The O.J. Case: A Tale of Two Americas

Most who were around and aware enough recall exactly where they were and what they were doing on June 17, 1994. When that day started, I don’t think anyone knew how infamous the day would become. For other reasons than we may’ve thought, it became a historic day that changed American culture from that day forth.

I was less than a month from turning fourteen, and my parents and I were out and about doing things that day. My mom and I have always been big sports fans, so we were rushing back home to catch the NBA Finals. The Houston Rockets and Hakeem Olajuwan were playing against the New York Knicks and Patrick Ewing. It was a clash of all-time great big men; a clash of titans, if you will, in a Finals that was absent Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls for one of the few times that decade; Michael Jordan was temporarily retired at the time. It was almost undebatable that Olajuwan was the best player in the league for those couple of years that Jordan was out. The Knicks were one of the most popular teams, and Patrick Ewing was one of the most popular players. It was a marquee match-up in a Finals that was tied after four games, so my mom and me were anxious to get home and watch.

I remember dropping everything I’d brought into the house when we got back, and my mom and I rushing to the den where we watched TV to catch as much of the game as we could. Within minutes, my dad, who was rarely as enthused as we were about a sporting event, would join us to watch along; but, before we could get settled in to watch what we thought was the biggest event of the day together as a family, the NBC broadcast of the game was interrupted.

It was about halfway through a tightly contested second quarter when, abruptly, the image on the screen turned away from the game to show an aerial view of a white Ford Bronco steadily pacing down a highway. The three of us looked at each other in consternation before Tom Brokaw would tell us that the drama on the court was about to be diverted into a drama that was unfolding on a California freeway. O.J. Simpson was supposed to turn himself in to the police that day. Instead, he’d chosen to evade and lead law enforcement, and by extension, the media, and the American public on a stroll down Interstate 405. I’m fairly certain that by now we’re all aware of the charges that were brought against him. As we watched the low-speed chase and listened to Brokaw report, we all sat in disbelief, periodically glancing over at each other curiously as we were each implicitly saying to one another, “…can you believe this?”

Before this incident, O.J. Simpson was one of the most famous celebrities in the country. Like Michael Jordan, he was one of a small group of Black people in the Eighties and Nineties whose popularity and celebrity had transcended race. O.J. was an all-time great running back in every level of football he played, but by then, he was mostly known for acting, endorsing, and the job he had reporting for NBC sports; he mostly delivered sideline reporting. “Likable” was most of his persona, and his image was nearly spotless, by most accounts. This was evidenced by not only the job he had on TV, but by the number of products and companies he represented in commercials and ads. Very few Black people had risen to his level of celebrity then, and to get there and stay there for as long as he did, O.J. was about as close to race-neutral as a Black man could get during that time. He himself had even made a statement to the effect of “I’m not Black, I’m O.J.” Him confirming this feeling that was projected in his persona may’ve made him more appealing and less threatening to many, but it made the prevalent sentiment toward him in the Black community one that was far less than endearing.

To be honest, at the time of the chase, and beforehand, I didn’t even really think of O.J. as a Black man. I knew he was, but the image he projected, along with the celebrity and all the money made me look at him as one of the few Black figures who could evade the types of challenges the rest of us had to face. No one around me at that time ever referred to him as someone who should be highly regarded in that way either. During the course of the televised trial that would subsequently take place, no one in my immediate surroundings ever expressed a great deal of sympathy; I never saw an outwardly expressed shift in how anyone perceived him. I soon found out that a lot of people in the Black community had experienced or expressed a shift in their feelings toward him, however.

The O.J. case in general, the chase and subsequent trial, definitely altered the landscape of media coverage. Paparazzi-like coverage of celebrities existed before the O.J. chase, but it became much more pervasive after the way in which that chase was covered. Celebrity news was segmented off from hard, or legitimate news before then. After the chase, what was going on in the O.J. case became a central part of daily news broadcasts, thus normalizing in-depth coverage and reporting about the personal lives of big-name stars. Coverage of court trials featuring heinous charges and crimes was also already taking place before then, but none were nearly as big as the O.J. trial. After that, non-stop coverage and the televising of court trials generated more interest and attention, making them worth broadcasting publicly. A few years before this trial, Court TV, a network completely dedicated to court trial coverage and broadcasting, had been established, so of course, the O.J. trial was shown and could be watched in its entirety. A strong argument could even be made that the O.J. case was the most significant catalyst for ushering in the prominence of the twenty-four-hour news cycle that is the norm currently. All-day news channels like CNN reported on the story non-stop. Delivering content about this case drove ratings way up, so it was difficult to get through a day without seeing or hearing something about it.

All those parts of the situation were very evident, even then; a lot of things had changed. What I personally didn’t realize throughout all of this while it was going on, however, was that something else was brewing and developing across the country as people observed the trial play out. Before the verdict was announced, people were coming to their own, and where you fell on whether O.J. should be found guilty or not was largely based on race.

Most would say the day of the verdict announcement was just as infamous as the night the notorious chase occurred. It didn’t happen in prime time as the chase had, but it seemed as if the whole country stopped to observe it. If you were in a position to watch it or hear it, the chances were highly in favor of you choosing to do so.

The trial was nearly nine months long, and the verdict was announced on October 3, 1995; well over a year after the chase. The massive coverage and all the time between had everyone who was interested very anxious in the build-up to the moment, and at school where I was, the tension in the air was evident and growing more palpable as the day progressed. I was a sophomore in high school, and I can vividly recollect our teacher rolling the television to the front of the classroom so we could all watch. I didn’t really think this was going to happen at the time and didn’t really understand why we were allowed to watch, but now I think of this moment as an invaluable lesson in American civics.

Once the TV was set up and tuned to the appropriate channel, the chatter in the room started to pick up. I recall chatting with a friend sitting at the desk next to mine while we waited, and he’d expressed to me that he hoped O.J. got off. He asked what I wanted to happen and the only response I could think of giving was a shoulder shrug. I was a little taken aback, to be honest. Up to then, a not-guilty verdict hadn’t even crossed my mind. I thought he did it, and I wasn’t personally invested enough in O.J. as an individual to be bothered by what I thought was the likely outcome.

Before I could fully process what my friend had just said versus how I felt, my thoughts were startlingly interrupted by a multitude of people in the room all saying, “sshhh,” prompting us all to quiet down as the verdict was about to be announced. Immediately the room became completely quiet in anticipation.

I recall O.J. and all his lawyers standing to face the jury, and the camera focusing squarely on him as the verdict was read by one of the jurors. Soon the announcement would be made, something to the effect of “we find the defendant, Orenthal James Simpson not guilty…” As soon as the words “not guilty” were stated, the room erupted into an outburst of conflicting reactions. The friend sitting next to me yelled out “yes!” and waved his fists in joy. I sat in shock, I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard, but all the Black people in the room around me were cheering in glee while everyone else looked completely distraught. There were many more people in the classroom that weren’t Black, but the minority in the room, except for me, moved all around the room loudly in exuberance over what they’d just seen and heard announced. The rest of the room sat still, looking mortified and confused by it all. This was my first experience observing the two Americas that were existing in parallel, and unlike the other Black people present, I was a little embarrassed by and ashamed of the reaction. It took years for me to grasp why the reaction to that verdict played out the way it did, but I would come to understand.

What I grew to understand was that the Black people in that room, and the many across the county who had a similar reaction, were not actually cheering or rooting for O.J. Simpson the person. They were exuberant because a justice system that had unfairly worked against us and prosecuted Black people, especially Black men, for hundreds of years had finally and for once worked in our favor. O.J. wasn’t the most deserving recipient of any adulation; it wasn’t O.J. the individual that was the cause of the joy, however, but more so what O.J. represented. For any other Americans of any other race or ethnicity, especially Caucasians, that concept may’ve been a difficult one to grasp. The idea of the two Americas that a majority of the Black people who cheered experienced probably never occurred to them because it was never a part of their experience or existence, so it was almost impossible to understand why people would cheer for someone getting off who appeared so guilty.

I get it now though. One can’t expect a country with two different histories, and two distinct cultural experiences to have the same type of reaction to something of that magnitude; something so momentous and reflective of where we were as a people. Many outside of the Black community would most likely argue that it’s an idea, a non-fact, or even a figment of our imagination that doesn’t deserve to be acknowledged; but for much of the Black community, the O.J. case exemplified the fact that there had been two Americas up to that point, and for once, the other side had finally won.