O.J. Simpson -tragic hero

 

O.J. Simpson had it all - a Football superstar and talented actors appearing on TV and in the movies.  He was a major influencer sought out by both advertisers and corporations.  He had the fame and life the life of the rich and famous. He had the money, the homes, the cars, and the fantasy that many Blacks could only dream about.  But it all came tumbling down as he was accused of murdering his wife.  Although acquitted, the image America and the Black community were left with was an angry, brutal, toxic Black male with a fetish for blond, white women.    This article will explore the stereotypes long associated with Black men in America and, in the process, demonstrate through Simpson’s tragic life what happens when one internalizes them.  

 

 

In many ways OJ was the stereotypical version of the  American dream of racial progress.  He was the testament to how far we had come to realizing Kings dream.  He was John Prentice (SidneyPoitier), coming to dinner.  Simpson was the great Black hope for all of us, he showed us how to run, jump, and make America ours.  And when the veil was withdrawn, America in shock " canceled him". 

 

Orenthal James Simpson, a cultural hero for millions of Black boys and girls, made football history as he went from a kid who could barely walk to a star football player at the University of Southern California in the 1960s.  He danced, he shimmied, he propelled the Trojans to national championship in 1967, then won the Heisman trophy for the best college football player in 1968.  He would go on from there to play 11 seasons in the NFL, nine with the Buffalo Bills and two with the San Francisco 49ers.  He played in five Pro Bows and became the first running back to rush over 2,000 yards in 1973.  Simpson then joined the group of professional football players who launched a second career in Hollywood.

 

The group, consisting of fullback Jim Brown in the 1960s and Carl Weathers in rocky.  Simpson would appear in the Roots mini-series, and two movies Towering Inferno and Capricorn One.  Before his career ended, OJ formed Orenthal Productions where he produced a number of t.v. movies. Starring them all, these included “Goldie and the Boxer, Cocaine and Blue Eyes and Detour to Terror.  His last film, Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad” pitted him in a comical duo with Leslie Nielson.  In all, O.J. stared in over 20 Hollywood movies.   None of these were particularly spectacular. 

 

From the movies he became a corporate pitchman, the most memorable with him running through the airports to get a Hertz Rent-a- Car.  Later he became a TV sports commentator.  BY 1992, O.J. Simpson had a net worth of $10l8 million and a monthly income of $55, 000.

 

O.J. Simpson had overcome all obstacles, even apparently being black as he remarked:

“I am not Black, I’m O.J. “

Then the dream became a nightmare in the summer of 1994, as his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman were found stabbed to death outside her condominium in Los Angeles. 

I recall watching with millions of Americans, the slow moving chase of O.J. driving his white Ford Bronco down the interstate, with O.J. Simpson holding a gun to his head.  This was just the beginning, as for 16-months, we watched nonstop events unfold in the Simpson murder trial.  A trial which would bare America’s racial polarization as he was acquitted.

The trial, following the brutal beating of Rodney King and the riots as the black community erupted.  O.J. was seen as the public face of the Black community, another Black person being brutalized by the racialized police system. 

Three civil rights giants would be launched during this trial.  The Reverend Al Sharpton and   Johnny Cochran.  In all the 16 months, none can forget the revelations of police misconduct, the inadequacies of the District Attorney, and most of all Jonny Cochran’s famous line regarding the bloody glove found at the scene “If glove don’t fit,  you must acquit”.    

The jury would go on to acquit Simpson, but that was only the beginning of his legal troubles.  The families of Brown and Goodman in 1997 won a liable suit in 1977 for the deaths and was ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages.  The trial also revealed years of domestic violence that his ex-wife endured.   No longer the hero, O.J. became the epitome of black, male toxicity”, America had put a black face on domestic violence, and that face was his.

And then, at the age of 61, Simpson was charged with armed robbery and other felonies and was sentenced to 33 years in prison. After serving 9 of these, he was released.  America had turned its back on its hero, he was effectively canceled until he died of cancer at the age of 76.