Multiple counts of kidnapping, conspiracy, ADW, burglary (with special circumstances), and robbery (with special circumstances)? He was sentenced to 33 years and out on parole in 9. That seems like a pretty fair sentence to me.
2 Likes
You know around 10 years ago I would have emphatically argued this point.
These days I think you are spot on.
The wool - has been lifted.
3 Likes
At one point I had the distinct impression that Fred Goldman was going to fuck with Simpson until one or both of them is dead…not sure whether that’s true anymore. But if Simpson thinks he’s going to get out and go straight to a reality TV contract and the talk show circuit…well, we’ll see what Fred does with that.
You gotta choose your battles, and I’ve had the whole “systemic racism that’s invisible to people of privilege” conversation just too many times recently.
For my own mental and spiritual well being, I have to constantly remind myself that it’s not my job to convince anyone that the reality which I and so many other people live in exists.
8 Likes
You’re correct. It would have absolutely made a difference. When a pretty white woman goes missing I hear about it from every news outlet, it becomes a national crisis.
Black women go missing all the time, and we don’t hear about it. Not just because of racism, but also because of the profit-driven nature of the media. They know that a significant portion of the approximately 76% of the US population are going to be glued to their goddamned televisions, phones, and computers generating all that sweet, sweet, ad revenue and it’s only gotten worse.
If Jon-Benet Ramsey died today, we’d have something like “The Jon-Benet Ramsey Report–brought to you by Coca Cola! Quench your thirst for justice, with an ice cold Coca Cola!”
The same goes for women the media doesn’t think are conventionally attractive or “relateable” enough. For instance, Natalee Halloway went missing on a trip to Aruba and it was a national crisis, there’s wikipedia page about it with over 200 sources and more material than lots of other more historically significant topics. Meanwhile, hundreds of conventionally attractive homeless women around the same age go missing all the time and they’re lucky if they show up at the bottom of those weekly bundles of paper advertising the postal service stuffs in your mailbox every week. The media says, “ew, homeless? Nobody really cares about that, let’s terrify people with completely inaccurate stories about illegal immigration instead.” Missing homeless people aren’t going to make Greta Van Sursteren and Nancy Grace millions of dollars, so they don’t get any coverage. (Not to mention the people who run their networks, and the people who plaster ads all over those networks.)
Worse yet is the law enforcement response. I mean, good god, Halloway had both the military and law enforcement searching for her around the clock. They deployed F-16s with FLiR cameras, helicopters, and people running over every square foot of Aruba with a fine-toothed comb.
It’s not that I’m trying to say that Halloway’s disappearance and presumed death isn’t important, I’m just asking where that level of response is when other people go missing? An F-16 costs an average of about $14k/hr to operate, why do we suddenly have all this money and manpower to search for this one person, but not for the hundreds of other people that go missing year after year?
It’s not just people in situations like homelessness that get ignored either. Just being lower middle-class or below is enough to get you ignored. In 2016 eight people from Pike county, Ohio–an entire family–was murdered seemingly in their sleep by unknown assailants with unknown motives. Those assailants not only murdered an entire family (in two separate homes), they killed their guard dogs, and removed the security cameras and recording devices the family had put up to protect their property. Three young children were spared. Sure, it got coverage, but only just. They were very poor, living in a poor county, in the middle of the foothills of Ohio, and to make matters worse, one of the younger sons had been growing and selling fairly insignificant amounts of marijuana to help keep the bills paid. It got coverage, but only just, and that coverage mainly emphasized the shock value, then went on to excuse it as “probably drug related” and moved on to more “pressing” matters. Here now a year later and there’s basically zero national coverage, and even local news coverage is still largely nonexistent.
If the situation was identical in every way except the Rhodens were wealthy and lived in big nice houses in the same place, the media would still probably be losing their minds over it. There’d be regular segments on news programs that would seize upon every new shred of evidence, every new rumor, grocery store tabloids would be following the legitimately heartbreaking struggle of the three children left alive. It would be called things like “America’s Tragedy” and it people would be raising millions to help fund the investigation.
So yeah, you’re absolutely right. Both race and class play a disgustingly disproportionate role in the amount of attention cases get both from the media and law enforcement. For fuck’s sake, I watched multiple cops murder multiple black men last year on camera and the vast majority of them got off with no punishment whatsoever, and when people had the audacity to complain about it, the movement was immediately labeled as racist against whites and potentially dangerous and prompted rallies in support of the goddamned cops. Do people not realize that cops have shit like tanks, body armor, and machine guns now? They don’t need support, everybody else does.
15 Likes
Yes, because he was a famous football player and actor. He was pretty present in popular media, even doing commercials and the like. I mean I had about zero interest in sports, never saw a game he played in, yet I knew who he was back then. If he had been convicted I think it would have largely been forgotten, but that trial had such a media circus around it. It was like the Kardashians before there were Kardashians. (Which, ironically, the trial was one of the first introductions of a Kadashians. I also heard on the radio he plans to write a book about the Kardashians, but that could be a rumor.) The acquittal and subsequent civil case verdict I think were two things that elevated the situation.
No, if he was Joe Schmo no one would care.
Would there still be the same level of interest if Nichole was black? Eh, possibly? Because, again, you had a really famous person, the theatrics of the trial and you had the Bronco chase scene, plus the tabloids. People ate it up. Just like I think the interest in the Cosby rape trial isn’t because hes black, but because it fundamentally changed the perception of a beloved media star.
This doesn’t mean that your main point about systemic racism doesn’t exist, nor that black on black crime is largely ignored, nor that black on white crime isn’t often over emphasized. All those things are true. But for every rule there is an exception and I think the OJ Simpson trial is one of those perfect storms where race is probably a factor, but not the main or only one. ETA - LAPDs handling of the case probably was affected by racism.
1 Like
Thank you. Good day to you, as well!
It’s at least double what anyone else would have gotten for something similar. You can say that he had it coming for everything else he’s done, but nobody really argues that this sentence was far outside the norm.
It’s almost like you didn’t even read the comment right above yours.
5 Likes
I didn’t; it was posted while I was writing mine.
And skimming through it, I acknowledged those points are real, but I still think him being a celebrity and the spectacle was the main reason for the attention it got.
That’s not what I addressed in your comment.
You poo-pooed the possibility that “the case would’ve generated the same level of interest if Nichole was black” as unlikely (and by implication, insignificant), thereby telling a black person that she’s probably delusional.
Which makes me think it’s you who must be delusional, since it’s pretty obvious that U.S. corporate media has long covered pretty white victims far more than other ones.
5 Likes
Thank you, especially for mentioning the whole attractiveness aspect on top of the victim being White.
Like the obsession over Jon Benet Ramsey; even though children of color go missing and get violently killed all the time in this country, there’s never nearly that much fuss made over those tragedies.
Then you just might be in denial, due your own privilege; sorry. (I know that must suck to hear even after you marginally acknowledged my points, but the bias is real… even among intrinsically good people.)
Celebrity was the lesser reason that crime and the following trial was such a spectacle.
5 Likes
What? 0_o??
You added a ton of baggage that wasn’t there. First of call, I said, “Eh, possibly?” That isn’t a firm “you’re wrong, I’m right”. It is open to the possibility to both options, and then I went into why I thought it still would have lead to people caring then and now.
I don’t know why you are throwing the word “delusional” in there. I never said @Melz2 was delusional. I don’t think she is delusional. And she may very well be right no one would care if Nichole had been black.
That too is a valid point, and the poster above me showed several examples. It is also a valid point that missing black people pretty much never make the news. It would have to be someone like Beyonce or Whitney Houston to make the radar. I acknowledged black on white crime gets a disproportionate spot light. I acknowledged that for the 99.9% of other occurrences the media wouldn’t have cared. I specifically acknowledged the systemic issues that affect the media are real and common.
My main point though was “But for every rule there is an exception and I think the OJ Simpson trial is one of those perfect storms” and I even tempered this with "where race is probably a factor, but not the main or only one. " Which acknowledges that race played SOME role in the media attention.
Like I said a bit above that, I think the reason it captures people’s interest was also that " it fundamentally changed the perception of a beloved media star." I remember I had some interest back when it happened because it seems to crazy that a famous football player/actor would kill two people with a knife.
Those of you in the San Diego area probably remember the difference between how the media treated Amber Dubois and Chelsea King. It’s hard to state the obvious without sounding insulting to one, but- both white, one was a “traditionally attractive” 17-year-old with a perky blonde ponytail, the other a slightly awkward looking 14-year-old. They were both raped and murdered the same, yet one got a lot more attention and now has an annual march after her. Guess which one.
Meanwhile, at the exact same time that was happening, the 20-something hispanic male who got his brains blown out 10 yards from our front door got the usual two sentence news blurb in the news and nothing else and was promptly forgotten (by the public; the family maintained a small shrine on the spot for about a year.)
These are the things that make me disgusted with humanity.
3 Likes
“Do you realise what you ask, do you realise what it means
To the small folk drawn into the pattern of fate, the small folk who live among small things
The strain on the brain of the small folk who stand
To the doom of their house, to the doom of their lord, to the doom of the world?” [Eliot- Murder in the Cathedral.]
Extraordinary people are needed to stand up for ordinary people, says Eliot, and the extraordinary people must try also to protect those who they accidentally involve in the pattern of history. Rosa Parks didn’t have to make that decision; MLK did.
I learnt about discrimination because I grew up on the border between progressive North London and racist Essex; I could literally ride my bicycle in an afternoon to National Front territory and home again. I confess my own prejudice; to this day I associate mugging and knives with working class white people despite being very white myself. I’m a professional coward, and I can hardly imagine what many black Britons have been through. I can’t expect other people to take a personally dangerous stand that I would not make myself.
And it shouldn’t be necessary.
4 Likes
If he’d killed a black woman and been convicted, yeah, there would be a lot less upset.
Just to refresh your memories, here are a couple of 9-1-1 calls from Nicole Simpson:
if he plays his cards right I think he would probably be the most qualified person for a Trump cabinet post.
1 Like
7 Likes
2 Likes
