O.J. Simpson acted as a transracial figure prior to June of 1994. Post–June 1994, he acted as a racially polarizing figure who did more to stoke resentments against African Americans than any other person.
Some African Americans, angered over the not guilty verdicts for the white policeman who clubbed Rodney King in the same city a few years earlier, regarded it as cosmic justice that Simpson got away with murdering two white people. Many whites wondered why some of their black countrymen hated them so much as to allow an obviously guilty murderer to walk, and others viscerally cheered such an unjust verdict. Some whites started to fantasize about something like this happening to the Juice.
The case pulled a mask off to reveal another inconvenient truth. We loved Bill Cosby and Jared from Subway once, too. Simpson possibly struck us as the first cautionary tale that the pixelated image sold to America differed profoundly from reality.
One cannot say O.J. Simpson started cable news’s 24-hour feeding frenzy. Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, that girl who fell into the well in Texas, and Joey Buttafuoco dragged us there first. But in doing that to the culture, after doing that to Ron and Nicole and before bequeathing us Keeping Up with the Kardashians, O.J. left a tabloid-and-trash-tv legacy that more than undid the stellar legacy he built on the gridiron and silver-screen prior to June of 1994. He helped make the 1990s the trashiest decade.
Rest in peace.
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