Michael, it’s very clear that you either haven’t read to the end or just don’t get what I’m focused on in my piece. I’m talking about the mainstream media here. You keep harping on gender and race, when the 3/4 of the piece is devoted to the defense’s tactics and how, televised, they helped change standards of journalism.
Let me just say that some headlines made me smile yesterday, and this was at the top of the list. I feel the same about the story involving this guy. I was on a federal jury once (it's all it takes) and watched exactly what you are describing play out. I was the lone dissenter and made us all have to return to continue deliberations. That night I laid out all the facts on paper that we knew to be true to present to the others, and each and every one of the 11 jurors saw the light and thanked me. I do not hold juries in very high regard just from my one experience. Thank you for writing this.
These sentences should be cast in stone, should be spray painted on any rocket that alien life forces might read, should be memorized by school children everywhere to recite after the first morning bell: “The mainstream media of course didn’t discuss how pivotal the televised trial was as a key moment in the cultural dissolution of respect for fact, and the increasing dominance of repeated “narrative” and attention-grabbing “optics.”
One of my longtime collaborators, an American artist noted this at the time and made a brilliant durational performance piece. As a Canadian Insaw it as simply noise from the crack house south of us, as Robin Williams so eloquently said in jest.
Poor Ronald. He was just trying to do a nice thing by returning some sunglasses to a customer. He ended up fighting for his life and was nearly beheaded.
Once again your perspective and cultivated sense of history strikes a chord. So grateful to have your perpective countering the ongoing gas lighting of social media.
Thank you. So glad to have you as a regular reader, and very much appreciate your “likes.” (For the pieces of others I admire, too, as well as mine. We often like the same stacks.) Not everyone remember to do that, or realizes how important it is to the writer.
When this happened, I was home on leave from my US Navy station in Japan.
My mother told me about it, and my newsman instincts immediately said, "Where was O.J.?"
"Oh, no, he wasn't there. He was in Chicago at the time."
"Oh, yeah, sure," I said, with cynical disbelief.
I was right.
As the case became a circus, I was stunned by its increasing craziness...the cartoon characters, like Kato Kaelin...Hertz putting Al Cowlings in the driver's seat for a bizarre freeway chase...the Kardashian family suddenly becoming important...an overwhelmed Judge Lance Ito...late-night comic Jay Leno with "Marcia Clark and the Dancing Itos"...racist cops...angry lawyers writing post-trial memoirs...and something called Faye Resnick authoring "The Private Diary of a Life Interrupted," which described how she and Nicole Simpson went to nightspots without wearing panties to help get the point from men, how she seduced Nicole, attributing her wild sex life to growing up in an abusive Jehovah's Witness home, and finishing up with a photo spread in Playboy.
I feel like too much is made of a relatively simple miscarriage of justice. The Juice was wrongly acquitted by a mostly black jury as a reaction to the racism of the LAPD, as exemplified by Mark Fuhrman and Stacey Koon.
I am generally a radical individualist, but this is one of those few cases where I make an exception and say that Southern California deserved the unjust outcome as a penalty for the genuine brutal systematic (not to be confused with systemic) racism of the LAPD.
I almost agree. Except I wish that Southern California had gotten its comeuppance via a less privileged narcissist. Not exactly a great representative for the injustices of race. And the LAPD loved him!
I disagree. Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman were people. They counted. The jury didn't care about them because they were white, and they were pissed at the LAPD. The verdict was a combo middle finger and yawn to the victim's families.
"It's interesting when people die" ~ from Don Henley's song "Dirty Laundry" 1982
William Randolph Hearst almost started a war with his newspaper empire. At least his integrity was challenged by other news outlets back then. Now they all line up to the same trough to take a bite of the profits. Ronald Reagan's elimination of the Fairness Doctrine destroyed what was left of news media's moral principles. Whom can we trust now?
There are a couple of people in this conversation who seem to want me to explain how race and gender figured in to the Simpson trial. And because I’m not willing to squeeze what I’d take several weeks to discuss in a class into a comment, have accused me of evasion. Those who actually know my work know that I don’t go for simplistic explanations or reductive generalities. So when I respond that it’s too complex to go into in a thread like this, that’s AN ANSWER not an evasion. I spent decades of my life writing about gender and race. I’m not going to boil complex issues down to a bite-size chunk just because you have a bone to pick with feminists (or the kind of feminist you assume I am.)
No it did not generate “racial division.” It revealed one side of the division that was already there. It revealed some of the hatred and resentment millions of blacks felt towards white people and this country, and the pleasure they felt at being able to partake in a small gesture of payback. Also revealed who these feelings were much more powerful than any empathy they might have had for a rich white woman who was a victim of abuse and murder.
I could have made that clearer, sorry. I meant that Black people and white people had different responses to the verdict. I didn’t mean that the trial created the racial divisions that have been such a large a part of our country’s history.
It was so much more complicated than that. I certainly didn’t feel any kinship with Nicole, and I get why a largely Black jury would be suspicious of the racist police department. But the material evidence was overwhelming, and the defense exploited those suspicions shamelessly. I’m pretty sure she and I would have a different conversation today than we would have been able to have then.
As you don’t really know me or her, I don’t see how you can speculate about where she or I were coming from. I’m pretty sure, though, that she wouldn’t have described her reaction the way you do—not then or now. (I don’t want to start an argument about this. But adequately responding to you would take a whole other article about how race played into it all.)
I was making a general observation about the mistaken premise of Second Wave Feminism (2WF) a failed universalist creed that states that women have ties to one another that override blood ties. According to 2WF black women "should" have been loyal to Nicole, not OJ. They weren't.
Don't worry, I won't continue the argument here, it would be futile and I have my own 'Stack for that.
You seem inclined to generalize—e.g. “failed universalist creed” and “according to 2WF….”and “mistaken premise of 2WF.” Feminism, including the so-called “2nd wave” has never had one “creed.” I’ve been through all the “waves” and have taught and written about the history of feminism, and these generalities do not capture the realities. What you’ve described as a “universalist creed” was held by SOME feminists, but hardly all. You’re also forgetting that Black women were a part of the “second-wave,” too.
I'm not at all forgetting that black women were part of 2WF. I'm saying that when the rubber hit the road, they went with their kith & kin.
Yes, I am generalizing. I would prefer to say that I'm drilling down to the basic core truth--being radical. Which is what the radical 2WF's did. 2WFeminism wasn't about right, it was about identity.
Obviously you see it differently. But I think my theory is far more predictive of human behavior than yours.
I predicted that black women would side with their brother. I was right.
What it taught me was that the news primary goal is money. Sensationalist headlines no matter how dubious generate ratings. Sensational headlines confuse the public. Lots of people genuinely believed he was innocent. More people wanted him to be innocent because it fit the liberal narrative of racist police, systemic racism, institutional corruption, and the noble minority victim. When he was found 'Not Guilty' they all celebrated.
Overwhelmingly the white liberals I knew thought OJ was guilty and were disappointed that he was found not guilty in record time. They were shocked that blacks celebrated.
I have seen more 'troubling reality' in my 50 plus years than any man probably should. I have sat with sodomized 6 year olds and prepared them to testify. I have sat with an endless number of individuals who were raped and beaten for a video audience. I have sat with men who have had their genitalia nearly burnt off from connections to car batteries, men whose bones were bludgeoned to mash, and electrocuted on metal bed frames. I have seen babies dead from sepsis caused by indescribable filth or blown up in the arms of their fathers. I have seen - too much.
None of it really had anything to do with race or gender. That is where I think you are afraid. These people who suffered were simply in the way of the darkness that lurks in everyone. There was no 'Saving Gender Solidarity' nor any racial equality that would have made a difference for any of them. There was no Primal Scream. There is only blood, piss, shit, and then an awful silence.
I think that the reason Gender/Race is so popular among the LEFT in particular is because it tracks with the security that the world is predominantly filled with GOOD AND VIRTUE. And that if only we as a people/country/community/race/gender/ - were more virtuous than we would not suffer harm nor would others suffer harm. There is some validity in this. But it is not a broad general principle. The truth is that there is darkness out there and it may find you and it may not, regardless of your race, gender, nationality, age, whatever. And the two biggest indicators that you will become an agent of this violence is IQ and Family Structure.
Michael, stop insulting me. You insulted my phraseology and ideas in another comment and now you say things like this. Observe some boundaries or I block you.
Sorry - I didn't finish my last statement - my daughter needed put down for a nap.
I am trying hard, believe it or not, to understand what meaning you and the author of the essay believe is revealed by this trial - I truly am. In centuries past groups tried to assign physical/psychological traits to people based on a primacy of gender and race as the determining factor. All of that proved scientifically invalid. Now it has been revived by Post-Modern Theories of Power as being critical to assigning 'Victimhood' in power hierarchies. I just don't see much validity in these arguments as empirically valid and even if there were some validity to them I don't see any merit it utilizing them to define complex problems and craft real solutions. All that is being accomplished is to keep racism and sexism alive and well for those who wish to wield it as a weapon 'Against Opression' and those who just simply wish to 'Oppress'.
OJ was defended primarily by white men, Shapiro, F.Lee, Dershowitz, Scheck... they were all white. I've said this multiple times - the defense team would have spent months reviewing preparing with teams of experts regarding jurors with lower IQ's, who had a relative distrust of authority, who were predisposed not to trust the police, who would feel the least predisposed toward the victims. The venue was chosen as Downtown LA as opposed to the district where the crime occurred which would have been Santa Monica.
Each community has its own characteristics, problems, virtues and standards. Downtown LA was a community plagued with crime, violence, lower-income, lower education levels, more police interaction, more allegations of police misconduct. The single greatest action the Prosecution did to direct this case was to erroneously choose to hold the trial in this community and draw its jurors from this pool of people. This type of community is ideal for Defendants.
If you want a jury that is going to be attentive, engaged, rational to the extreme, and willing to sift tirelessly through complex evidence and scientific theories. You need to draw your jurors from a community that is well educated, largely law-abiding, exhibits high levels of conscientiousness, perseverance and emotional control.
None of these characteristics are inherently tied to race or gender.
The race and gender of these jurors is going to change based on the community I draw them from. But make no mistake - I need the jurors to have these characteristics, if they possess all of these characteristics and I have my choice between a man or woman, or a white person or minority, then and only then am I going to factor that into my decision to select them (Race and Gender tell you little about what a Juror will do).
The News organizations sensationalized this case and the storylines saturated the audience with so many red herrings and nonsense that most casual watchers had no idea whether he was guilty or not - they just had an emotional reaction to what they wanted. People in Downtown LA wanted to see the LAPD get humiliated. They thought of it as a way to express their frustration with the much of their community problems.
If you want to talk about the gender or race of these people celebrating what does that give you? What can you do with that? Does it tell you anything about black people everywhere in America? Does it tell you anything about men or women everywhere? - No It tells you about the relationship between specific communities, the education and IQ levels of certain communities, the police in those communities and the trust in community institutions.
I am not filled with outrage. I am just at a loss for what you are doing. Do I turn a blind eye? Maybe - I try to turn a blind eye to race and gender where it is not logically relevant to life. Individuals are an infinitely complex. whether they are white, black, male, female..... you are guaranteed very little in those distinctions. And I am left wondering if the reason these 'Gender/Race' studies are constantly inventing these pseudo-sciences to keep these distinctions a primal organizational principle simply because it provides them a 'Victimhood' power base from which to operate. Just like White Nationalists.
OJ was a lousy human being. He killed his wife and the man she was romantically involved with. This happens all the time. I don't care if OJ is black, or a woman - what he did was awful and punishable by law. The victims whether or black, white, man or woman would have fought, struggled and died like almost everyone, in a state of shock, confusion, horror and pain. There is no Primal Scream, there is just a whimper in the Abyss. No, 'Female Kinship' or lack thereof was going to change this crime or the outcome of the trial. And no amount of 'Gender/Racial Equality' was going to impact the IQ, Education, Scientific Understanding, Community Trust in those who celebrated the Acquittal.
Remember Aughrim Razor. All I hear from proponents of this Race/Gender Theory is: 'It's more complex than that' - over and over and over again. It isn't that complex. What that tells me is that there is very little relevance or empirical support for anything they are saying.
Since the dawn of time there have been good people who acted good. There are good people who occasionally act bad. There are bad people who occasionally act good. There are bad people who mostly act bad - And these people are always changing their thoughts and their ways of being. There are no broad Race/Gender principles to any of it.
The best lesson I ever learned while litigating criminal cases is NEVER search out motives when simple ignorance and stupidity are adequate explanations.
The Jury reached a 'Not-Guilty' verdict because they were not very bright and they were predisposed to react to all of the emotional triggers the Defense Team prepared. And the PROSECUTION lost its case before it ever even gave an opening statement because they chose a venue rife with people that possessed these characteristics from which to compose a jury.
What is there to learn from this? Maybe we need professional jurors? Maybe we needed smarter prosecutors in this case. Maybe we need to come to terms with the fact that IQ and Character play a profound role in peoples' thinking, infinitely more than trivial characteristics like race or gender.
And I'm trying to understand where you're coming from.
You have a daughter. Do you love her more than you love a little girl across the globe? I assume yes. Why?
Would you sell your daughter to Elon Musk for two billion dollars?
Think of the advantages...two billion dollars. Cash.
Of course not. You would kill for her. You would break the neck of anyone who would touch a hair on her head. Why, Michael, because she's better than the next little girl--or because she's YOUR little girl?
...
That OJ was defended by mostly white men is irrelevant to what I'm saying. They were doing a professional job.
...
Why did the defense team pack the jury with mostly black women?
I'm not defending pseudo-scientific race theories.
I'm simply saying that ethnicity is real. Ethnic groups are extended families. These blood ties, this phrase you mocked and jeered, are real.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm telling you they're real, like gravity is real.
I do not understand how you can deny this. All you seem to be able to do is spew word salad. Absolutely worthless.
...
One last thing then I'm done with you. October 7th hit me like a punch in the guts. Why? I'm Jewish. No other reason. Do not bother to tell me that it's because I'm this, that, or the other thing. The only reason was BLOOD.
this event...then Bush/Gore...then 911 seemingly dream-like with improbability flying ike an arrow shot from the quiver of those who for decades tore into fabric of the Liberal consensus zeoing in on the bullseye of our myopic madness: Trump
What does OJ Simpson have to do with Gender, Feminism, or Race for that matter? I am so tired of this nonsensical navel-gazing by fools thinking they see great wisdom in the tea leaves of race and gender. OJ Simpson was a bad guy (probably suffering from a personality disorder like Narcissism). It doesn't matter if he was white, black, or other. He killed a man and a woman in a jealous rage. Not really that uncommon except he was a Football star and he had the money to fool 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty.
Everything after that was just a groundswell of intersectionality proponents looking for meaning through their lens of race and gender which is neither helpful, factually accurate nor productive.
Justice was not served by his trial and anytime there is a miscarriage of justice there is a societal injury. None of it is related to misogyny, race or gender.
Police routinely IGNORED Nicole Brown's calls for help. On at least one occasion when they responded to a call at her house, they ended up asking OJ for his autograph! Her life might have been saved had they taken OJ's assaults on her seriously. This is absolutely a feminist issue, especially when a killer is still celebrated as a sports hero while his victims are barely acknowledged.
Michael, the people on the jury weren’t stupid. They thought sending a message about the racism of the LAPD and sticking it to whitey was so important that it was worth letting a man get away with murder.
But I do think that they believed the defense’s theory that evidence had been planted, which of course made sense to them in light of the racism of Fuhrman, etc. And they were skeptical of DNA, which hadn’t been explained properly to them by the prosecution, and which seemed liked “just a bunch of numbers” when put against our history of racism. I watched every moment of that trial and heard all the jurors’ post-verdict explanations and I don’t think they were convinced OJ was guilty. Black men had been railroaded too often in the past for the scientific evidence to carry weight against the evidence of history.
I think that this is where I am missing the boat. You all seem to think that there are these singular characteristics that can be extrapolated to general principles about groups. I disagree. I believe that a theme of underlying civil disobedience was a subtext of Cochran's defense strategy. That is Shapiro became so disgusted with Cochran and stated he would never work with him again. However this jury was also selected for IQ. The Defense would have made sure that the IQ level was relatively low and that they were not predisposed to respect for law enforcement. The Defense team would have also favored woman jurors to the extent that they could over male jurors. Then they would have begun the smoke and mirrors production that the media had so much fun covering.
I agree there is merit to the idea that that’s what they were doing. Also merit to the idea that they and millions of other black Americans who cheered them on felt that they were morally justified in doing this. They definitely felt good hearing the news. I learned so much that day about race in America and where most of the hate remained.
Like what? This is a country of 350 Million People. 17% of them are African American - roughly 50% are female. The trial was so sensationalized that most intelligent people were not sure if OJ was guilty. And - a large group of individuals celebrated when OJ was found 'Not Guilty'. What can be gleaned that is any way illuminating about the human condition?
I was right here watching - what is it that I am supposed to see? And please don't say 'Blood Ties' or 'Abstract Female bonds' - I can't keep take you seriously when you kick around ridiculous phrases like this.
"Blood ties" is hardly a ridiculous phrase. Presumably you care more about your kids than you do someone else's kids.
Good for OJ's defense team that you weren't selecting the jury. They were smart: they packed the jury with black women.
Black women saw in OJ every son, husband, and brother who had been abused by the criminal justice system. It aroused their maternal instincts. (Do you think that "maternal instincts" is a ridiculous phrase?) These were a proxy for blood ties.
Black women saw Nicole as the hated white blonde rival.
Sorry if you can't see beyond your nice little cocoon to see the reality of race and gender in the US but don't expect the rest of us to join you there.
As for "abstract female bonds" I did not use that phrase so do not attribute it to me in quotation marks. That said, I think you were referring to a notion that I specifically reject: the idea that women have abstract bonds with each other as women which will override the very real ties of blood. We do not, which is why Second Wave Feminism was a failure.
It did happen with Nicole! Not only that but Nicole was a wealthy woman with a network of wealthy friends and family. She was not in need of Social Services to provide her a shelter. She could have up and left for the 4 Seasons at any moment, or left for a safe spot with any of her posh friends. She chose to go back to that household and remain with that idiot.
Dr. Bordo - I have dealt with victims in every type of awful crime you can imagine. I have been lucky enough to often have had the support of 'Expert Psychologist and Psychiatrists' in these fields.
There are the very practical challenges that face victims who are in abusive relationships. They need a safe place to go, they need adequate medical care, they need sufficient financial support so that they remain independent from the abuser, they need counseling, they need social support to help them find jobs and a new safe residence at some point.
The psychology as to why people end up in these relationships is not so straight forward, it is multi-varied. It usually is a repeated pattern that they learned in child-hood from a parent in a similar relationship. But there is no one psychological condition that explains them all as an aggregate. Nor are any of these conditions specific to a particular gender or a particular race nor are any of them dependent upon misogyny.
Nicole was in an abusive relationship. She needed to get out of it. She did have the financial resources and the friend and family support to end her relationship with OJ and move on if she so desired. I understand that these victims have psychological barriers that have to be overcome for them to follow through with this plan - they all do, male victims, female victims, minority, white, they all go back to the abuser over, and over, and over, and over again. This is not a problem that is particular to a specific gender or race. The fact is this that people who keep going back have been programmed in some way to seek this relationship out.
There was some criticism of the police. This is also very common. When victims of abuse call the police they expect the Government to somehow step in and end the relationship for them. The victims feel they do not possess the courage to end the relationship or the steps seem embarrassing or humiliating because they may have to reveal the truth to others, or the specific facts of the relationship may be embarrassing - and they think the Police should somehow step in and relieve them of this individual responsibility and agency. The Police seldom are in a position to do this without the victim agreeing to press charges and/or cooperate in the prosecution.
Again, this is my understanding and experience in dealing with these cases. Dr. Bordo - you would not believe how many of these victims are men as well as women, they are black, they are white, they are Asian, they are young, they are old. So, I ask my question again - 'What does 'Gender', 'Race', 'Misogyny' have to do with the OJ Simpson trial? Because the victims I have seen in my career cannot be organized by gender, race, or sexual orientation.
OJ was an African American Male who killed a white woman and white man. What if anything is revealing about this in terms of Gender or Race?
Stop insulting me and just tell me the answers that your PHD and Book Writing afford you - you used it as a basic premise of the essay I took the time to read. Surely, the answer can be articulated in some form or fashion?
Perhaps if the author had begun with such an even-handed, fact-filled, non-aggressive comment as this one I might have been more inclined to continue the conversation. Instead, he flung insults at feminism from the very beginning, calling it a “smoke and mirrors” fantasy. In his very firsts comment he wrote “I am so tired of this nonsensical navel-gazing by fools thinking they see great wisdom in the tea leaves of race and gender.” What a lovely invitation to dialogue!! Now, having dumped scorn on my credentials he’s decided to call me “Dr. Bordo” (I’m sure said with a heavy dose of sarcasm) and changed his tone completely. I don’t know what this turnaround in tone is all about, but it’s giving me whiplash! (Those of you who read the whole series of exchanges will know what I mean!)
Again - I called you 'Dr. Bordo' after you stated your education. Prior to that I didn't know you were a 'Doctor'. Second, it is always a fundamental principle of rhetoric to assume the sincerity of the speaker.
Now I look at this response - I am still waiting for an answer to the only question raised: WHAT DOES GENDER, RACE, FEMINISM, MISOGYNY HAVE TO DO WITH THE OJ TRIAL?
You can insult me, you can discuss my tone - who cares? Regardless if it was asked more aggressively, or I use soft pillowy phrases for you the question remains the same.
BTW Your response is kind of creepy the way it is addressed to me but is only speaking about me to a larger imagined audience - weird.
Now - here we are after all of this pecking at the keyboard - Do you have an answer?
“Allow repetition to take the place of responsibility to fact, history, truth.”
Boom. There it is.
Yup. Boom. And thank you!
What TRUTH?!
Michael, it’s very clear that you either haven’t read to the end or just don’t get what I’m focused on in my piece. I’m talking about the mainstream media here. You keep harping on gender and race, when the 3/4 of the piece is devoted to the defense’s tactics and how, televised, they helped change standards of journalism.
Let me just say that some headlines made me smile yesterday, and this was at the top of the list. I feel the same about the story involving this guy. I was on a federal jury once (it's all it takes) and watched exactly what you are describing play out. I was the lone dissenter and made us all have to return to continue deliberations. That night I laid out all the facts on paper that we knew to be true to present to the others, and each and every one of the 11 jurors saw the light and thanked me. I do not hold juries in very high regard just from my one experience. Thank you for writing this.
I had exactly the same experience, but with a local case!
These sentences should be cast in stone, should be spray painted on any rocket that alien life forces might read, should be memorized by school children everywhere to recite after the first morning bell: “The mainstream media of course didn’t discuss how pivotal the televised trial was as a key moment in the cultural dissolution of respect for fact, and the increasing dominance of repeated “narrative” and attention-grabbing “optics.”
Thank you! Perhaps restack with this as a note? I’d love for others to see it, as for me it’s key.
With a Note that says 'We are all brainwashed and have mo idea what we are talking about - but it feels right'.
One of my longtime collaborators, an American artist noted this at the time and made a brilliant durational performance piece. As a Canadian Insaw it as simply noise from the crack house south of us, as Robin Williams so eloquently said in jest.
What a horrible story it was. I remember when I read about it. Poor Nicole.
She’s barely mentioned in the stories about her murder. Disappeared, while O.J. Remains “beloved.” Disgusting.
Since when are vicious murderers beloved? I see. The same media that labels a psychopath, a predator a "successful businessman."
Exactly.
A shame that the murderer is exonerated. At least in the public opinion. The successful businessman is a worse shame though. He is the worst.
Who likes OJ FFS - you people live in a fantasy world trying to bolster your victimhood.
She’s talking about TRUMP. If you don’t want to read my posts or other people’s comments closely, please stop commenting!
Sadly there is something wrong with you.
Poor Ron Goldman as well. In the wrong place at the wrong time, and probably trying to help.
Sure. Wrong place, wrong time. Either actively tried to help or he was a witness. The murderer wanted to get rid of him.
Wrong place wrong time? He was having sex with her!
Get your fact straight. Were you there that you are so well-informed?
By the way, we are talking about divorced people. Those who are free to do whatever they want.
Poor Ronald. He was just trying to do a nice thing by returning some sunglasses to a customer. He ended up fighting for his life and was nearly beheaded.
If only the murderer was punished.
Once again your perspective and cultivated sense of history strikes a chord. So grateful to have your perpective countering the ongoing gas lighting of social media.
Thank you. So glad to have you as a regular reader, and very much appreciate your “likes.” (For the pieces of others I admire, too, as well as mine. We often like the same stacks.) Not everyone remember to do that, or realizes how important it is to the writer.
When this happened, I was home on leave from my US Navy station in Japan.
My mother told me about it, and my newsman instincts immediately said, "Where was O.J.?"
"Oh, no, he wasn't there. He was in Chicago at the time."
"Oh, yeah, sure," I said, with cynical disbelief.
I was right.
As the case became a circus, I was stunned by its increasing craziness...the cartoon characters, like Kato Kaelin...Hertz putting Al Cowlings in the driver's seat for a bizarre freeway chase...the Kardashian family suddenly becoming important...an overwhelmed Judge Lance Ito...late-night comic Jay Leno with "Marcia Clark and the Dancing Itos"...racist cops...angry lawyers writing post-trial memoirs...and something called Faye Resnick authoring "The Private Diary of a Life Interrupted," which described how she and Nicole Simpson went to nightspots without wearing panties to help get the point from men, how she seduced Nicole, attributing her wild sex life to growing up in an abusive Jehovah's Witness home, and finishing up with a photo spread in Playboy.
You sure do bring it all back. I even read the Resnick book!!
I never read the book...how salacious was it?
Hard to remember. But I THINK it was actually not bad!
I'll have to find it.
I feel like too much is made of a relatively simple miscarriage of justice. The Juice was wrongly acquitted by a mostly black jury as a reaction to the racism of the LAPD, as exemplified by Mark Fuhrman and Stacey Koon.
I am generally a radical individualist, but this is one of those few cases where I make an exception and say that Southern California deserved the unjust outcome as a penalty for the genuine brutal systematic (not to be confused with systemic) racism of the LAPD.
I almost agree. Except I wish that Southern California had gotten its comeuppance via a less privileged narcissist. Not exactly a great representative for the injustices of race. And the LAPD loved him!
I disagree. Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman were people. They counted. The jury didn't care about them because they were white, and they were pissed at the LAPD. The verdict was a combo middle finger and yawn to the victim's families.
Doesn’t sound like disagreement to me.
🤮
The Simpson trial was a precursor to what has become commonplace. Political/social spectacles are big sellers.
"It's interesting when people die" ~ from Don Henley's song "Dirty Laundry" 1982
William Randolph Hearst almost started a war with his newspaper empire. At least his integrity was challenged by other news outlets back then. Now they all line up to the same trough to take a bite of the profits. Ronald Reagan's elimination of the Fairness Doctrine destroyed what was left of news media's moral principles. Whom can we trust now?
Each other! : )
With pleasure! Your work has been pivotal not only in my research but in my life.
8 x the police were called for domestic violence at that house.
There are a couple of people in this conversation who seem to want me to explain how race and gender figured in to the Simpson trial. And because I’m not willing to squeeze what I’d take several weeks to discuss in a class into a comment, have accused me of evasion. Those who actually know my work know that I don’t go for simplistic explanations or reductive generalities. So when I respond that it’s too complex to go into in a thread like this, that’s AN ANSWER not an evasion. I spent decades of my life writing about gender and race. I’m not going to boil complex issues down to a bite-size chunk just because you have a bone to pick with feminists (or the kind of feminist you assume I am.)
No it did not generate “racial division.” It revealed one side of the division that was already there. It revealed some of the hatred and resentment millions of blacks felt towards white people and this country, and the pleasure they felt at being able to partake in a small gesture of payback. Also revealed who these feelings were much more powerful than any empathy they might have had for a rich white woman who was a victim of abuse and murder.
Very well said.
I could have made that clearer, sorry. I meant that Black people and white people had different responses to the verdict. I didn’t mean that the trial created the racial divisions that have been such a large a part of our country’s history.
Didn't the black feminist who favored OJ (a "brother") teach you something about the primacy of blood ties over the abstract kinship between women?
It was so much more complicated than that. I certainly didn’t feel any kinship with Nicole, and I get why a largely Black jury would be suspicious of the racist police department. But the material evidence was overwhelming, and the defense exploited those suspicions shamelessly. I’m pretty sure she and I would have a different conversation today than we would have been able to have then.
How was her reaction more complicated than a primal scream of blood ties?
Her reaction today is irrelevant.
I understand that the prosecution botched it but that's not what I'm talking about.
As you don’t really know me or her, I don’t see how you can speculate about where she or I were coming from. I’m pretty sure, though, that she wouldn’t have described her reaction the way you do—not then or now. (I don’t want to start an argument about this. But adequately responding to you would take a whole other article about how race played into it all.)
I was making a general observation about the mistaken premise of Second Wave Feminism (2WF) a failed universalist creed that states that women have ties to one another that override blood ties. According to 2WF black women "should" have been loyal to Nicole, not OJ. They weren't.
Don't worry, I won't continue the argument here, it would be futile and I have my own 'Stack for that.
You seem inclined to generalize—e.g. “failed universalist creed” and “according to 2WF….”and “mistaken premise of 2WF.” Feminism, including the so-called “2nd wave” has never had one “creed.” I’ve been through all the “waves” and have taught and written about the history of feminism, and these generalities do not capture the realities. What you’ve described as a “universalist creed” was held by SOME feminists, but hardly all. You’re also forgetting that Black women were a part of the “second-wave,” too.
I'm not at all forgetting that black women were part of 2WF. I'm saying that when the rubber hit the road, they went with their kith & kin.
Yes, I am generalizing. I would prefer to say that I'm drilling down to the basic core truth--being radical. Which is what the radical 2WF's did. 2WFeminism wasn't about right, it was about identity.
Obviously you see it differently. But I think my theory is far more predictive of human behavior than yours.
I predicted that black women would side with their brother. I was right.
What it taught me was that the news primary goal is money. Sensationalist headlines no matter how dubious generate ratings. Sensational headlines confuse the public. Lots of people genuinely believed he was innocent. More people wanted him to be innocent because it fit the liberal narrative of racist police, systemic racism, institutional corruption, and the noble minority victim. When he was found 'Not Guilty' they all celebrated.
Overwhelmingly the white liberals I knew thought OJ was guilty and were disappointed that he was found not guilty in record time. They were shocked that blacks celebrated.
What I find most troubling about all of this is the constant referral to gender and race as a way to organize it. It's large irrelevant.
(edited)
You're "troubled" by reality so you reject it.
I have seen more 'troubling reality' in my 50 plus years than any man probably should. I have sat with sodomized 6 year olds and prepared them to testify. I have sat with an endless number of individuals who were raped and beaten for a video audience. I have sat with men who have had their genitalia nearly burnt off from connections to car batteries, men whose bones were bludgeoned to mash, and electrocuted on metal bed frames. I have seen babies dead from sepsis caused by indescribable filth or blown up in the arms of their fathers. I have seen - too much.
None of it really had anything to do with race or gender. That is where I think you are afraid. These people who suffered were simply in the way of the darkness that lurks in everyone. There was no 'Saving Gender Solidarity' nor any racial equality that would have made a difference for any of them. There was no Primal Scream. There is only blood, piss, shit, and then an awful silence.
I think that the reason Gender/Race is so popular among the LEFT in particular is because it tracks with the security that the world is predominantly filled with GOOD AND VIRTUE. And that if only we as a people/country/community/race/gender/ - were more virtuous than we would not suffer harm nor would others suffer harm. There is some validity in this. But it is not a broad general principle. The truth is that there is darkness out there and it may find you and it may not, regardless of your race, gender, nationality, age, whatever. And the two biggest indicators that you will become an agent of this violence is IQ and Family Structure.
"That is where I think you are afraid."
Michael, stop insulting me. You insulted my phraseology and ideas in another comment and now you say things like this. Observe some boundaries or I block you.
Sorry - I didn't finish my last statement - my daughter needed put down for a nap.
I am trying hard, believe it or not, to understand what meaning you and the author of the essay believe is revealed by this trial - I truly am. In centuries past groups tried to assign physical/psychological traits to people based on a primacy of gender and race as the determining factor. All of that proved scientifically invalid. Now it has been revived by Post-Modern Theories of Power as being critical to assigning 'Victimhood' in power hierarchies. I just don't see much validity in these arguments as empirically valid and even if there were some validity to them I don't see any merit it utilizing them to define complex problems and craft real solutions. All that is being accomplished is to keep racism and sexism alive and well for those who wish to wield it as a weapon 'Against Opression' and those who just simply wish to 'Oppress'.
OJ was defended primarily by white men, Shapiro, F.Lee, Dershowitz, Scheck... they were all white. I've said this multiple times - the defense team would have spent months reviewing preparing with teams of experts regarding jurors with lower IQ's, who had a relative distrust of authority, who were predisposed not to trust the police, who would feel the least predisposed toward the victims. The venue was chosen as Downtown LA as opposed to the district where the crime occurred which would have been Santa Monica.
Each community has its own characteristics, problems, virtues and standards. Downtown LA was a community plagued with crime, violence, lower-income, lower education levels, more police interaction, more allegations of police misconduct. The single greatest action the Prosecution did to direct this case was to erroneously choose to hold the trial in this community and draw its jurors from this pool of people. This type of community is ideal for Defendants.
If you want a jury that is going to be attentive, engaged, rational to the extreme, and willing to sift tirelessly through complex evidence and scientific theories. You need to draw your jurors from a community that is well educated, largely law-abiding, exhibits high levels of conscientiousness, perseverance and emotional control.
None of these characteristics are inherently tied to race or gender.
The race and gender of these jurors is going to change based on the community I draw them from. But make no mistake - I need the jurors to have these characteristics, if they possess all of these characteristics and I have my choice between a man or woman, or a white person or minority, then and only then am I going to factor that into my decision to select them (Race and Gender tell you little about what a Juror will do).
The News organizations sensationalized this case and the storylines saturated the audience with so many red herrings and nonsense that most casual watchers had no idea whether he was guilty or not - they just had an emotional reaction to what they wanted. People in Downtown LA wanted to see the LAPD get humiliated. They thought of it as a way to express their frustration with the much of their community problems.
If you want to talk about the gender or race of these people celebrating what does that give you? What can you do with that? Does it tell you anything about black people everywhere in America? Does it tell you anything about men or women everywhere? - No It tells you about the relationship between specific communities, the education and IQ levels of certain communities, the police in those communities and the trust in community institutions.
I am not filled with outrage. I am just at a loss for what you are doing. Do I turn a blind eye? Maybe - I try to turn a blind eye to race and gender where it is not logically relevant to life. Individuals are an infinitely complex. whether they are white, black, male, female..... you are guaranteed very little in those distinctions. And I am left wondering if the reason these 'Gender/Race' studies are constantly inventing these pseudo-sciences to keep these distinctions a primal organizational principle simply because it provides them a 'Victimhood' power base from which to operate. Just like White Nationalists.
OJ was a lousy human being. He killed his wife and the man she was romantically involved with. This happens all the time. I don't care if OJ is black, or a woman - what he did was awful and punishable by law. The victims whether or black, white, man or woman would have fought, struggled and died like almost everyone, in a state of shock, confusion, horror and pain. There is no Primal Scream, there is just a whimper in the Abyss. No, 'Female Kinship' or lack thereof was going to change this crime or the outcome of the trial. And no amount of 'Gender/Racial Equality' was going to impact the IQ, Education, Scientific Understanding, Community Trust in those who celebrated the Acquittal.
Remember Aughrim Razor. All I hear from proponents of this Race/Gender Theory is: 'It's more complex than that' - over and over and over again. It isn't that complex. What that tells me is that there is very little relevance or empirical support for anything they are saying.
Since the dawn of time there have been good people who acted good. There are good people who occasionally act bad. There are bad people who occasionally act good. There are bad people who mostly act bad - And these people are always changing their thoughts and their ways of being. There are no broad Race/Gender principles to any of it.
The best lesson I ever learned while litigating criminal cases is NEVER search out motives when simple ignorance and stupidity are adequate explanations.
The Jury reached a 'Not-Guilty' verdict because they were not very bright and they were predisposed to react to all of the emotional triggers the Defense Team prepared. And the PROSECUTION lost its case before it ever even gave an opening statement because they chose a venue rife with people that possessed these characteristics from which to compose a jury.
What is there to learn from this? Maybe we need professional jurors? Maybe we needed smarter prosecutors in this case. Maybe we need to come to terms with the fact that IQ and Character play a profound role in peoples' thinking, infinitely more than trivial characteristics like race or gender.
And I'm trying to understand where you're coming from.
You have a daughter. Do you love her more than you love a little girl across the globe? I assume yes. Why?
Would you sell your daughter to Elon Musk for two billion dollars?
Think of the advantages...two billion dollars. Cash.
Of course not. You would kill for her. You would break the neck of anyone who would touch a hair on her head. Why, Michael, because she's better than the next little girl--or because she's YOUR little girl?
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That OJ was defended by mostly white men is irrelevant to what I'm saying. They were doing a professional job.
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Why did the defense team pack the jury with mostly black women?
I'm not defending pseudo-scientific race theories.
I'm simply saying that ethnicity is real. Ethnic groups are extended families. These blood ties, this phrase you mocked and jeered, are real.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything. I'm telling you they're real, like gravity is real.
I do not understand how you can deny this. All you seem to be able to do is spew word salad. Absolutely worthless.
...
One last thing then I'm done with you. October 7th hit me like a punch in the guts. Why? I'm Jewish. No other reason. Do not bother to tell me that it's because I'm this, that, or the other thing. The only reason was BLOOD.
this event...then Bush/Gore...then 911 seemingly dream-like with improbability flying ike an arrow shot from the quiver of those who for decades tore into fabric of the Liberal consensus zeoing in on the bullseye of our myopic madness: Trump
What does OJ Simpson have to do with Gender, Feminism, or Race for that matter? I am so tired of this nonsensical navel-gazing by fools thinking they see great wisdom in the tea leaves of race and gender. OJ Simpson was a bad guy (probably suffering from a personality disorder like Narcissism). It doesn't matter if he was white, black, or other. He killed a man and a woman in a jealous rage. Not really that uncommon except he was a Football star and he had the money to fool 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty.
Everything after that was just a groundswell of intersectionality proponents looking for meaning through their lens of race and gender which is neither helpful, factually accurate nor productive.
Justice was not served by his trial and anytime there is a miscarriage of justice there is a societal injury. None of it is related to misogyny, race or gender.
Why do you so desperately need it to be?
Police routinely IGNORED Nicole Brown's calls for help. On at least one occasion when they responded to a call at her house, they ended up asking OJ for his autograph! Her life might have been saved had they taken OJ's assaults on her seriously. This is absolutely a feminist issue, especially when a killer is still celebrated as a sports hero while his victims are barely acknowledged.
Michael, the people on the jury weren’t stupid. They thought sending a message about the racism of the LAPD and sticking it to whitey was so important that it was worth letting a man get away with murder.
I agree that the jury wasn’t stupid.
But I do think that they believed the defense’s theory that evidence had been planted, which of course made sense to them in light of the racism of Fuhrman, etc. And they were skeptical of DNA, which hadn’t been explained properly to them by the prosecution, and which seemed liked “just a bunch of numbers” when put against our history of racism. I watched every moment of that trial and heard all the jurors’ post-verdict explanations and I don’t think they were convinced OJ was guilty. Black men had been railroaded too often in the past for the scientific evidence to carry weight against the evidence of history.
I think that this is where I am missing the boat. You all seem to think that there are these singular characteristics that can be extrapolated to general principles about groups. I disagree. I believe that a theme of underlying civil disobedience was a subtext of Cochran's defense strategy. That is Shapiro became so disgusted with Cochran and stated he would never work with him again. However this jury was also selected for IQ. The Defense would have made sure that the IQ level was relatively low and that they were not predisposed to respect for law enforcement. The Defense team would have also favored woman jurors to the extent that they could over male jurors. Then they would have begun the smoke and mirrors production that the media had so much fun covering.
They were dumb people. The Defense would have made sure the first screenings were for people with lower IQs.
Yes. I've read various scholarly articles that the jury verdict may have been an act of civil disobedience. I think there is some merit to this idea.
I agree there is merit to the idea that that’s what they were doing. Also merit to the idea that they and millions of other black Americans who cheered them on felt that they were morally justified in doing this. They definitely felt good hearing the news. I learned so much that day about race in America and where most of the hate remained.
Like what? This is a country of 350 Million People. 17% of them are African American - roughly 50% are female. The trial was so sensationalized that most intelligent people were not sure if OJ was guilty. And - a large group of individuals celebrated when OJ was found 'Not Guilty'. What can be gleaned that is any way illuminating about the human condition?
What planet are you living on?
Were you living in the United States or living anywhere at all during the OJ trial?
I was right here watching - what is it that I am supposed to see? And please don't say 'Blood Ties' or 'Abstract Female bonds' - I can't keep take you seriously when you kick around ridiculous phrases like this.
Then don't take me seriously.
"Blood ties" is hardly a ridiculous phrase. Presumably you care more about your kids than you do someone else's kids.
Good for OJ's defense team that you weren't selecting the jury. They were smart: they packed the jury with black women.
Black women saw in OJ every son, husband, and brother who had been abused by the criminal justice system. It aroused their maternal instincts. (Do you think that "maternal instincts" is a ridiculous phrase?) These were a proxy for blood ties.
Black women saw Nicole as the hated white blonde rival.
Sorry if you can't see beyond your nice little cocoon to see the reality of race and gender in the US but don't expect the rest of us to join you there.
As for "abstract female bonds" I did not use that phrase so do not attribute it to me in quotation marks. That said, I think you were referring to a notion that I specifically reject: the idea that women have abstract bonds with each other as women which will override the very real ties of blood. We do not, which is why Second Wave Feminism was a failure.
It did happen with Nicole! Not only that but Nicole was a wealthy woman with a network of wealthy friends and family. She was not in need of Social Services to provide her a shelter. She could have up and left for the 4 Seasons at any moment, or left for a safe spot with any of her posh friends. She chose to go back to that household and remain with that idiot.
This shows how very little you know about the psychology of domestic abuse. It has very little to do with whether one has financial resources or not.
Dr. Bordo - I have dealt with victims in every type of awful crime you can imagine. I have been lucky enough to often have had the support of 'Expert Psychologist and Psychiatrists' in these fields.
There are the very practical challenges that face victims who are in abusive relationships. They need a safe place to go, they need adequate medical care, they need sufficient financial support so that they remain independent from the abuser, they need counseling, they need social support to help them find jobs and a new safe residence at some point.
The psychology as to why people end up in these relationships is not so straight forward, it is multi-varied. It usually is a repeated pattern that they learned in child-hood from a parent in a similar relationship. But there is no one psychological condition that explains them all as an aggregate. Nor are any of these conditions specific to a particular gender or a particular race nor are any of them dependent upon misogyny.
Nicole was in an abusive relationship. She needed to get out of it. She did have the financial resources and the friend and family support to end her relationship with OJ and move on if she so desired. I understand that these victims have psychological barriers that have to be overcome for them to follow through with this plan - they all do, male victims, female victims, minority, white, they all go back to the abuser over, and over, and over, and over again. This is not a problem that is particular to a specific gender or race. The fact is this that people who keep going back have been programmed in some way to seek this relationship out.
There was some criticism of the police. This is also very common. When victims of abuse call the police they expect the Government to somehow step in and end the relationship for them. The victims feel they do not possess the courage to end the relationship or the steps seem embarrassing or humiliating because they may have to reveal the truth to others, or the specific facts of the relationship may be embarrassing - and they think the Police should somehow step in and relieve them of this individual responsibility and agency. The Police seldom are in a position to do this without the victim agreeing to press charges and/or cooperate in the prosecution.
Again, this is my understanding and experience in dealing with these cases. Dr. Bordo - you would not believe how many of these victims are men as well as women, they are black, they are white, they are Asian, they are young, they are old. So, I ask my question again - 'What does 'Gender', 'Race', 'Misogyny' have to do with the OJ Simpson trial? Because the victims I have seen in my career cannot be organized by gender, race, or sexual orientation.
OJ was an African American Male who killed a white woman and white man. What if anything is revealing about this in terms of Gender or Race?
Stop insulting me and just tell me the answers that your PHD and Book Writing afford you - you used it as a basic premise of the essay I took the time to read. Surely, the answer can be articulated in some form or fashion?
Perhaps if the author had begun with such an even-handed, fact-filled, non-aggressive comment as this one I might have been more inclined to continue the conversation. Instead, he flung insults at feminism from the very beginning, calling it a “smoke and mirrors” fantasy. In his very firsts comment he wrote “I am so tired of this nonsensical navel-gazing by fools thinking they see great wisdom in the tea leaves of race and gender.” What a lovely invitation to dialogue!! Now, having dumped scorn on my credentials he’s decided to call me “Dr. Bordo” (I’m sure said with a heavy dose of sarcasm) and changed his tone completely. I don’t know what this turnaround in tone is all about, but it’s giving me whiplash! (Those of you who read the whole series of exchanges will know what I mean!)
Again - I called you 'Dr. Bordo' after you stated your education. Prior to that I didn't know you were a 'Doctor'. Second, it is always a fundamental principle of rhetoric to assume the sincerity of the speaker.
Now I look at this response - I am still waiting for an answer to the only question raised: WHAT DOES GENDER, RACE, FEMINISM, MISOGYNY HAVE TO DO WITH THE OJ TRIAL?
You can insult me, you can discuss my tone - who cares? Regardless if it was asked more aggressively, or I use soft pillowy phrases for you the question remains the same.
BTW Your response is kind of creepy the way it is addressed to me but is only speaking about me to a larger imagined audience - weird.
Now - here we are after all of this pecking at the keyboard - Do you have an answer?