In the spirit of him having died and the pure curiosity from someone who was not alive during this trial; why was there such a racial divide in the OJ trial? I’ve seen a bunch of photos of people reacting to the verdict when it came out and in a lot of them every white person is upset while every black person is happy.
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Centuries of racial injustice vs. I can’t believe the DA’s office/police force/forensics were so incompetent.
Same sort or problem as michael jackson or tiger woods or numerous black celebrities. A lot of black folks saw OJ as a cultural hero and inspiration being targeted by the white authoritarian oppressive state.
The prosecutors bungled the case of course, but you see with say Trump, prosecuting a celebrity with a following and money is harder than a normal person.
People aren’t stupid, whatever you think of the verdict, rich black people can commit crimes just like rich people of any race can, and everyone knows that. But no one wants to believe someone who is icon of their group has done horrible things, and convincing yourself they are innocent is easier the less obvious the evidence is. You and I might believe in DNA evidence for example, but if you don’t want to believe it, it’s easy to tell yourself someone faked the results.
Simpson was hugely popular in his younger days, because he was so good at his sport, and it’s really not much more than that. If you see yourself as belonging to the same social, racial, athletic, geographic, or whatever group as someone you don’t want to believe they are a brutally violent murderer.
Historically Black people have been treated very harshly and unfairly by the justice system while white people got away with slap on the wrists for thing that would get them a life sentence.
OJ getting a way with it was celebrated because a Black man, who had actually done something bad, managed to beat the system.
It was a weird taking your victories where you can find them, kind of thing.
Part of it was that one of the lead detectives, Mark Furhman, was painted as a racist by the defense lawyers. Several witnesses and recorded interviews backed this up. I think many people saw it as “the white man” trying to frame a black man for a murder.
The simple answer is: Because the defence lawyers did their job. The jury was majority afro-american, and the lawyers defense strategy was tailored towards that.
Hostile prosecution, planting of evidence, arguing that the police were racially motivated because the victim was white while the suspect was black etc. All of these arguments resonated with Black America at the time, a black america that was so used to the government actively trying to smear prominent black americans that they were quite willing to believe that this was just another case of that.
In the civil trial the prosecution was a lot better prepared at dismantling these arguments and prepping their expert witnesses.
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