OJ’s trial goes beyond his innocence or guilt. His trial was racially charged and cannot be understood outside this context. I don’t think those who celebrated his acquittal believed in his innocence as much as they saw it a victory that a black man used his privilege and resources to escape justice the way so many white criminals had in the past. Not justice, but equality, American style.
For white America, it came as quite a shock that a rich black celebrity could leverage race tensions to escape accountability. This was such a singular event it resonates 30years later. If you’re black, you don’t need a long memory to see justice betrayed behind some racist bullshit.
I think a major factor was also that the police apparently tried to frame him. It’s unfortunate that this resulted in the jury not believing the actual evidence, but the blame lies with the police for that.
Yeah the absolutely botched detective work and diareagrd for crime scene discipline caused a total overhaul of how crime scenes are handled today. The first cops on scene treked through the blood and took vloddy footprints across the house before the detectives showed up to start gathering evidence.
If this opinion is indeed common, it is so fucked up. “Yes, he is criminal, but he is my race criminal, so I am glad that he could escape accountability because he is rich (while I am not)”. This seems to me just insane, or at very least deeply immoral.
it’s true that it was close to impossible for the jury to remain unaffected by the political situation in LA at the time.
But the police and prosecutors did such a bad job it was almost impossible to convict him beyond reasonable doubt. He was convicted easily in the civil case later.
While I totally agree that the rich (regardless of color) are not treated the same by our system of justice, he was so beyond all doubt guilty that it actually hurt the Black community. Whites and other peoples of color were disappointed that any person regardless of the tint of their skin was not held accountable for the obvious brutal murder of 2 people. And how sad that at this point we still make judgements based on how light or how dark a person’s skin is.
I think the folks who were happy to see him get off were more interested in the (not legal)indictment of the LAPD and admission of their corruption:
That was a good read, thanks for posting it.
Thanks for taking the time. He’s a great follow if you’re on Mastodon.
Question one, who the fuck thought this?
I find it weirder that so many people are so convinced he did it without knowing jack shit about the case. Feels like a lot of white rage carried down.
I do. I think his kid did it.
Think about this: he never killed anyone else. You think a murderer would be able to just one-and-done like that after getting away with it?
Clearly he was innocent all along.
You’re kidding right?
My logic is impeccable.
