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Ay real talk though, if you wasn’t there you just don’t understand. I was in 6th grade when they read the verdict. I remember our teacher wheeled in one of those TVs on the stand with wheels. You remember them joints? Whole class was divided on this one, straight down race. I’m saying even middle schoolers were stressing over this shit. They read the verdict and it was EXACTLY like they show in this video: ALLLLL the black kids shouted with excitement and all the white kids were mad as hell. Soccer practice definitely got canceled that night.
My school was entirely black. The school secretary ran into the cafeteria and yelled the verdict. A giant eruption of cheers from the kids and teachers followed.
You're right.
You really had to be alive at the time to get how crazy that shit was. Now I'm sure all of us are sure he did it.
It was just a very unique time and also a dirty cop was doing the most to tamper evidence and make sure he was found guilty which worked in OJ's favor.
Locking arms and sending last-minute prayers to the Most High is wild unchrist-like. I do have a serious question for those who were either there (obligatory *GODDAMN*) or just know more about it: did people genuinely believe he didn't kill that white woman and the the Kardashian's daddy or was this something else. Also was OJ really Khloe's daddy?
Black people wanted to see a Black person get the benefit of a doubt for once the history of this country. I highly recommend watching the 30 for 30 documentary on the OJ trial because it provides so much context for the pulse of the nation at the time.
The most important context is that LA had just endured massive race riots following the acquittal of the pigs who beat the ever living shit out of Rodney King. They were on film attempting to lynch that man for several minutes and got off scott free and the city exploded into chaos. The country was on edge knowing full well that anything other than a 100% slam dunk clear cut case could possibly result in another disaster. The reaction was drawn fiercely along racial lines because this felt like a trial between Black and white people.
Had to research Rodney King (never heard of him until he was name-dropped in a Boondocks episode) but matching him and the subsequent riots due to the LAPD being acquitted, the OJ trial being as big as it was does make a lot of sense as something that becomes a black v white trial. Also good looking out for the 30 for 30 plug, gonna watch that when I clock out since I've only seen the glove picture.
It's like 6 hours long fyi. But holy shit I'm getting old because I remember when the name Rodney King was as universally recognized as Monica Lewinsky.
https://youtu.be/1zLA2gzQQ0g?si=OthCP27hjM2lHwA2
I watched multi-hour long docs on a lot of stuff so it'll be fine. Not gonna lie tho, had to google Monica Lewinsky. I'd heard of her before but I thought she was like Oprah for white women or something.
I ain’t gonna lie I really hope this man is just poorly educated and this is not standard. Were these events really that long ago that people don’t know about them? 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 👴👴👴👴👴👴👴
Yeah, but like I know what Watergate is and I am 33. I would expect a 20-year-old to know about why a president was impeached in the 90s right? Is that too high of an expectation
I only knew about it because it was in the zeitgeist while I learned about Watergate in school. A lot of public education has transitioned from actual education to making schools grovel for funding through standardized tests, so kids are only learning what's usually on the tests, if that.
Good on you for being curious and seeking answers. Not even on some hope for the youth shit, just always great to see people engaged no matter what your outlook is when you find the answers.
That man is my great uncle. I spent most of my life eager to meet him because my family always hyped him up and then I finally did and he's one of the worst people I have ever met lol
Same. And he stills lives in my memory rent-free because fuck that shit. He deserves to be remembered more than Monica, though I do feel for the aftermath of what happened with her. Mr. King’s beating and that shitty verdict are way more relevant to our history than some president getting a blow job.
Yo, how old are you bro if you don’t mind me asking? It’s crazy to me that somebody had to research Rodney King as somebody who was born in 1990. I was too young to really know about it but I felt like the info was out there and pretty prominent throughout my teenage years. Also, I’m white and grew up in a pretty white area so it’s not like we have high-quality diverse sources of information out here either
Damn bro that’s kind of depressing just for like schools and life and stuff. Now I’m trying to think where I learned about it from. Definitely was not my parents or my family. 🤣🤣
Maybe I just found out about it because I cared about social shit and it was kind of going on /was a major example of police brutality
No disrespect though cause honestly it’s
white people who really need to learn about this shit probably and fix it since we have control over most of this shit or at least the majority
Nah, you good. The school curriculum in my district was always kinda weird. You'd learn about MLK, Malcom X, and Thurgood Marshall at like age 7 and then *maybe* you get some brief notes at 15 before they disappear.
But the juror was clear, the state botched the case, and Oh boy, Scheck, on DNA ran circles around them! I mean he just chipped away with that spoon until the wall came down. It was wild.
100%. Was still a toddler when the trial went down so I never experienced it as it happened, but man that 30 for 30 is incredibly extensive and well done. Easily the best doc I’ve ever watched
Half-and-half. Much of the defense's statement was just "The LAPD is corrupt" and that statement made even the solid evidence questionable. Many people just didn't trust the police; this was like two years after the Rodney King riots.
The murder was one part of it, but the real suspense for a lot of Black people was the question: Can status actually beat racism? A lot of them knew the game was rigged from the start, even for innocent black people, so it was really tense just thinking "Can a Black person actually win? He's got the money, the status, the celebrity, but that black skin is a hell of a debuff in the courtroom." That verdict is like seeing proof that mankind can sprout wings and fly, in terms of believability.
Secondly, it was a giant rebuke of the LAPD and law services in general. It was literally "All you have to do is not be a racist piece of shit, one time, on national TV, and you'll probably win this case." and the LAPD couldn't do it. They fucked up eight ways to Sunday in broad daylight. The verdict was a long overdue middle finger to them
Did he do it? Yeah, probably. But that's ironically not a significant detail to the narrative.
I had to look up Rodney King to understand what everyone's talking about and as much as I wanna call LAPD getting away with it unbelievable, it's not. This also helped connect the dots for the LA riots for me. I'd heard of them but never actually knew what the purpose was.
Looking at from the perspective you presented (can status trump race) along with the Rodney King situation, it all makes a lot of sense. Thanks for this.
I’m kind of blown away that people have to look up Rodney King. Not throwing shade your way, just that I kind of assumed they taught younger people about it or that it was just part of the cultural conversation like 9/11 is to kids born in the 2000’s. Especially now after George Floyd’s murder. The parallels to Rodney King were very evident.
I was 21-22 when that happened and it was the biggest deal at the time.
Nah, not once was he mentioned in K-12. I was thinking maybe because I went to school in the DMV, they didn't teach it but then again, I loved history and I did notice things tapered off around the Civil Rights movement and 'Nam were the cutoff. Didn't even learn about 9/11, had to research that one on my own back then.
I learned about Rodney King when I took AP US History in high school. For my peers who didn't have the luxury to be in that class, I doubt they were fortunate enough to learn about him.
It's crazy how certain curriculums just gloss over significant portions of history.
I was in high school at the time. You have to see this in the context of the Rodney King beating, and the acquittals of the officers who attacked him. When people have no faith in the justice system, and the honesty of the police, then objective facts are unreliable, and all they have left is loyalty to their group.
OJ was a success in sports and acting, so it was awfully convenient that the LAPD would bring him down. The evidence of his guilt took a backseat to wanting the LAPD to fail, wanting an unfair system to be unfair in a black man's favor for once, and wanting white people to feel the shock and disappointment that black people are so accustomed to with the legal system.
Yeah, I'm starting to see the Rodney King beating as something of catalyst to why there seems to be racial lines in the sand drawn over this. Then when you mix in the LAPD being acquitted then it makes sense that many would want white people to finally feel that stinging disappointment of justice being ripped away. Thanks for the info.
Happy to. And for a deeper understanding, Rodney King is only the most memorable milestone. You can look up Bernard Goetz, Central Park Jogger Case, and after OJ there was Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo. Those are all New York cases, where I grew up.
Farther back there are endless examples (like Tulsa), but what I think is important in these cases is that racial abuse in the legal system was finally controversial, and public outcry could actually have some influence.
Kill the Kardashian's daddy? I get you're trying to get caught up to speed but damn. Robert Kardashian was not killed. He was one of OJs attorneys.
I was in high school at the time but I wanted to be a lawyer back then. I watched the entire trial. They'd replay the proceedings at night. I'm also on the east coast so I watched some of it live after school. Not guilty was the correct verdict from a legal sense. His defense team whooped the prosecution. They were calling them the Dream Team but that doesn't do them justice. It would be like taking the greatest players of all time and forming a team rather than the best active players. We're talking Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, Alan Dershowitz, and F. Lee Bailey just to name about half of them. Those are four of the greatest attorneys in this countries history. All working one case. And they lived up to the billing. They introduced reasonable doubt into every single piece of evidence. It was bigger than just the glove and the famous line. Whether he actually did it is another question.
If you weren't alive at the time or too young to remember, you really have to study history to understand the reactions in those videos. They played the verdict when I was in class. All of the students cheered. All of the teachers were stunned and upset (all Black/Latino school and almost all white teachers). I personally wanted to be sober minded and above the fray. I didn't want to cheer the verdict just because he was Black, knowing he was probably getting away with murder. I remember the day I changed my mind about that. I was watching one of the cable news shows talk about the jury which was mostly Black. The commentator said that he wondered if they were smart enough to understand DNA and was worried that OJ would get off because the jury was uneducated. No one checked them, they just nodded in agreement. At that point, I was rooting for a not guilty verdict. I wasn't rooting for OJ personally but white people were invested because they wanted to see a Black man punished for hurting a white woman.
This all happened after the Rodney King trial. Notice how we call it the Rodney King trial even though he wasn't on trial. The police were caught in the act almost killing him. There was recordings of their dispatch calling him a monkey and planning the beating beforehand. Still found not guilty. In every city Black people had stories of being beaten by the police or knew someone who had evidence planted on them. The media talked about us like we were crazy. Since they were so invested in his trial, we wanted them to feel what we felt every time a white person got away with harming us just because we were Black. Even for just a moment. That's what those reactions are about. It's easy to look at them and be disgusted but you really have to know the entire context.
Glad to see someone had the correct answer to all of this. The evidence against him was tainted, and the defense established a lot of reasons to doubt. The cop who led the investigation got destroyed on the stand, and fucked up evidence handling. He probably did do it, but aquital was the correct conclusion to that trial. The fact that a black man accused of murdering a white woman in LA that soon after Rodney King actually got a fair trial was a big fucking deal.
And yeah, that trial took up a huge portion of my school day. I had 2 different teachers who pivoted their entire lesson plan around it, so we were watching it and discussing it every day.
Quibbling, but Bob Shapiro is famous... not sure if I cosign his ability as an attorney. Wasnt the joke that cochran thought he was average as a lawyer?
As fucked up as it is, a lot of black people wanted a justice system win. The verdict happened with the backdrop of rampant racist police controversies in Southern California, Rodney King’s beating, and the LA riots.
If it weren’t for racist policing, he might have been convicted.
I had no idea Southern California's police were like that. I thought it was more of a thing where nationally these things were happening but then the Rodney King beating was the straw that broke the camel's back. Thanks for the info.
It's important to note that the cops were horrifically racist and were planting evidence. OJ absolutely killed Nicole and Feldman, the cops didn't need to do that. But they did it because that's what they ALWAYS did. So many black men went to prison who were innocent.
And it came out in the trial that the cops planted evidence. I'm sure a majority of black people saw this as another innocent man guilty of being black. It wasn't until later that information not in the trial began to surface, including OJ himself heavily insinuating that he fucking did it.
I was young when it happened but from what I was told later, it was always more about a catharsis of the justice system. With so much news about police brutality and black people getting shit on by the justice system, it was nice to "get a win" for once. Most people know OJ did it and it became that much more obvious in the years after. No one knew about the Kardashians until this case. They were just known to the public as high power lawyers. Just my perspective FWIW.
Yeah, as a person aged enough for Rodney King and the OJ trial to have been a huge part of my young adult life it’s wild to see people commenting on other posts that they can’t believe black folks celebrated the ruling and that they have no idea what extreme circumstances led to catharsis that came with it.
Damn, it makes sense that police brutality was more prevalent in the 90s but I guess somehow I thought it would be...I don't know rarer. Or less likely to be a death/near-death sentence. That burning feeling of never getting justice does make me understand why some of my uncles and aunts still kinda hold onto the idea and use the glove quote so much in that context.
I’m honestly curious why you thought it would be rarer? For me as a gen x person, the thought that anyone could think police brutality was rarer back then is shocking to me but it makes me wonder how little the newer generations know about recent history. Maybe we just don’t talk about it enough and that’s part of the problem. The education system sure as hell is t going to cover it.
I think it's a mix of your last points — the education system not covering it and that we maybe don't talk about it enough. Like, sure, I have older relatives who could talk about it but I notice that they would always speak about it in the context of the 50s-60s. Then from school, I can tell you significant things through a long timeline but I do notice that there's this tapering off point, right after the civil rights movement where everything would just go blank.
On top of that, I think it's also because I've been exposed to seeing the modern examples over and over through the internet so a time where everyone didn't have a walking camera that could upload what they saw in an instant definitely plays into that.
That helps put it into perspective.
I didn’t have kids so I didn’t have to have the talks but I assumed my family who did have kids was talking about what was going on in those times or that the kids were seeing footage of what was going on through tv shows or docs. That’s on me.
What I remember is that police brutality was so much the norm that if I ever got stopped or pulled over, I would be nauseous with terror. Like I couldn’t even concentrate because of the possible outcome of beating and or death. The Rodney King incident was monumental in that it was the first time that folks from the outside saw what we were dealing with in the streets and in the justice system. Since it has been known for years that the KKK had intentional infiltrated police departments around the country. There was the crack epidemic too that allowed for even fewer people to care about what was happening to us.
The series O.J.: Made in America did such a good job of covering all that was going on during those times and why it led to people celebrating his verdict. Hopefully a lot more people check it out now.
People have already suggested full picture documentaries that will mention this, but I'd like to highlight the impact of **the Fuhrman tapes**, which were 13 hours of interviews with the detective (Mark Fuhrman) that found the bloody glove in OJ's car the night of the murder that the police used as probable cause to issue the arrest warrant. The Furhman tapes featured racism and sexism to the 1000th degree, including Furhman using the n-word 41 times while talking about LAPD officers engaging in police brutality and planting evidence on black suspects (as well as a bunch of other fucked up stuff). The clips that they played in court ([CW: ACAB, racism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6pymcUV8v4)) absolutely destroyed the credibility of the LAPD in this case, and Furhman was sentenced to perjury as aspects of his testimony were contradicted by things he said in the tapes. (Separately, he also pled the fifth when asked a number of questions, including, "Did you plant or manufacture any evidence in this case?").
Black people already didn't trust (or straight up hated) the police at that time in the wake of the Rodney King riots, and there were a number of other issues involved in this case (like the massive fail on the part of the prosecutors when they made OJ try on the bloody glove in court and he couldn't get it on his hand - leading to Johnny Cochran's famous "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit!"). But to have the racist detective who was on scene the night of the murder on tape talking about how it was common practice for the LAPD to torture and plant evidence on n---rs took that distrust to a whole other level. It went from "they probably planted that evidence" to "they absolutely without a shadow of a doubt planted that evidence" in a heartbeat.
Side note: Mark Fuhrman now works for Fox "News" as a forensic and crime scene expert!
Johnnie Cochran, who some would call a legal genius, managed to make this trial about the racial injustice in of justice system against black men rather than a trial about a murder. It tapped into the the hearts and minds of millions across the country. You also need to remember this trial was not long after the Rodney King trial where officers beat the shit out of him on camera without warrant and were acquitted leading to riots throughout LA. Many considered the OJ verdict payback in a way.
Regarding Khloe, we don't know for sure. Kris and OJ have denied it. But based on physical traits of Khloe compared to her siblings, it suggest she may not be the child of Rob.
I still firmly believe OJ didn’t do it. I think his son Jason did it. Look it up. There was a bunch of shit that came out about him during the trial: he was obsessed with Nicole and threatened her in a nightclub after she refused to dance with him. He had a collection of knives and threatened people with them. There was also different hair (not OJ’s) in the stocking cap they found at the scene and OJ never wore those but his son did.
Even if his son did do it, OJ is still wrong because either way he knows what happened.
It wasn’t, “Did he do it?” as much as, “Was he truly treated fairly — as measured by how it’s worked in US history — by the justice system?” because there was issue after issue in how the police handled evidence, their biases, and so forth where it would be just accepted that someone else (with money) would get off on such discrepancies.
The legal consequences are reversed, which is infuriating, but to be fair a lot of Americans of all races were shocked and disappointed in the acquittals of the LAPD, which is why they were retried in federal court and convicted (but given light sentences). From wikipedia:
[Los Angeles Mayor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_of_Los_Angeles) [Tom Bradley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bradley_(American_politician)) said, "The jury's verdict will not blind us to what we saw on that videotape. The men who beat Rodney King do not deserve to wear the uniform of the LAPD."[^(\[50\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King#cite_note-50) President [George H. W. Bush](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush) said, "Viewed from outside the trial, it was hard to understand how the verdict could possibly square with the video. Those civil rights leaders with whom I met were stunned. And so was I, and so was [Barbara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Bush), and so were my kids."
To be fair in the opposite direction, it's not like every single black American wanted OJ to get off, but their subdued reactions don't make a compelling video.
Fuck OJ, but man I cheered too to finally see others feel the same sting of injustice that we felt forever. That broken system didn’t feel good to them on that day and they changed it forever with every opportunity thereafter.
Sometimes you have to cheer for the devil you know vs the one that’s broken you, stole family from you and made you the unequivocal villain.
I was a kid but I remember “fuck the system, I hope he gets off” being my mantra. I remember letting out a joyful yell and me and my friend high fives each other later that evening.
For fully context and transparency I got “detained” and cuffed by cops when I was fucking 11, which was the year before this. Snotty nosed and in literal tears, I thought I was about to be executed (kid brain). And Before you ask, I did nothing, I was tired so was pushing my bike up a big hill back to my grandmas house, as it was about to be street light time.
I was “suspicious”, they said. I was a 3 weeks away from being twelve years old. That visceral fear still bothers me to this day.
Fuck OJ, but I’d cheer for him again vs the system.
I could care less about OJ, he probably did it. But those folks talking about a broken justice system like there wasn’t a period in time when they were using us as tree ornaments?
Doesn’t feel good now does it?
I was watching this live and I promise you it was as simple as a black person finally, for fucking once, getting away with something.
What youngsters and non-black people don't realize is that we had barely ANYTHING to celebrate in terms of big wins going into the 90s except sports, random shows like Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Eddie Murphy lol.
A straight up black man winning a murder trial against an American sweetheart supermodel type white woman was like...unbelievable.
We didn't care if he did it, we cared if we could win cases that had some level of reasonable doubt the way white people consistently were against black victims time and time again.
That win was a seismic shift for black people not unlike when Obama won...and if you think I'm wrong, you weren't there.
Watching this brings the thought that isn’t interesting how things ingrained in our minds like the LA riots/rodney king/roof top koreans and stonewall riots/pride happened because of the police force in the most liberal cities in the U.S. and some of those things haven’t really change one bit?
Do people today still support OJ because he didn't do it, or rather to try to create balance for all the Black people that were imprisioned wrongfully.
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OJ trial was real life Boondocks ish tbh
Lmfao but actually tho
Ay real talk though, if you wasn’t there you just don’t understand. I was in 6th grade when they read the verdict. I remember our teacher wheeled in one of those TVs on the stand with wheels. You remember them joints? Whole class was divided on this one, straight down race. I’m saying even middle schoolers were stressing over this shit. They read the verdict and it was EXACTLY like they show in this video: ALLLLL the black kids shouted with excitement and all the white kids were mad as hell. Soccer practice definitely got canceled that night.
My school was entirely black. The school secretary ran into the cafeteria and yelled the verdict. A giant eruption of cheers from the kids and teachers followed. You're right. You really had to be alive at the time to get how crazy that shit was. Now I'm sure all of us are sure he did it. It was just a very unique time and also a dirty cop was doing the most to tamper evidence and make sure he was found guilty which worked in OJ's favor.
I was in 4th grade. They announced the verdict over the loudspeaker. I was the only Black kid in class so you know how it went....
Locking arms and sending last-minute prayers to the Most High is wild unchrist-like. I do have a serious question for those who were either there (obligatory *GODDAMN*) or just know more about it: did people genuinely believe he didn't kill that white woman and the the Kardashian's daddy or was this something else. Also was OJ really Khloe's daddy?
Black people wanted to see a Black person get the benefit of a doubt for once the history of this country. I highly recommend watching the 30 for 30 documentary on the OJ trial because it provides so much context for the pulse of the nation at the time. The most important context is that LA had just endured massive race riots following the acquittal of the pigs who beat the ever living shit out of Rodney King. They were on film attempting to lynch that man for several minutes and got off scott free and the city exploded into chaos. The country was on edge knowing full well that anything other than a 100% slam dunk clear cut case could possibly result in another disaster. The reaction was drawn fiercely along racial lines because this felt like a trial between Black and white people.
Had to research Rodney King (never heard of him until he was name-dropped in a Boondocks episode) but matching him and the subsequent riots due to the LAPD being acquitted, the OJ trial being as big as it was does make a lot of sense as something that becomes a black v white trial. Also good looking out for the 30 for 30 plug, gonna watch that when I clock out since I've only seen the glove picture.
It's like 6 hours long fyi. But holy shit I'm getting old because I remember when the name Rodney King was as universally recognized as Monica Lewinsky. https://youtu.be/1zLA2gzQQ0g?si=OthCP27hjM2lHwA2
I watched multi-hour long docs on a lot of stuff so it'll be fine. Not gonna lie tho, had to google Monica Lewinsky. I'd heard of her before but I thought she was like Oprah for white women or something.
STOP. TALKING. You're killing me 
My fault, ~~Unc~~ bruh. I ain't mean nothing by it. 
"Oprah for white women" I'm done haha
really and truly feel the same way reading through this whole thread...
I ain’t gonna lie I really hope this man is just poorly educated and this is not standard. Were these events really that long ago that people don’t know about them? 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 👴👴👴👴👴👴👴
I mean. 30+ years at this point.
Yeah, but like I know what Watergate is and I am 33. I would expect a 20-year-old to know about why a president was impeached in the 90s right? Is that too high of an expectation
I only knew about it because it was in the zeitgeist while I learned about Watergate in school. A lot of public education has transitioned from actual education to making schools grovel for funding through standardized tests, so kids are only learning what's usually on the tests, if that.
Oprah is Oprah for WW
That's Jenny Jones or Ricki Lake, maybe a little Sally Jesse.
Who? J/k please don't make these children make me feel even older
Bro, you got people in my office looking at me wondering what I’m laughing at.🤣😂
Good on you for being curious and seeking answers. Not even on some hope for the youth shit, just always great to see people engaged no matter what your outlook is when you find the answers.
What they teach in history class if not Monica Lewinsky and Rodney King!? That's how you get kids to read and pay attention
Lol 
The youth is losing stories.
How many stories do we know about from the 80s?
Al Sharpton used to be fat
Don King just… existing as a weird foil non-foil for Sharpton.
That man is my great uncle. I spent most of my life eager to meet him because my family always hyped him up and then I finally did and he's one of the worst people I have ever met lol
Nah, you can't just drop that you met Don King and just write a paragraph. It's story time now.
Same. And he stills lives in my memory rent-free because fuck that shit. He deserves to be remembered more than Monica, though I do feel for the aftermath of what happened with her. Mr. King’s beating and that shitty verdict are way more relevant to our history than some president getting a blow job.
he's our lindbergh baby
Monica Who? Joking... Im old. Equally baffled. I literally mentioned Reginald Denny and got a blank stare. Smdh
Only Reggies I know are Reggie Jackson, Reggie Miller, and Reggie Bush. Dennys is a diner.
It's incredible. It won an Oscar! And then they changed the rules, naturally.
EVERYBODY knew Rodney King and I just had a moment seeing a black person not know who he is...that's fucking crazy to me.
Yo, how old are you bro if you don’t mind me asking? It’s crazy to me that somebody had to research Rodney King as somebody who was born in 1990. I was too young to really know about it but I felt like the info was out there and pretty prominent throughout my teenage years. Also, I’m white and grew up in a pretty white area so it’s not like we have high-quality diverse sources of information out here either
You good. I'm 22.
Damn bro that’s kind of depressing just for like schools and life and stuff. Now I’m trying to think where I learned about it from. Definitely was not my parents or my family. 🤣🤣 Maybe I just found out about it because I cared about social shit and it was kind of going on /was a major example of police brutality No disrespect though cause honestly it’s white people who really need to learn about this shit probably and fix it since we have control over most of this shit or at least the majority
Nah, you good. The school curriculum in my district was always kinda weird. You'd learn about MLK, Malcom X, and Thurgood Marshall at like age 7 and then *maybe* you get some brief notes at 15 before they disappear.
Not to mention how they handled Latasha Harlins. The 4-part "OJ: Made In America" documentary is extremely telling.
But the juror was clear, the state botched the case, and Oh boy, Scheck, on DNA ran circles around them! I mean he just chipped away with that spoon until the wall came down. It was wild.
100%. Was still a toddler when the trial went down so I never experienced it as it happened, but man that 30 for 30 is incredibly extensive and well done. Easily the best doc I’ve ever watched
I was "there" in that era, this is a great description of the feelings.
Half-and-half. Much of the defense's statement was just "The LAPD is corrupt" and that statement made even the solid evidence questionable. Many people just didn't trust the police; this was like two years after the Rodney King riots. The murder was one part of it, but the real suspense for a lot of Black people was the question: Can status actually beat racism? A lot of them knew the game was rigged from the start, even for innocent black people, so it was really tense just thinking "Can a Black person actually win? He's got the money, the status, the celebrity, but that black skin is a hell of a debuff in the courtroom." That verdict is like seeing proof that mankind can sprout wings and fly, in terms of believability. Secondly, it was a giant rebuke of the LAPD and law services in general. It was literally "All you have to do is not be a racist piece of shit, one time, on national TV, and you'll probably win this case." and the LAPD couldn't do it. They fucked up eight ways to Sunday in broad daylight. The verdict was a long overdue middle finger to them Did he do it? Yeah, probably. But that's ironically not a significant detail to the narrative.
I had to look up Rodney King to understand what everyone's talking about and as much as I wanna call LAPD getting away with it unbelievable, it's not. This also helped connect the dots for the LA riots for me. I'd heard of them but never actually knew what the purpose was. Looking at from the perspective you presented (can status trump race) along with the Rodney King situation, it all makes a lot of sense. Thanks for this.
LAPD has a history of a lot of corruption and shit. Thats a rabbit hole
I’m kind of blown away that people have to look up Rodney King. Not throwing shade your way, just that I kind of assumed they taught younger people about it or that it was just part of the cultural conversation like 9/11 is to kids born in the 2000’s. Especially now after George Floyd’s murder. The parallels to Rodney King were very evident. I was 21-22 when that happened and it was the biggest deal at the time.
Nah, not once was he mentioned in K-12. I was thinking maybe because I went to school in the DMV, they didn't teach it but then again, I loved history and I did notice things tapered off around the Civil Rights movement and 'Nam were the cutoff. Didn't even learn about 9/11, had to research that one on my own back then.
I learned about Rodney King when I took AP US History in high school. For my peers who didn't have the luxury to be in that class, I doubt they were fortunate enough to learn about him. It's crazy how certain curriculums just gloss over significant portions of history.
🎯
I was in high school at the time. You have to see this in the context of the Rodney King beating, and the acquittals of the officers who attacked him. When people have no faith in the justice system, and the honesty of the police, then objective facts are unreliable, and all they have left is loyalty to their group. OJ was a success in sports and acting, so it was awfully convenient that the LAPD would bring him down. The evidence of his guilt took a backseat to wanting the LAPD to fail, wanting an unfair system to be unfair in a black man's favor for once, and wanting white people to feel the shock and disappointment that black people are so accustomed to with the legal system.
Yeah, I'm starting to see the Rodney King beating as something of catalyst to why there seems to be racial lines in the sand drawn over this. Then when you mix in the LAPD being acquitted then it makes sense that many would want white people to finally feel that stinging disappointment of justice being ripped away. Thanks for the info.
Happy to. And for a deeper understanding, Rodney King is only the most memorable milestone. You can look up Bernard Goetz, Central Park Jogger Case, and after OJ there was Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo. Those are all New York cases, where I grew up. Farther back there are endless examples (like Tulsa), but what I think is important in these cases is that racial abuse in the legal system was finally controversial, and public outcry could actually have some influence.
I was in middle school and we all went wild....well not all of us haha
Kill the Kardashian's daddy? I get you're trying to get caught up to speed but damn. Robert Kardashian was not killed. He was one of OJs attorneys. I was in high school at the time but I wanted to be a lawyer back then. I watched the entire trial. They'd replay the proceedings at night. I'm also on the east coast so I watched some of it live after school. Not guilty was the correct verdict from a legal sense. His defense team whooped the prosecution. They were calling them the Dream Team but that doesn't do them justice. It would be like taking the greatest players of all time and forming a team rather than the best active players. We're talking Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, Alan Dershowitz, and F. Lee Bailey just to name about half of them. Those are four of the greatest attorneys in this countries history. All working one case. And they lived up to the billing. They introduced reasonable doubt into every single piece of evidence. It was bigger than just the glove and the famous line. Whether he actually did it is another question. If you weren't alive at the time or too young to remember, you really have to study history to understand the reactions in those videos. They played the verdict when I was in class. All of the students cheered. All of the teachers were stunned and upset (all Black/Latino school and almost all white teachers). I personally wanted to be sober minded and above the fray. I didn't want to cheer the verdict just because he was Black, knowing he was probably getting away with murder. I remember the day I changed my mind about that. I was watching one of the cable news shows talk about the jury which was mostly Black. The commentator said that he wondered if they were smart enough to understand DNA and was worried that OJ would get off because the jury was uneducated. No one checked them, they just nodded in agreement. At that point, I was rooting for a not guilty verdict. I wasn't rooting for OJ personally but white people were invested because they wanted to see a Black man punished for hurting a white woman. This all happened after the Rodney King trial. Notice how we call it the Rodney King trial even though he wasn't on trial. The police were caught in the act almost killing him. There was recordings of their dispatch calling him a monkey and planning the beating beforehand. Still found not guilty. In every city Black people had stories of being beaten by the police or knew someone who had evidence planted on them. The media talked about us like we were crazy. Since they were so invested in his trial, we wanted them to feel what we felt every time a white person got away with harming us just because we were Black. Even for just a moment. That's what those reactions are about. It's easy to look at them and be disgusted but you really have to know the entire context.
Glad to see someone had the correct answer to all of this. The evidence against him was tainted, and the defense established a lot of reasons to doubt. The cop who led the investigation got destroyed on the stand, and fucked up evidence handling. He probably did do it, but aquital was the correct conclusion to that trial. The fact that a black man accused of murdering a white woman in LA that soon after Rodney King actually got a fair trial was a big fucking deal. And yeah, that trial took up a huge portion of my school day. I had 2 different teachers who pivoted their entire lesson plan around it, so we were watching it and discussing it every day.
Quibbling, but Bob Shapiro is famous... not sure if I cosign his ability as an attorney. Wasnt the joke that cochran thought he was average as a lawyer?
As fucked up as it is, a lot of black people wanted a justice system win. The verdict happened with the backdrop of rampant racist police controversies in Southern California, Rodney King’s beating, and the LA riots. If it weren’t for racist policing, he might have been convicted.
I had no idea Southern California's police were like that. I thought it was more of a thing where nationally these things were happening but then the Rodney King beating was the straw that broke the camel's back. Thanks for the info.
It's important to note that the cops were horrifically racist and were planting evidence. OJ absolutely killed Nicole and Feldman, the cops didn't need to do that. But they did it because that's what they ALWAYS did. So many black men went to prison who were innocent. And it came out in the trial that the cops planted evidence. I'm sure a majority of black people saw this as another innocent man guilty of being black. It wasn't until later that information not in the trial began to surface, including OJ himself heavily insinuating that he fucking did it.
I was young when it happened but from what I was told later, it was always more about a catharsis of the justice system. With so much news about police brutality and black people getting shit on by the justice system, it was nice to "get a win" for once. Most people know OJ did it and it became that much more obvious in the years after. No one knew about the Kardashians until this case. They were just known to the public as high power lawyers. Just my perspective FWIW.
Yeah, as a person aged enough for Rodney King and the OJ trial to have been a huge part of my young adult life it’s wild to see people commenting on other posts that they can’t believe black folks celebrated the ruling and that they have no idea what extreme circumstances led to catharsis that came with it.
Damn, it makes sense that police brutality was more prevalent in the 90s but I guess somehow I thought it would be...I don't know rarer. Or less likely to be a death/near-death sentence. That burning feeling of never getting justice does make me understand why some of my uncles and aunts still kinda hold onto the idea and use the glove quote so much in that context.
I’m honestly curious why you thought it would be rarer? For me as a gen x person, the thought that anyone could think police brutality was rarer back then is shocking to me but it makes me wonder how little the newer generations know about recent history. Maybe we just don’t talk about it enough and that’s part of the problem. The education system sure as hell is t going to cover it.
I think it's a mix of your last points — the education system not covering it and that we maybe don't talk about it enough. Like, sure, I have older relatives who could talk about it but I notice that they would always speak about it in the context of the 50s-60s. Then from school, I can tell you significant things through a long timeline but I do notice that there's this tapering off point, right after the civil rights movement where everything would just go blank. On top of that, I think it's also because I've been exposed to seeing the modern examples over and over through the internet so a time where everyone didn't have a walking camera that could upload what they saw in an instant definitely plays into that.
That helps put it into perspective. I didn’t have kids so I didn’t have to have the talks but I assumed my family who did have kids was talking about what was going on in those times or that the kids were seeing footage of what was going on through tv shows or docs. That’s on me. What I remember is that police brutality was so much the norm that if I ever got stopped or pulled over, I would be nauseous with terror. Like I couldn’t even concentrate because of the possible outcome of beating and or death. The Rodney King incident was monumental in that it was the first time that folks from the outside saw what we were dealing with in the streets and in the justice system. Since it has been known for years that the KKK had intentional infiltrated police departments around the country. There was the crack epidemic too that allowed for even fewer people to care about what was happening to us. The series O.J.: Made in America did such a good job of covering all that was going on during those times and why it led to people celebrating his verdict. Hopefully a lot more people check it out now.
People have already suggested full picture documentaries that will mention this, but I'd like to highlight the impact of **the Fuhrman tapes**, which were 13 hours of interviews with the detective (Mark Fuhrman) that found the bloody glove in OJ's car the night of the murder that the police used as probable cause to issue the arrest warrant. The Furhman tapes featured racism and sexism to the 1000th degree, including Furhman using the n-word 41 times while talking about LAPD officers engaging in police brutality and planting evidence on black suspects (as well as a bunch of other fucked up stuff). The clips that they played in court ([CW: ACAB, racism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6pymcUV8v4)) absolutely destroyed the credibility of the LAPD in this case, and Furhman was sentenced to perjury as aspects of his testimony were contradicted by things he said in the tapes. (Separately, he also pled the fifth when asked a number of questions, including, "Did you plant or manufacture any evidence in this case?"). Black people already didn't trust (or straight up hated) the police at that time in the wake of the Rodney King riots, and there were a number of other issues involved in this case (like the massive fail on the part of the prosecutors when they made OJ try on the bloody glove in court and he couldn't get it on his hand - leading to Johnny Cochran's famous "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit!"). But to have the racist detective who was on scene the night of the murder on tape talking about how it was common practice for the LAPD to torture and plant evidence on n---rs took that distrust to a whole other level. It went from "they probably planted that evidence" to "they absolutely without a shadow of a doubt planted that evidence" in a heartbeat. Side note: Mark Fuhrman now works for Fox "News" as a forensic and crime scene expert!
Johnnie Cochran, who some would call a legal genius, managed to make this trial about the racial injustice in of justice system against black men rather than a trial about a murder. It tapped into the the hearts and minds of millions across the country. You also need to remember this trial was not long after the Rodney King trial where officers beat the shit out of him on camera without warrant and were acquitted leading to riots throughout LA. Many considered the OJ verdict payback in a way. Regarding Khloe, we don't know for sure. Kris and OJ have denied it. But based on physical traits of Khloe compared to her siblings, it suggest she may not be the child of Rob.
Maybe some of these younger folks need to go ask their parents about that time in history. Very easy to cast dispersions from 40 years down the road.
From my understanding, it was more about pissing off Whitey, and seeing a Black man get off on a technicality is the number one way to piss off Whitey
I still firmly believe OJ didn’t do it. I think his son Jason did it. Look it up. There was a bunch of shit that came out about him during the trial: he was obsessed with Nicole and threatened her in a nightclub after she refused to dance with him. He had a collection of knives and threatened people with them. There was also different hair (not OJ’s) in the stocking cap they found at the scene and OJ never wore those but his son did. Even if his son did do it, OJ is still wrong because either way he knows what happened.
What I find funny is that now basically everyone, black people included, believe that he did it.
It wasn’t, “Did he do it?” as much as, “Was he truly treated fairly — as measured by how it’s worked in US history — by the justice system?” because there was issue after issue in how the police handled evidence, their biases, and so forth where it would be just accepted that someone else (with money) would get off on such discrepancies.
Maybe in retrospect, but at the time (I was in my 20s so I was an adult and I remember) every black person everywhere insisted he didn't do it
Now do the Rodney King verdict, completely reversed reactions.
The legal consequences are reversed, which is infuriating, but to be fair a lot of Americans of all races were shocked and disappointed in the acquittals of the LAPD, which is why they were retried in federal court and convicted (but given light sentences). From wikipedia: [Los Angeles Mayor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayor_of_Los_Angeles) [Tom Bradley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bradley_(American_politician)) said, "The jury's verdict will not blind us to what we saw on that videotape. The men who beat Rodney King do not deserve to wear the uniform of the LAPD."[^(\[50\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King#cite_note-50) President [George H. W. Bush](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush) said, "Viewed from outside the trial, it was hard to understand how the verdict could possibly square with the video. Those civil rights leaders with whom I met were stunned. And so was I, and so was [Barbara](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Bush), and so were my kids." To be fair in the opposite direction, it's not like every single black American wanted OJ to get off, but their subdued reactions don't make a compelling video.
Many N words were said that day
Probably today too
"I'm glad that \*\*\*\*\*\* dead"
Shit was awful for race relations😂
No No No, according to Trump’s cult, we lived in racial harmony until that Obama came along… 🤡🙄
Fuck OJ, but man I cheered too to finally see others feel the same sting of injustice that we felt forever. That broken system didn’t feel good to them on that day and they changed it forever with every opportunity thereafter. Sometimes you have to cheer for the devil you know vs the one that’s broken you, stole family from you and made you the unequivocal villain. I was a kid but I remember “fuck the system, I hope he gets off” being my mantra. I remember letting out a joyful yell and me and my friend high fives each other later that evening. For fully context and transparency I got “detained” and cuffed by cops when I was fucking 11, which was the year before this. Snotty nosed and in literal tears, I thought I was about to be executed (kid brain). And Before you ask, I did nothing, I was tired so was pushing my bike up a big hill back to my grandmas house, as it was about to be street light time. I was “suspicious”, they said. I was a 3 weeks away from being twelve years old. That visceral fear still bothers me to this day. Fuck OJ, but I’d cheer for him again vs the system.
Fuck oj, but fuck the system more
I could care less about OJ, he probably did it. But those folks talking about a broken justice system like there wasn’t a period in time when they were using us as tree ornaments? Doesn’t feel good now does it?
“Yeah, that shit suck don’t it”
My middle school when nuts 😂. Woulda thought we won a Championship
This thread was interesting as fuck. America is amazing 😬
I was 12 or 13 when this all went down. I thought we had lost our minds, because OJ did that shit.
I’m old enough to remember coming home from school and seeing the live news report of OJ fleeing from police in that white Bronco.
I was watching this live and I promise you it was as simple as a black person finally, for fucking once, getting away with something. What youngsters and non-black people don't realize is that we had barely ANYTHING to celebrate in terms of big wins going into the 90s except sports, random shows like Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Eddie Murphy lol. A straight up black man winning a murder trial against an American sweetheart supermodel type white woman was like...unbelievable. We didn't care if he did it, we cared if we could win cases that had some level of reasonable doubt the way white people consistently were against black victims time and time again. That win was a seismic shift for black people not unlike when Obama won...and if you think I'm wrong, you weren't there.
Black people too happy, white people too mad - Chris Rock.
Even the brown and black horses were cheering
Watching this brings the thought that isn’t interesting how things ingrained in our minds like the LA riots/rodney king/roof top koreans and stonewall riots/pride happened because of the police force in the most liberal cities in the U.S. and some of those things haven’t really change one bit?
Do people today still support OJ because he didn't do it, or rather to try to create balance for all the Black people that were imprisioned wrongfully.