By Jordan Forrester
15 years ago today a jury of his peers found Orenthal James Simpson not guilty of murdering Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson. The verdict was televised around the world and rough estimates claim 91% of the U.S. televisions that were on at that moment were tuned in to witness the end of the longest trial in California history.
Folks crowded into electronics stores and work break rooms and held their collective breath. However, that collective split right down the middle as if standing on a racial tectonic plate once the verdict was read. Black people rejoiced; white folks stood stunned and the country realized that race wasn’t just the elephant in the room; it was a black cloud that never dissipated. On that day, it loomed like a menace.
Everyone painted their bigger picture and few of those included the victims. When a white person said, “OJ did it” it was hard to take at face value. The rejection of that idea was a combination of recognized, long-held prejudice mixed with shady prosecutorial assertions and a belief system that declared black boys guilty until proven innocent. The hurtful, hateful past merged with distrust bred in the present and it was not unusual to hear from black folks that prosecution was persecution simply because Simpson was a successful black man. But black folks in general were less concerned with Simpson’s guilt or innocence than they were with flipping off the man and laughing in his face now that a black man had finally bought his way out of a system that normally ate black men for breakfast.
The idea that truth, justice and integrity weren’t what black people in general had in mind when considering this case infuriated many white people, but that anger never appeared when a black person was getting the shaft. Innocent black men locked up for things they didn’t do, given life for things they didn’t do, executed for things they didn’t do never sparked the outrage that OJ allegedly getting away with murder did. It’s very hard to lobby for a legitimately, just court when that concept of justice is clouded by pain, prejudice and a dark history that left a blemish on jurisprudence in this country long ago.
It’s a sad and serious conundrum that engenders a whole bunch of finger pointing and questioning of mores and values in this country. That’s why the victims in the OJ Simpson trial were pushed to the back burner, as everyone took to standing on those Nicole and Ron Goldman’s backs to belt out their own opinions and agenda. Finding justice for them didn’t seem to be anyone’s goal. Putting the judicial system on trial was.
The court system in this country has been far from fair since its inception and will only be as perfect as the people involved. You should never expect complete impartiality if you can’t be impartial. Black and poor people have endured most of the bias involved in the system, but you can’t ask that system to stop putting innocent black people in jail if you have no problem with guilty folks going free. And everyone else finds themselves with no leg to stand on when outrage only surfaces if some black dude eludes the pen.
Did OJ do it? I don’t know, but it’s very distressing that the judicial system in this country is so wrapped in bias and malfeasance that few of us that stood in front of the television that day even cared. It’s been 15 years and most of us still don’t.
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To this day, I proclaim OJ’s innocence. I stand alone. For the most part, even black folk, shoot me down and say he did it. Yet, as you mentioned, are glad that he was found innocence. Look, I understand why. We have it rough at times. At the same time, I do believe that if he did it, he would have been found guilty. After all, he is a black man. It doesn’t take much. I know OJ had long money and with enough of it, you can buy your way out of everything. Yet, in a system at the time that it was, I think they could have found OJ guilty if there was enough compelling evidence to do so. The only shameful thing that I regret is that after winning an insurmountable battle vs. the law, he ends up in jail over nonsense. Now that, folks, he did do.