so changing them gives the channel a second chance at grabbing that person who skipped it the first time.
It's kinda annoying cause I end up watching the same video twice sometimes cause I'm dumb.
I usually let B sides videos cook
@@signifiedbsides1129 I mess with this channel more ngl
They turned on CNN in my 6th grade classroom to watch the OJ verdict being delivered. A few classmates of mine started sing "The Juice is Loose" which was a jingle from a commercial at time. I was 12 years old and didn't really follow the trial and I'm not a football fan so I had no idea who this OJ guy was. My teacher had a discussion with the class about for like 10-15 minutes about how well felt. I forget who said it and the exact wording but it was to the effect of "It's better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent in a US courtroom." and that framing of that trail has stayed with me.
The Juice is Loose😂😬
10:21 correction: the original printing never came out, and the 200,000 (It think) copies were destroyed. However, the courts awarded the IP to the Goldman family as part of the lawsuit, since OJ couldn’t pay it in full. They then went on to publish it with the extended title “If I did It: Confessions of the killer”, with the If being extremely small to the point where the book appeared to just say “I did it”, but they *technically* weren’t libelling him since if you look closer it doesn’t say that.
Nvm you corrected yourself like 10 seconds later fml
I watched ALL the coverage as a kid, and jury instructions say he had to walk. Skill issue, DA office in shambles.
Facts
Darden making him try on the glove is what ruined the trial. Logic wasn’t used by the jury.
😂 skill issue
not a skill issue it's just that you people ALWAYS stick up for each other even when you know you did something wrong...
@@billballinger5622 "you people" is insane
I was a kid at the time, so i didn't understand a lot of what was happening..., but OJ definitely did it. Looking back, he didn't deserve an ounce of the support we gave him.
Nobody supported OJ though, it was symbolism and the Rodney king incident.
We???
@@afrosamourai400she meant we as in the black people involved in the support. literally said she was a kid and didn’t understand. you must wanna argue or something bc what was even the point of that question?
ski227 OJ didn't deserve black support?! really? yeah tethers are definitely cosplay black Americans.
No he didnt. He had no marks indicating he killed anyone, and Goldman was a martial artist that had all kinds of defense wounds. Plus if you're familiar with LA (I live here) there's no way he could have done all they said he did in half an hour.
As a non-us white person born almost a decade after the case, it is *definitely* baffling to look back at the reaction and seeing people celebrate him going free. Even knowing about some of the context with rodney king, I think i can understand it intellectually but never emotionally. I guess it was a celebration that you no longer had to be a filthy rich white man to get away with murder, you just had to be a filthy rich man. Progress!!
As a non us person also i realise yes race played a big part in the whole mood at the time but as FD notes the wealth/fame may be even more to the point. As far as i'm concerned it paved the way for the rise of people like Trump. In general Americans of all colours seem to worship the almighty dollar.
For them it was the fact the trial put scrutiny onto the LAPD indirectly for the first time ever
@@evanunez8833 Trump already had power when the trial was going. He just wasnt *officially* part of politics
@@eightcoins4401"them" lmao
It's easier to understand (and especially in retrospect) people were cheering that the LAPD rightfully got its ass handed to them on national television in court.
Unfortunately the murder of 2 individuals pales in comparison to the death many communities face daily in the US. So while it may seem callous to an outsider, who doesn't experience violence on the same scale as Americans (it's wild I know that America has more interpersonal violence than the countries yt people are afraid of), it does make a lot of sense considering the largest system of murder and oppression the states has had actually been ... Made a mockery of.
In a society where cops murder civilians without reprimand, seeing some level of acceptance that the LAPD is incompetent is relieving..
And boy are they incompetent
People riding for Kanye is proof that times haven’t changed too much
the OJ trial became about Mark Fuhrman and racist cops, and not about Nicole Brown, and that was the cynical genius of the attorneys, which....i mean they did their job well i guess.
The “psycho”/slasher joke news clip is the most insane shit
holy crap I thought my middle school was the only one that announced the verdict on the freaking PA! I was in woodshop (Only woman there) and all the boys started jumping up and down chanting "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit!" It was unsettling.
Yikes… I’m sorry you experienced that… 🩷
I don't remember it being on the PA, but somehow everybody knew.
You know what else is unsettling? A racist criminal justice system. Ever thought about that? 🧐
hmmmmm I wonder what race those boys were??????
@@billballinger5622how many white guys celebrate trump and Kavanaugh?
"He was like a black Kyle Rittenhouse."
Goddamn. lol
I dont get it wasen't Rittenhouse innocent unlike OJ ? im confused
@atrckr-bf7de both were acquitted of crimes that lots of people agree they actually did, if you're genuinely confused and not just making Sea lion noises to be annoying.
@@twistysunshine ok, that makes sense it's just that my understanding Rittenhouse had a fair trial; unlike OJ where the jury, and various other things were manipulated to paint him in the best of light. But it seems I live under a rock as a lot of people think he should have been punished more.
edit: oj later on in a civil case a couple years later was punished so there's the possibility for justice for whatever crime people think he is guilty of .
@@atrckr-bf7de Rittenhouse was acquitted. Doesn't make him innocent. Just like OJ. Still confused?
@@gigabixProbably lol
Thanks so much for posting your thoughts! I was living in Los Angeles when the murder and the trial happened. I was even serving on jury duty when the Trial of the Century was coming up. I remember lots of reporters and camera operators setting up around the courthouse and all of us in the jury pool discussed whether we'd serve on that jury -- while we all were intrigued by the significance of it, we could see that it would be a long term commitment that no one was comfortable with.
My personal take was the statistic that when women are murdered the husband/boyfriend is most likely the killer. That O.J. Simpson vowed that if he was acquitted that he would spend the rest of his life hunting down Nicole's killer -- then proceeded to do nothing, told me all that I needed to know.
One thing I think is worth adding. Black folks tended to say he was framed, but it's really clear that he was both framed and guilty.
Like the police definitely took every shortcut and were racist AF in their case. Like, big surprise, cops want to pin it on the easiest person as possible and bonus if they are black. There's a billion times cops have done this, but yeah they did it to the right person and it happened to get him off.
White folks were livid because they actually thought he got off because he was black and couldn't even begin to acknowledge systemic racism. IMO this is a big reason why boomers refuse the idea of systemic racism because they only choose to remember this one time the racism actually worked to free a killer why ignoring all the times they threw good innocent black men in jail, or just lynched them outright.
Idk about rooting for Johnny either, as like he was taking it to the cops, but like at the same time he pulled some BS himself.
I was around a lot of black and white folks at the time and there wasn't a conversation to be had, it was like trying to have a conversation about Trump today. It's wasn't white people being right or black people being right, it was about two wrongs making a wrong.
That's what I can't stand, even 30 years later people still can't just accept that the evidence, motive, history, character, everything says he did it and at the same time the cops framed him. Like, nuance is necessary in all conversations and this trial didn't prove or disprove racism. It just was another chapter of Cops being bastards and money getting people out of shit they shouldn't get out of.
This was an embarrassment for the country, but no where near as big of one than Rodney King beatings, systemic racism, Reagan or W or Trump Presidential terms, or one of a long list of other horrible things.
But it should be something people should be able to agree on, it was a lowlight for the 90s culturally.
Very well stated.
CW: DV/IPV
Fiq, I'm about 4 or 5 years older than you, I was 16/17 at the time and we stopped my college class to hear the verdict. It was a really core memory for me, actually--seeing the black kids jumping up and down punching the air, and the white kids looking hella uncomfortable. 😂
As someone who almost lost their own life to DV fairly recently, this whole thing hits. I hate that OJ got 30yrs of experiences and time that Nicole didn't. It shouldn't be him who was around to see their children grow up; I know the trauma my own little girl is dealing with and I cannot imagine what those kids have had to cope with. It burns my ass that OJ had a chance to live and laugh and then go off peacefully into that good night surrounded by family in a nice soft bed instead of terrified and in pain on a cold, hard floor like Nicole did. I speak from experience it is a very lonely place to lie.
But....I'm also old enough that I remember what the Rodney King verdict had felt like to me, as a white kid, just two years earlier...and how intensely intertwined those cases were. I kinda get why black people wanted OJ to get acquitted so badly, especially in L.A. I'm not saying I'm glad OJ was acquitted; I think it set DV/IPV advocacy back by a hefty chunk when he walked with so much evidence (tho DNA in criminal trials was super new, which was a huge factor.) But I do wonder how much *worse* everything would have been if OJ had been found guilty so close to when Rodney King's attackers had been found innocent. Or maybe more horrible, how much more hideously awful the LAPD would be if they hadn't taken that L. The LAPD we are blessed with today is the one we have after they got publicly smacked in front of the whole world; after tapes of their racist jokes and white nonsense was played out for the public and it had an actual cost.
There is no answer, I know. Sh!tty people suck. Sh!tty systems suck worse.
I totally agree with your analysis and kind of feel uncomfortable with the DV/gender angle being swept under the rug here
@@anastasis-cm5hw Nicole was a wealthy white model, and she got dragged for filth over this. I remember guys saying that OJ just saw red because "another man was in his house with his wife."
But what I keep thinking about is that anyone without her royal flush of privileges would be treated far, far, far worse in the system, and by society at large. Thirty years on, we still have a culture just desperate to side with charismatic men--trust me, people will find the most astounding reasons to drag victims. (In my case it's that I'm spinal cord disabled so my ex was "probably stressed out being married to someone disabled.") I've never thought of it until this moment but I wonder how differently this would have played from start to finish if Nicole had also been black. White people probably would have cared about the trial less, as awful as that sounds. OJ was the famous one, but Nicole allowed the "but I have a black friend at work!" crowd to truly have something to grab onto emotionally.
All that said, I get (as much as I ever could) why the black community needed the win, especially with the LAPD. And I'm real grateful my ex is in another state for a few days instead of 2mi away.
@@Kimmaline Oh absolutely, 100% to everything you said. This case would have been dead in the water had she been a black ex-wife and there would have been plenty more shaming and victim-smearing and god knows what else.
But it's just hard to balance both: the racial dynamics and the need to just like... do Nicole some honor as the dead victim. Especially because she was victimized by a black man and that falls into stereotypes of its own.
But I just have to say- OJ rejecting black folks is another stain on his record, but when it comes to this case where he almost certainly did it, and absolutely definitely was a DV perpetrator, and bragged about it, should it matter wrt the reception of the case? He was a monster. I just don't think the answer, here, is to completely avoid talk of how this is yet another twisted page in the "precursor to #metoo" playbook. Another dead white chick for people to obsess over hardly needs to be a new conversation, to be clear. I guess I just don't want her to become a footnote to her own tragedy
@@anastasis-cm5hw should it matter that he was black and rejected his own community? That is not my call. I only know that it definitely does to a lot of people I've been listening to.
This was 30yrs ago, but what Fiq said about how OJ wasn't really seen as black is my memory too...though someone can correct me on this. But I don't really remember the typical BS narrative of "scary black man" being a thing around the case. Scary abuser? Yeah, totally. But until the trial I don't remember race being a huge part of it. That being said, I was a white kid...I didn't need to pay attention to race and racial dynamics to survive. I was free to be oblivious, and I'm certain I was most of the time (proof that privilege is a thing, I was in my 30s before I found out that most white women in the U.S. have no close black friends.)
My heart aches for Nicole so deeply--but I also know that the injustice of my own situation and everything that happened after means I'm never going to see this clearly. The way that people have responded--after my partner of 19yrs did the literal worst thing one human can do to another--simply for my disabilities is astounding...but what if I was also black? Or trans? I likely wouldn't even be here for my kid right now and I'm really aware of that.
I guess what I was trying to say is that as much as white people wanted it, as much as I feel for Nicole, I don't know that convicting OJ way back then would have been the best thing. I'm glad they found him culpable in the civil trial and I'm glad he wrote that audacious book, because it gave a fairly definitive answer and stopped a lot of the people who'd been just openly defending OJ; a man who had beaten this woman bloody repeatedly and used his connections to face no consequences for doing so. But so soon after Rodney King...I understand why the black community so wanted him to walk, and I don't know that locking him up right then would have done anything except for the families of the victims. Cochrane did an excellent job during the trial of making it all seem like it was the LAPD vs OJ instead of being about Nicole or Ron Pearlman at all, so it became a lot easier to root for OJ even knowing he abused the hell out of Nicole.
I just keep coming back to the fact that he was able to get away with doing this to a rich white able-bodied model with family and community and connections. Nicole is not representative of the typical victim, and her case got legit a thousand times the resources of the average person living with less privilege. I want to keep that part in everyone's heads, too....because the women who are typically losing when powerful, charismatic men beat the system don't typically look like Nicole.
@@Kimmaline Yeah I agree with all of that completely, and I appreciate the unimaginable weight you bring to bear on the topic; you speak with a lot of grace about it. I do see that _it matters_, but the framing that *anything* would obscure the domestic terror he inspired doesn't sit entirely right. I'm just mulling over how we talk about victims here--and not just the murder victim but the kids, who were most certainly there when those horrible 911 calls were made. Like, there's contextualizing Nicole's privilege, which should be done, and then there's making her and the others a footnote in her own murder case.
As a side note, I definitely got a racial angle from my slice of Americana in the evangelical Texas suburbs, though I was in elementary school so I can't remember clearly... at any rate, they ignored it mostly but were quick to say he got away with it because he was black. But I do think this was because those people were already all-but-openly racist already.
I'm a criminal defence and family lawyer because of this case. I still remember where I was when the not guilty verdict came out in the UK and my parents celebrating. This case was and will always be bigger than OJ. Also the mini series is dope
What did you think at the moment?
They really did a great job on the mini-series. It was cool that it did focus on the lawyers. I came out feeling bad for all of them except Cochran and OJ. Never thought in a million years I'd feel so bad for a Kardashian! Lol
I remember when I first learned about this case (it was before my time), I was like "why did Black people support this guy? He's so obviously a murderer!" But then I learned about the LAPD, in general and specifically in the 90s, and I understood. I think it's a lot easier to understand the issue more as "Opposing the LAPD/criminal injustice system" rather than "Supporting OJ"
Yes, this case (and the reaction to it) was a product of its time. It cannot be understood outside of the context of 1990s Los Angeles and the state of race relations in America at that particular moment. They will forever be interlocked.
It still feels hard to wrap my mind around the idea of people cheering for a man getting away with murdering the ex wife he had been abusing.
This sort of thing happens all the time. Alot of people instantly fall for the "the Enemy of an enemy is my friend" fallacy.
Yeah, you can’t fully understand the OJ trial without understanding the Rodney King beating, the LAPD Four trial, and the ensuing riots. There’s other factors, but that was huge. Like, lots of people hoped that if there was video, then the police would FINALLY be held accountable. It was shocking, but also not shocking, when they were acquitted.
The OJ Made in America doc series is def worth the watch/rewatch, covers everything you mentioned really well. Just rewatched yesterday and so many powerful moments. Also the compilations of Norm SNL jokes are an interesting time capsule of the time. Also agree Michael Harriot is amazing and everything he writes is worth reading 🙌🏼
And the details of tampering of evidence is clear to see...
Shocking behaviour by the police. How they weren't all in prison by the end of the trial is beyond me
There's no way OJ should have been convicted for that trial... not because he didn't do it (he definitely did), but the LAPD and LASD screwed his case up so hard that there was no option BUT to acquit him. That's how our justice system works, bc letting a criminal free is better than imprisoning an honest man (allegedly. ideally.) The fact that the state dept also set up a black man and a woman as the prosecutors and then failed them, horribly, is just another level of discrimination and disappointment. When a racist cop says "hey man maybe I shouldn't be there, this is not a good look for our investigation" and his CO doesn't listen you know the dipshittery goes all the way down.
The ESPN 30 for 30 on OJ is a masterpiece if anyone is clueless about OJ.
One of the best sports documentaries ever made!
100% agreed. Being from the UK (but just old enough at the time of the case to follow it in the media, which it dominated), I didn’t understand the fullness of who this man was and what he meant. That doc is a masterpiece and I’ve watched the full 8 hours of it at least 3 times. Simply one of the best pieces of media ever made.
I was an adult but the only thing I had watched was the “car chase.” I do remember the post-verdict. I was in college in a mostly white school and people were shocked. Now that I watch your video I wonder, knowing people as I do now, if white people were so upset with the verdict because (along with a Black man accused of killing a white woman) of all the things coming out about the LAPD’s racism. Because I don’t think any white people around me at the time believed it even after Rodney King video. You’re right about the 90s being just as wild as today. The US isn’t going backwards, we never even moved in the first place.
Now i want to imagine you as a black kid in the white school watching the rodney king verdict all together..that would have been quite an experiment..
When my grandfather was alive I would take him to the restaurant where the "OG's" would hang out and that is all they would talk about 20 years after the fact.
Lmao 😂
@@LoneWulf278 I died a little everytime I had to sit there and listen to the nonsense. Lol
I guess you have to reminisce about the past every now and then lol
@@victorybeginsinthegarden I’ve never had the full barber shop experience. I feel so blessed. 😭
@@LoneWulf278 oh no you are missing out on a lot. A lot of foolishness lol.
That "surprise" was the wildest shit I've ever seen in my life. lmfao
Rich and I think being an athlete. Athlete also provides a lot of privilege in this country.
Watched the entire trial (I'm 53). I still think it was a case of a rich person getting away with murder, and very little about race, despite the ethnicities of defendent and victims. The dude had money and he had a very good lawyer. You don't have to like Cochran to know he was on the ball.
No he got away with it explicitly because of his openly racist the people specifically the cops trying to prosecute him were they were recorded saying he liked setting up n words
That sorta was my take on it even back then. BUT! You also have to take into account the reasonable doubt aspect that had a lot to do with race, something that could have been maybe an open & shut case was tainted by an actual racist cop who felt the need to plant evidence. Just to make sure, now would he have planted evidence if the prime suspect was white? Maybe even probably. But once it comes out that this guy is in fact a racist & the suspect is black & the victims are white & you get the history of misconduct based on race involving this particular police department. Of course this type of thing likely wouldn't have came out with your average defendant regardless of race because the average defendant couldn't afford that legal team, especially Johnnie Cochran who was in the position of being a former prosecutor in that area & actually knew how they railroaded people especially folks who couldn't afford the type of defense that he could provide. Have you ever read Johnnie Cochran's book? Because this guy was a great attorney because honestly I thought that OJ was guilty even after the trial, but after reading Johnnie Cochran's book some years later & what all was going on even with the defense team, I honestly don't know if he did it or not. One thing that I can say that I do believe is that Johnnie Cochran was sincere in his defense of this man.
Little to do about race yet you had racist detectives who helped botch the whole case. This was proven in the trial you claim to have watched in it's entirety
@@shawngreetingsfromthesouth111 The cops did not plant evidence. OJ was buddies with cops. Fuhrman was a virulent racist, and he made the cops look even worse, but nobody planted anything.
@@shawngreetingsfromthesouth111the evidence was tampered with beyond belief.
Blood samples in particular.
The entire case collapsed essentially because of these things.
I genuinely don't know what happened that night, but it really ain't as presented by the prosecution....
OJ Made in America is a great Oscar winning documentary that goes through the evidence methodically.
OJ definitely did it, but the cops did plant evidence too. Such a murky case
They didn't plant any evidence though. The defence theorized they did to create reasonable doubt. There is absolutely no proof that evidence was planted.
There's absolutely no evidence of that. If you look you into the case, it's interesting to study the confluence of factors that lead to the outcome, the racial dynamics of the time, etc. But on the level of the case's facts, it's almost laughable to find the defense's DNA arguments compelling.
The cops were good friends with him. They absolutely botched the investigation, were completely irresponsible with evidence because that sort of incompetence was normal for them. In a way, they did get help get free. But not on purpose.
@@Elusive_Reclusive at least one cop got in legal/occupational trouble for planting evidence. Just a reminder.
@@carsonwall2400 There were at least 3 main instances where evidence was questioned, one where evidence was planted. He still did it, but there were overzealous cops that tried so hard to make a conviction that they messed it up. He got off. And this was part of it. Cry all you want. Your inability to digest nuance isn’t at all surprising but overall pathetic and tired.
Lmaoo I’m way too entertained by this perfect background music choice
I was in 8th grade when OJ’s wife was murdered. I grew up in LA county and in my circle of friends and family, outside of the most racist of family, were saying the opposite of what we saw in media. Meaning all my Black friends were saying he did it and was guilty and all my white friends and family were saying he’s innocent. I know that in subsequent years we’ve heard of these white people who were pissed by his acquittal but I just did see it in my personal life. I specifically remember my next door neighbor talking to my dad about him being afraid (my neighbor was a Black man and father of 5 kids) that him being afraid that the acquittal giving license to other men thinking they could kill someone’s child and get away with it. My dad was in shock that he as a white man and the neighbor as a Black man were on opposing opinions in a way that my dad had never experienced before
Holy hell the idea that there are people TOO YOUNG to know about OJ Simpson is throwing me for a loop. Like are Gen Alpha kids just never hearing about this? I never liked football or true crime, I was born in 2004, and I’m white, and I STILL cannot remember a time before I knew about OJ like what are these people teaching their kids?
You're literally 20 years old asking why middle and high schoolers don't know about an event that happened 15 years before they were born.
@@TheRealSly14Cat it was 10 years before I was born! Why should the last five years since it happened make more of a difference in public knowledge than the first decade? And I’m 19 thank you very much, the high school kids still know about the Juice, they’re at least Gen Z. I conceptually understand why preteens today wouldn’t know about the OJ Simpson trial, it just is freaking me out lol
I'm white and was born the same year as you and still never knew much about the OJ case aside from the fact that his trial was for murder and he got acquitted. People seldom talked about it. But if it matters, the city I live in is pretty white
I was just about to go HAM in these comments when you put the post narration in at 5:14 and stopped me lol. Ya boi Michael Harriet came through for you lol. I'm black and I'm old enough to VIVIDLY remember this trial. My pops recorded every single day of that trial on VHS. Every single day. I remember my pops commentary and discussion with his friends during the trial. NO ONE in our black cultural orbit thought or dare I say cared if, OJ was innocent. The spectacle was the exposing of the American justice system, for once, in full display of the entire white world. It was hella cathartic. I appreciate my pops for giving me perspective on it at that time. Living in that moment and appreciating the significance of it at the time was a very defining moment for me.
The revelation of the moment was that the foundation of America is classism. Racism is just a function of classism. We all know and knew this, of course, but it was PRICELESS seeing white America collectively realise it for the first time, in stunning 4k.
Well put. It took this white boy from the suburbs a VERY long time to understand that, but it did start to open my eyes.
It was 1994, so 480p tops, but your point is solid.
It also showed how little they cared about women, white, black or otherwise.
@@deathbird909 I dont think you could even get 480 if you didnt have those special laserdiscs or propriety vhs formats
Converted to a digital format a *high quality* VHS would be 320i iirc due to it being an interlaced format
@@eightcoins4401 You're probably right. I looked it up and DVDs (which were like, amazingly sharp compared to VHS) were up to 720p, but were usually 480p.
First off I fully agree it does feel like the end of an era and Oj was not a good dude. You brought up Jay-Z's ballad of Oj and I did see your joke on the timeline and laughed pretty hard because.....yea.
As a black woman....he is wild to me. I grew up with people making Oj jokes and then I hit young adulthood and I said let me figure this out, let me learn my history.
I learned all about his trial and then kinda was hearing about Rodney King...and I was like how do these things connect.
Run it back and a year before his trial to the La riots. I am not old enough to have lived as a poc during this time. I would have popped out shortly after.
And this is hard for me. Because Rodney King was no saint because humans are not perfect. He also did not deserve the disgusting beating he took at the hands of those cops and the bullshit show trial that got nowhere.
But another key part of those riots was money and a conflict between Korean store owners and Black people who saw them as... profiting off of black people as well while treating them the same way white store owners treated them while in the Black Neighborhoods.
A Korean store owner killed a young black woman in cold blood and the judge said she did not see a criminal she saw someone who made a mistake. The store owner shot the young woman because she THOUGHT she was stealing. This happened before the Rodney King verdict.
And then the Rodney King verdict popped the top on the pressurized container of race relations.
And... God. OJ getting acquitted was the most massive lucky over correction.
And personally... yea its rough. I am a woman and a black woman. He beat and terrorized Nicole. Murdered her and Ron. Got to not only get away with it but also got to drag her publicly by throwing all of her secrets on the stage. And Ron is hardly remembered, a footnote to his own murder. Because oj was rich and because he leaned on the black community and monopolized a rare flashpoint.
As an educated person who has consumed all this... yea I think you're right. It is the end of an era. And I'm hanging my head heavy because... fuck.
In the 1950s I believe there was a riot in the same area in California as the 90s riot. The press and certain people called the 2020 protests riots. They were not in my opinion.
But its just... I tell myself perhaps things will be different because we live in the technology age and because I have to be positive for the future generations of my family and because we do legitimately live in a time when racism EXISTS but is not ok/acceptable/palatable.
But then I think about Johnathan Majors and yea. Woah. Thats.... too much like Oj. And all the young women who are telling the cops they are being stalked and attacked and harrassed only to have to be murdered for anyone to take notice. Poc still can't trust the cops and despite how much it is preached that cops should police communities they come from because they will understand and give them more support staff to help them handle the situations in a tailored way and put the investigative unit for cops outside of the cops....
When is it going to happen though?
There was no murder weapon ever recovered from this crime. If OJ did it....what did he do with the murder weapon?
you people are NUTS!
Now I’m not a lawyer
But if a guy writes a book about how he would’ve committed a crime that he totally didn’t.
He did it.
I was always under the impression he walked in on the murder & an outside observer got the wrong idea
@@lyokianhitchhiker I can’t agree with that assessment at all
@@Cdr2002 I mean… that’s the most charitable explanation I can think of that allows for him to be innocent. Plus, the glove the murderer used didn’t fit. But how writing a book about how he would’ve done it means he did, I’ll never know. I took the fact that he wrote a book about how he would’ve done it as a way of mocking the actual guilty party instead of an indirect confession.
I tell my bf all the time that the black community wanted the OJ treatment for Tory Lanez too. It’s the whole underlying “we know he did it” but aloud we’ll say he didn’t because that’s a black man and “we dOnT wAnT tO sEe a BlAcK mAnE lOckEdt uP” ontop of “buT dA wHiTe mAne dId iT toO!” It’s like I get what you’re trying to say, but this isn’t the guy you pull the race card for. Wrongly accused people deserve celebration upon release not killers but I’m not even surprised anymore with this community. We praise the killers and ignore/ridicule the victims.
Facts
As a Gen Xer who was in my mid-teens during the trial, looking back on it now, it seems like a rare time when misogyny trumped racism. Because of patriarchy, fame/wealth, and also the LAPD just being demonstrably the worst.
The amount of people i seen defending this man is actually kinda wild
Edit: This includes a lot white people too which was is also extra odd to me
Oh my gosh yes, it's kinda freaky the consonant dissonance. Like they're so desperate to say he has to be innocent or that he "repented and did his time in jail". Bro even if he didn't kill those 2 people, he committed armed robbery AND kidnapping. Like? People gloss over the kidnapping, which is insane. Armed robbery happens daily and makes sense. Kidnapping is a deranged individual that will kill or SA somebody, point blank.
I understand where it comes from. But it’s hard to be patient sometimes.
There's several "big" TH-cam channels with white guys just defending OJ and Michael jackson, making that their whole platform. It's weird, idk what to make of it, feels not like the best intentions somewhere
@@christianandjesse7370 I've never heard of "consonant" dissonance so I'm assuming you meant cognitive dissonance. In any case, what's shocking to me is how (mostly white) people are so religiously committed to the "OJ did it narrative" that they completely ignore the loads of unresolved problems with the case against him. Also, Robbery and kidnapping? Talk about cognitive dissonance. Even most ardent "OJ did it" people admit that OJ going to jail for trying to "steal" his own property a total setup & revenge for the Not Guilty verdict in the murder trial.
@rickyandreou lol sorry that's the music term, which is kinda tied to the idea of cognitive dissonance. How opposing things create displeasure.
Dude I literalky said even if he didn't kill those 2 people, he did some wild and heinous shit after that so. Yeah. Like? He also wasn't found guilty for murder. So people thinking he is still guilty doesn't matter. There were a few missing things from the Casey Anthony trial, but she did that shit. Would you let her babysit Lol?
Like people who knew Oj before and after were like "yeah he probably did it". He wrote a book detailing how he'd do it, which lined up with how things played out lol. That's not what nice, friendly, non murderers do.
If a good person was accused of rape and had evidence against them of rape, it'd be wild to turn around and write a book saying "if I did rape somebody, this is how I would do it". Good people don't do that.
Intelexual Media’s recent video in the 90s covered the trial in detail highly recommend!
She's amazing
You should check out “OJ: Made in America” it’s a 30 for 30 series from 2016 that uses the OJ Simpson trial to explore race in the 20th century. It basically an oral history that traces a path from the great migration to the Watts Riots, the murders of Eula May Love and Latasha Harris, Rodney King, the LA uprising to the OJ Trial and helps lend a lot of historical and cultural context that led up to the eventual verdict. It’s a truly amazing cultural document.
'I Did It' by Cancer is a great read.
I was 17 and in my junior year of high school when the verdict came down. Our English class was put on pause while a TV was wheeled in. I was furious when all my black peers starting cheering and I couldn't bring myself to ask why. I just finished a re-watch of "OJ: Made in America" and one of his lawyers, Carl Douglas, bluntly said that had he been Mexican with a Latino jury, they (his lawyers) would have presented him in a sombrero and brought in a mariachi band (this was after a jury field trip to Simpson's house which was previously covered with pictures of white people). The theatrics from Johnny Cochran were just so condescending that I couldn't believe these were allowed in a court of law. I think back to the R. Kelly episode of the Boondocks and Huey's speech at the end. Many innocent black men have been accused and convicted in a system that was specially built to do so but OJ didn't fit into this category. Yes, the verdicts in the Rodney King and Latasha Harlins cases were completely unacceptable but finding this man not guilty just so that black people could get a win in LA is not something I could ever understand. Maybe that's the point
The fact they openly celebrate a guilty man should make you question all of the "innocent" stories they come out with.
Best joke Ive heard through this whole thing is from the Toronto Sun (I think)
"Somewhere prostate cancer is writing a book entitled 'if I did it'."
Btw, take it for what it's worth, but family knew people in LA. OJ was a horrid person for decades. Everyone knew he beat her and all of his romantic partners. I visited LA personally yeeeeeears later and during an event Al Cowlins came up to my GF, with me standing right there, and told her OJ wanted to meet her. So OJ could avoid accountability for it. That same evening another friend did "meet" him, got the sh!t beat out of herself, and the cops told her "grab your coat on the way out".
🤷🏻♂️
If there is a hell, OJ is in it.
Love the video. You're an inspiration to my household, and that ain't no BS. Just keep swimming ✊🏻
(subscribe to Nebula, y'all)
I'm about the same age as you, and the thing I took away from the trial most was that it was less about supporting OJ and more about seeing the LAPD lose one. ESPECIALLY after Rodney King.
I need a light novel with this title
Yess 😂😂
Something I’ve thought but never really looked into was the idea that the jury felt a lot of pressure to look the other way for the betterment of the community. “What’s gonna happen across the US if we find this guy guilty?” Had to have been a fear to a lot of people, right?
I know at 7:19 you said you found it "hard to believe the race-card helped OJ," but literal jurors from OJ's case have come forward and said they knew he was guilty but wanted payback for Rodney King which is why they sentenced OJ as "innocent." Happy to email you those sources (which includes video evidence of a juror admitting this) if you'd like. Now yes, the prosecution also seriously mishandled this case, but, it was still extremely obvious OJ was guilty despite all of that.
I'm also Black & tbh, I'm so disgusted with how OJ got off for a double-murder and it's deplorable to watch fellow Black people still celebrate/support OJ to this day. You should listen to the 911 call where Nicole called police bc OJ was beating the HELL out of her! The video of this call is on TH-cam and it's horrific.... OJ routinely assaulted Nicole in the same home their CHILDREN were in. Devastating.
Like no one cares you are "announcing your blackness". There are more black people that thought he did it as they matured into their adulthood.
The black community at the time was falling for the American dream which lead to things like the support of the ‘94 crime bill.
The excessive hype surrounding the case is what made it so extremely divisive. There was no reason for this case to be in the news every day for years. Every. Single. Day. It created an entire cottage industry with dedicated analysts and several books.
Why? Because this famous Black man who many believed was inoffensive and unthreatening was accused of brutally killing a white attractive blond woman. It seemed like a betrayal. They felt they gave him his fame and fortune only to be betrayed.
To me, it was simply a rich man getting the best justice money could buy. Mark Fuhrman’s involvement in the investigation didn’t help either.
My dad told me when I was a kid that the jury found him not guilty as a spite thing to the LAPD after the Rodney King riots
Add to that how terrible the cops handled the case. In my law classes we’ve looked at his trial as a what not to do
they may have... I mean they had/have a horrible reputation. They bumbled it and casually thought (likely bc of the culture of the dept) it would be fine
I confess i didn't know much about the O.J. trial, but now i understand who was the lawyer character from Seinfeld and who he was parodying.
Johnny Cochrane was something back in the day. "If the gloves don't fit, you must acquit"
You are spitting 100% facts sir. The system was on trial coming off the heels of the Rodney King beating and all 4 cops walked.
There was nothing he said that was factual.