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Why did we forgive OJ Simpson? America laughed its way through the injustice

(Credit by Steve Marcus-Pool/Getty Images)

(Credit by Steve Marcus-Pool/Getty Images)


April 19, 2024   5 mins

Hours after the news broke that OJ Simpson had died from cancer at the age of 76, I was sitting in a conference room, listening to an elevated but meandering discussion on the topic of forgiveness. Could absolution be empowering to those who bestowed it: a path to moral heroism? Or was it a relinquishing of power, of the favoured status conferred by victimhood? There was the question, too, of whether forgiveness could be cheapening — whether, for instance, there was a point at which forgiving a flagrant perpetrator of repeated harms was less an act of moral courage, than the mark of a rube.

One of the speakers, journalist Elizabeth Bruenig, recounted an incident that she described as the “perfect” act of forgiveness. Some 30 years ago, a woman was murdered. The killer was caught and convicted, and sentenced to death; she was also, remarkably, utterly unrepentant. She would express neither remorse nor regret. She would not even meet with the victim’s brother, who had intervened on her behalf to ensure that she would not be executed.

And yet, he forgave her anyway.

I suppose there is something perfect about that — in the same way that a perfect work of art or music can fill you with sadness and longing. To Bruenig, affording grace to a person who not only did not want forgiveness but was liable to throw it back in your face was an example of profound moral courage. I don’t disagree, but another, more cynical thought also occurred to me: what else was he going to do?

There’s a saying that I’ve seen printed on pillows and such, in those shops where they sell scented candles emblazoned with LIVE LAUGH LOVE: it reads, “Let go, or be dragged.” It’s trite, but it captures something about the price of holding a grudge — how the weight of an injustice can grow to become a greater burden than the original offence. That wound you refuse to allow to heal will fester, and deepen, until you’ve caused more damage through your scab-picking than the person who cut you in the first place. You may desire retribution, but you may also find it unavailable to you, and then what? The only thing left is forgiveness.

This was when I started thinking about OJ Simpson, who in some ways strikes me as a funhouse mirror version of the Bruenig’s unrepentant killer. The contours of OJ’s life after his acquittal for the 1992 killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, which he definitely committed, have been aptly described by Oliver Bateman as “posthumous” — that is, long before OJ’s actual death, to a certain segment of the public, he might as well have been. We wished he were. And his existence after the trial, per Bateman, made for “a striking modern-day reflection of how legacy and infamy intermingle in the digital age”. Insofar as OJ did have a life after getting away with murder, he owes it largely to the sense among members of Gen Z that history before the internet simply didn’t exist; the most sympathetic audience to Simpson’s comeback performance were always the ones too young to have actually seen its first or even second act.

“Perhaps it was precisely because of OJ’s utter irredeemability that any sort of redemption was possible.”

Those of us who do remember the trial, the car chase — or Simpson’s reputation for domestic violence — were less inclined to welcome him back into polite society. But even those who protested most vehemently against his reemergence could only do so for so long, before the whole endeavour seemed pointless, especially in the face of Simpson’s winking remorselessness. Remember, this was the man whose brilliant plan after being acquitted of murder was to confess to the killings by way of a six-figure deal for a book titled If I Did It. And if the title was a provocation, then the original jacket design — the I DID IT in eye-catching red, with the “IF” printed in letters so pale that it couldn’t be seen at a distance — elevated it to the level of farce.

The brazenness of it was such that, at the time, it seemed like the only option we had was to laugh it off or lose our minds. OJ’s acquittal despite his obvious guilt was no longer just a tragedy but a terrible joke — one we were all in on whether we liked it or not. And the question of whether he might be forgiven (not that he was asking for this) became inextricably entwined with the question of whether we could forgive ourselves for our inability to do anything about it — for a miscarriage of justice so complete that the only catharsis was to make it a recurring gag on Saturday Night Live. Imagine the relief when Simpson managed to get himself sent to prison anyway, this time on a robbery charge for which it hardly mattered if he was guilty or not. Nothing could undo the appalling error of his acquittal, but here, at least was a way to halfway correct it. The only problem, and nobody wanted to think about this part, was that he would eventually be let out again.

And then he was.

An uneasy dynamic has existed between the world and OJ in the seven years since his release. Unlike Mike Tyson, who finished serving a prison sentence for rape the same year OJ was acquitted of murder, and who has since found his footing in popular culture as a sort of lovable drunken uncle figure, OJ remained on the fringes of public life; he never won complete rehabilitation. But nor was he saddled with the baggage of a Bill Cosby, a Roman Polanski, or even a Woody Allen (nobody ever feels compelled, for instance, to issue a disclaimer about their distaste for OJ before professing an appreciation for Roots or The Naked Gun series, both of which featured him as an actor). I’m still trying to understand the calculus whereby one person is merely (and not even necessarily credibly) accused of a bad act against a woman and spends the rest of his life a pariah, while another, who most definitely killed two people, can make something of a public comeback in which his criminal past becomes part of his charm.

Or perhaps it was precisely because of OJ’s utter irredeemability that any sort of redemption was possible: that once someone has done the worst thing, even the slightest glimmer of humanity might feel encouraging. It’s a familiar trope in fiction, the monster you find reasons to root for. Hannibal Lecter, Dexter Morgan, Raskolnikov, Macbeth. These are bad men, they do bad things — but we know this only in the abstract, without any accompanying wound. These are bad men, they do bad things… but not to us, so maybe it’s sort of okay?

Of course, to the victims, it’s not okay. And while Simpson may have travelled a peculiar sort of redemption arc in the final years of his life, there is still a difference between rehabilitating one’s brand — something a person can do for himself — and forgiveness — which can only be bestowed by someone else. When we abandon hope of seeing justice done because we’re too tired, or too disgusted, that’s something, but it’s not forgiveness. Nor is it forgiveness when the people bestowing it upon you have no real sense of the harm you did. And whatever status Simpson enjoyed as an internet personality, he was never let off the hook by the families of his victims, who remained at once shattered and animated by his crimes. The most memorable statement on the day of OJ’s death was made by Ron Goldman’s father, Fred, who never stopped insisting on the necessity of justice long after the rest of the culture had made its uneasy peace with the murderer: “The hope for true accountability has ended,” he wrote.

It’s possible to imagine a world in which this remark was one of resignation, and also of relief; after more than 30 years, with his son’s murderer dead, surely nobody could blame Fred for letting go now. (Indeed, if you continue clinging to a remorseless killer after he himself has died, the question arises of which immortal realm you might end up being dragged to.) It’s also possible to imagine a world in which this could have become one of those perfectly imperfect moments of forgiveness, for lack of an alternative. But this is not the path forward that Goldman proposes. “[Despite] his death,” he wrote, “the mission continues; there’s always more to be done.”

In other words, when the hope for vengeance is lost, forgiveness is one possibility, but not the only one. Another sort of hope might takes its place, and with it, another sort of power: not the status of the permanent victim, or the self-satisfaction of the moral hero, but the purpose of the survivor.


Kat Rosenfield is an UnHerd columnist and co-host of the Feminine Chaos podcast. Her latest novel is You Must Remember This.

katrosenfield

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Bret Larson
Bret Larson
5 months ago

If he was looking for forgiveness he would have had to admitted to the crimes.

Arthur King
Arthur King
5 months ago

Christ will now judge him.

trevor david
trevor david
5 months ago
Reply to  Arthur King

Yeah Black Christ..isn’t that wonderful? Thanks Putin. You are the Best.

Right-Wing Hippie
Right-Wing Hippie
5 months ago

I don’t recall forgiving him.

Carlos Danger
Carlos Danger
5 months ago

Most white Americans didn’t. Most black Americans did.

Tony Price
Tony Price
5 months ago
Reply to  Carlos Danger

Do you have any proof of that, or is it just a racist statement?

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
5 months ago
Reply to  Tony Price

How is that “racist”? After his death, several prominent black opinionators said without apology that OJ was, of course, guilty, but his exoneration was revenge by “the black community” on white people. That, Sir, is racism.

Jim M
Jim M
5 months ago

Don’t live with white people. Or, are you a self-loathing white.

Darius Baker
Darius Baker
5 months ago

Thank you for making the stupidest statement online today. Your prize is having to look at the fool in the mirror for the rest of your life.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
5 months ago

Most legal experts said that the verdict of not guilty was because of “jury nullification” by the black jurors. This is because when a black man in the South was accused of the rape or murder of a white woman he was always found guilty (see: the Scotsboro Boys and Emmet Till). So in OJ.’s case the black jurors saved him because they couldn’t save the black men in the past. Sounds about right, because he was so obviously guilty.

Howard Ahmanson
Howard Ahmanson
5 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

And so it’s ironic that we are so now into “Believe the Woman.” And no one remembers To Kill a Mockingbird?

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
5 months ago

“revenge by “the black community” on white people”
Funny how with certain people, it’s never the “community ” when it comes to high crime rates, attacks on other ethnicities, absence of parenting and systemically low education levels.

trevor david
trevor david
5 months ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Come on Go Easy on White Community they are not responsible For All White peoples crimes against Humanity. The Caucazoid Neanderthal rapacious Greed and Bloodlust has nothing to do with Mankind’s misery and destruction of the planet.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
5 months ago
Reply to  Tony Price

It certainly jives with my recollection. Most of us just let it go, not wanting to get dragged into that pit. There had been a similar racial divide over Ms. Brawley’s story of a racial assault some years before. Nothing good came of talking about that case either. After (almost) touching that hot stove once we learned our lesson.
Nothing rascist about Carlos Danger’s observation.

Peter B
Peter B
5 months ago

Quite. Such an obvious miscarriage of justice. OJ being found innocent was rather like an umpire giving you “not out” when you’ve been clean bowled and it’s not a no ball. Think we can safely say that now he’s dead.

Martin M
Martin M
5 months ago

I saw a good internet meme yesterday. It had a picture of OJ with a caption saying “OJ can rest knowing that his wife’s killer is dead”.

Obadiah B Long
Obadiah B Long
5 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

He was a devil. Nicole Brown made a deal with the devil, enjoyed the benefits, then reneged on that deal (albeit with justifications), and it proved fatal. Not entirely unprecedented.

Jim M
Jim M
5 months ago
Reply to  Obadiah B Long

She should have killed him. His first wife, a black woman, divorced him.

Obadiah B Long
Obadiah B Long
5 months ago
Reply to  Jim M

She should have, but she lacked the passion. She just wanted the life.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
5 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

He didn’t do it. He was covering up for his son, the actual killer.

Davey M
Davey M
5 months ago

Absolutely love how Kat Rosenfield weaves a psycho-cultural narrative from landmark events or even from what can superficially appear to be celebrity trivia (that all the haters don’t seem to grasp when she writes about Taylor Swift).

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
5 months ago
Reply to  Davey M

Very much so, it’s a special ability she has and one which most comments seem to either be unaware of or to ignore in the pursuit of some other less complex narrative.

Dr E C
Dr E C
5 months ago

A hope for justice isn’t the same as a ‘hope for vengeance.’ And no one has the right to forgive a killer, rapist or other violent offender except the victim or victim’s family. Anything else is parasitic pretend-virtue to make the pretender feel good.

Andrew McDonald
Andrew McDonald
5 months ago
Reply to  Dr E C

Nobody but the state can forgive a violent offender, if I understand what you mean by ‘forgive’ correctly. The state is the guardian of the laws, not the offended person or their connections. Otherwise we are back to blood money and vendettas.

Jim M
Jim M
5 months ago

That may be an improvement over what we have today.

Jim M
Jim M
5 months ago
Reply to  Dr E C

You know that the Arabs enslaved and castrated more blacks than the whites ever did.

Darius Baker
Darius Baker
5 months ago
Reply to  Dr E C

Thanks for doubling down on the “two wrongs make a right” argument. It’s nonsense, but it probably makes the fool in your mirror smile at its cleverness.

Howard Ahmanson
Howard Ahmanson
5 months ago
Reply to  Dr E C

Most of us alive haven’t done those things, but we are happy to accept forgiveness on behalf of our ancestors, if it is offered!!

Andrew F
Andrew F
5 months ago
Reply to  Dr E C

You clearly have no knowledge of real history of Africa.
Slaves were traded well before Europeans even arrived in Africa.
Mostly to Arab slavers.
Europeans did not venture into interiors of Africa till mid 19th century, so after Britain abolished slavery.
So who sold slaves to European slavers to take them across Atlantic Ocean?
Other African tribes who captured them.
At least millions Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and sold into slavery.
I don’t see many Blacks in USA wanting to go back to Africa.
If Africa was not colonised and now benefited from European science, engineering and medicine what would it look like?
People in mud huts running away from lions throwing spears at each other?

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago
Reply to  Dr E C

Good job juries don’t forgive.

Martin Bollis
Martin Bollis
5 months ago

The grotesque miscarriage of justice that took place live on television screens all over the world was as big a crime. I have no interest in Simpson. I can’t remember his defence lawyer’s name but he is the unforgivable one.

Martin M
Martin M
5 months ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

I can’t remember his name either, but he came up with the “Chewbacca Defence”.

Peter B
Peter B
5 months ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Johnnie Cochran. Also dead, so you can say what you liike. And I agree – he was every bit as bad as OJ Simpson – effectively an accomplice to a crime.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

Exactly.

Cal RW
Cal RW
5 months ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

He actually had a legal team led by Johnnie Cochran. It included several famous (and infamous) lawyers. The team included F. Lee Baily, Alan Dershowitz, Robert Shapiro, Berry Scheck, and Robert Kardashian (yes that Kardashian – Kim Kardashian’s father).

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
5 months ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

Johnnie Chocran, Robert Shpario, Robert Khardasian were three of them (I’m not sure of the spelling for their names). There were one or two others. They were called The Dream Team.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

You can always google the spelling of anything while you’re in the process of writing, or after, and then edit the right spelling into your comment, should you choose to, that is. Having one’s own spell check is even easier.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago
Reply to  Martin Bollis

One wonders how those jurors feel today.

Jon Dawson
Jon Dawson
5 months ago

This rings true about the public mood. However I would not describe this as forgiveness. At least Christian conception of forgiveness is not resignation but an active decision not to make someone pay for the wrong they’ve done you and instead bearing the cost of the wrong oneself. It may be heroic but is based on a recognition that the same has been done for us by God in Christ. This conception is also not incompatible with hope and resolve for change.

AC Harper
AC Harper
5 months ago

There is desire for justice, vengeance, vendetta, forgiveness and indifference. Even the passive ‘lessons learned’.
Distance, whether geographical, temporal, or emotional, has a big effect in determining which feels the most appropriate at any time.

Dillon Eliassen
Dillon Eliassen
5 months ago

I think it was Fred Goldman’s pursuit of justice that helped to skew the public perception(s) of what justice was in this case, and who seemed deserving of it. I’m not trying to drag Fred Goldman here, but during the criminal trial and civil trial it was Fred who was most outspoken and fervent against O.J., but it wasn’t Ron Goldman who had been the victim of O.J.’s domestic abuse and there are no audio recordings of Ron begging for help from the LAPD for protection from O.J. We didn’t see Nicole Brown’s kids or other family members in the press demanding justice. Fred Goldman became a celebrity of sorts during the mid and late 90s.

M James
M James
5 months ago

I will say this, having observed a lot of the trial and the coverage around it. At no time did Fred Goldman ever appear performative, or utter anything even subtly contrived. His words, gestures and expressions were that of a genuinely emotionally distraught parent who had lost a loved one, and felt that a grave injustice was being done yet again to his son. And I will also add that not once did he show even the slightest hint of racism towards Simpson or the African-American community.

No one should ever have to go through that emotionally or psychologically, and he has my complete sympathy.

Jim M
Jim M
5 months ago
Reply to  M James

If Nicole Brown Simpson had been a racist, she would still be alive. Stick with your own people.

trevor david
trevor david
5 months ago
Reply to  M James

On a human level I believe everyone including Black People felt Fred Goldman’s pain. But this was much bigger than Fred Goldman. This was a case of a people being enslaved, raped, sodomized castrated and lynched and burned alive, terrorized, humiliated, disrespected for 500 years finally winning one against White Satan. I watched it at the time. To Black folks it was Releasing 500 years of pent up frustration and injustice. 500 years of All White Juries murdering our ancestors and kin folk. It was a giant release it was the moral arc of the Universe bending towards Poetic Justice for a long suffering people. Seemingly even our enslaved ancestors thrown over board laying in their dark cold graves at the bottom of the Atlantic was rejoicing. The White Demons finally got a taste of their own medicine and there comeuppance. We saw October 7 in Gaza when the Concentration camps inmates busted out for a minute. They know there would be hell to pay but for a shinning moment they were men not mouse. They were Alive. This is what happens when you enslave, terrorized and crush a people into the dirt for generations after generations. It’s had nothing to do with Fred Goldman that day. Hopefully he understands .

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago
Reply to  trevor david

But he had nothing to do with what happened 500 years ago and he’s a jew so what about the holocaust and his people When and how will he get his justice? And since the topic is about forgiveness you’re saying that, apparently, blacks haven’t forgiven, and the Fred Goldmans of this world will still have to go on paying. Will the t*t-for-tat ever end?

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago
Reply to  M James

Absolutely. He must have wanted to have OJ assassinated. What father wouldn’t?

M James
M James
5 months ago
Reply to  Clare Knight

I won’t claim to know his thoughts, but recollecting it, I’m not sure that he would have wanted that. More like lifetime imprisonment. And though I’m not projecting onto him, I would not want the death penalty if I were him. A lifetime of imprisonment, with the opportunity to feel remorse, repent, and even atone, would be better justice.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago

And so your point is?

Laura Creighton
Laura Creighton
5 months ago

re: You may desire retribution, but you may also find it unavailable to you, and then what? The only thing left is forgiveness.
This is completely wrong. You can abandon your desire for retribution – or never have had one in the first place — while still never forgiving the person guilty of the transgression. If you equate ‘giving up on your grudge’ with forgiveness you undermine the idea of genuine forgiveness which is a much harder thing to do.

Howard Ahmanson
Howard Ahmanson
5 months ago

No, “giving up your grudge” IS forgiveness. A decreasingly Christian culture is rapidly losing the distinction between forgiveness and condoning.

Laura Creighton
Laura Creighton
5 months ago

I wasn’t saying that the harder thing to do was to _condone_ the action. That’s a third different thing.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago

That may be true but I don’t think it has anything to do with decreasing Christianity.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago

I’ve noticed that it’s much easier to forgive others than forgive oneself.

Saul D
Saul D
5 months ago

It was one of the early points in the decay in trust in American legal institutions. Expensive lawyers playing legal games won. The law in America was shown to depend on the money spent on weaselling words and tangled contortions, not on the plainness of truth or justice or principle.

trevor david
trevor david
5 months ago
Reply to  Saul D

Since when has Amerikkkan Legal Institutions and Plainess of Truth and Principles and Justice been associated with Black people in Amerikkka? My dear sir you speak of an Amerikkka that the Black man is not familiar with. You speak of an Amerikkka that has NEVER existed. You speak of Amerikkka created by some delusional White guy on the back lot of a Hollywood Studio trying to do an authentic remake of Birth of a Nation.

Saul D
Saul D
5 months ago
Reply to  trevor david

I’ll reply in Spanish. K?

trevor david
trevor david
5 months ago
Reply to  Saul D

LOL.. I guess you will tell me about Spaniards 9 different l hierarchy of human beings based on gradations of skin colour in its Racists Civil Code? Spare me homie Black people know that anti black racism is deep in your DNA. I guess after been civilized for 800 years by the BlackaMoors you and the Visigothic savages and Neanderthals of U-Rope has learned nothing from your Black Superiors. But the Black Renaissance continues to this day. So be thankful old chap. Cheerio!

Andrew F
Andrew F
5 months ago
Reply to  trevor david

Don’t you think that writing in white people language, using technology invented by white people is cultural opropriation?

trevor david
trevor david
5 months ago
Reply to  Andrew F

Hey Moron Google Black inventors of the internet and see Black contributions to creation the internet. Algorithm and Google Maps. WHITE IGNORANCE IS A DANGEROUS THING. As for English its an accident of history. The world might be speaking Swahili in 100 years who knows. Be sure though the Black man will create his own version of English. That’s what makes us GREAT. We incorporate your language because we were force too . You steal our arts and music and Black culture. Who is the inferior one? Ask the Beatles and the Stones who they worship musically and culturally? YOU worship them they worship the Black mam. Like Putin you lowlife Neanderthals Will be be worshipping and asking for forgiveness from a Black Jesus soon enough. Everything will be revealed to you Caucazoid Neanderthals in time. You will bow to the Black man in due course.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
5 months ago
Reply to  trevor david

Are you ill?

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Really!!

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago
Reply to  trevor david

WTF!!!

Shrunken Genepool
Shrunken Genepool
5 months ago

Speak for your self. And the libs? Because he’s black. Ergo hero/innocent/wronged

trevor david
trevor david
5 months ago

LOL do you Really want to have a conversation about who need more forgiveness? I think I would put my money on the Demonic Force
– Caucazoid Neanderthal needing more Forgiveness from Black Jesus and Black Folks than we needing Forgiveness from the likes of you homie!.

Jim M
Jim M
5 months ago
Reply to  trevor david

Go live in Haiti.

trevor david
trevor david
5 months ago
Reply to  Jim M

is that All you got White Boy? Lol After you White Demons forced formerly enslaved Africans of Haiti to pay your French Pimps 90 million gold Francs there was no blood and bones left in the Haitians body. You White Vampires had sucked out all the blood and bones marrow. So yes there is no immune system left in Haitian body so she occasionally falls sick to all forms of maladies. But they are Black Homo Sapiens we are a great and resilient specimen. We left Africa 50000 years ago and conquered ever nook and cranny of planet Earth. This too Black Haitians will survive. They don’t need me to go there to help them fight the legacies of White colonialism and Evil. Our fight is a Global Fight which we must fight from where ever we are.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
5 months ago

I’m a liberal and have a lot of liberal friends. All of us thought OJ was as guilty as hell. Nice try.

trevor david
trevor david
5 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Well UNHERD is not a natural habit for Progressives and Black Nationalist like me. I only drop by to add a little color to the White SUPREMACIST Group masturbation that takes place on UNHERD which strangest name for a bunch of whiney Caucazoids with all there White Privileges whining about not been heard. White people own all the major global media and propaganda platforms yet Honkkkkee is complaining behind pay walls only they can afford about not been Hurd?? Laughable shit. As for OJ been guilty you don’t know if he did it or not and framed by LAPD? Are you willing to bet your life on OJ did it? Many in the Black Intelligentsia believe his 19 year old son did it and then called OJ and told him but OJ didn’t believe him so he visited the murder scene thus his Ferragamo shoes foot print at murder scene. His son was a wackjob who had a thing for Knives as a matter of fact he stabbed some one a few months prior. He hated Nicole because of what OJ put in his head about her and also on the night of the event she did not show up at restaurant where he worked after he told everyone one that OJ Nicole and there kids was going to be there for family dinner. He was
humiliated and enraged when Nicole canceled the dinner and get together at the restaurant. That could have set him off to confront Nicole and the guy was just there by accident and he killed them both. Cops found the knife in his back pack in a locker but by then The White Media and LAPD had set a narrative and could not back out so Furhman and LAPD took blood from his blood samples he gave them for DNA testing so they took some blood and planted it on his gate and socks etc. Why the hell was cops and Furhman driving around with OJ blood samples in the trunk of their car for God knows how long? Why was blood samples not turned in immediately? You see that’s standard operating procedure for White cops in Amerikkka that’s not news or shocking to Black people. White people has been murdering and terrorizing Black People for 2500 years since hordes of Greek Sodomites invaded Black Kemet -Egypt bringing there Perversion and diseases to Africa. Nothing new as it continues to this very day. See the” Goon squad cops” and read up on what they did to two Black men after raiding the house of one of these men simply because he was having relationship with a White woman. This is after George Floyd in case you think The White Devil cops is taking a break from murdering and terrorizing Black People on White folks behalf. The average White person does not have to join a white mob to lynch Black people anymore you just get your cops to do you dirty work fo ya. I am not saying OJ did not do it cause he was a slimeball to begin with. Any Black man who leaves his Black wife to chase White wemen as soon as he gets rich is a disgrace and embarrassment to Black Race any way. So I carry no brief for that Degenerate. But as you can see there is another plausible narrative for what happened. If you was a father and you learned your son just butchered two people on your behalf in a State where there is a death penalty for that type of cold blooded murder wouldn’t you put on a big performance with the Bronco and gun to head bullshit to draw attention away from your son to your self so your son can live?

As Black People we constantly have to navigate White Racism and narratives so we see OJ as just another example of White People thinking they know every thing but as you can see from above they are ignorant and clueless about what conversations are taking place amongst the Black Intelligentsia and the wider Black community for decades now.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
5 months ago

Who’s “we”?

Martin Goodfellow
Martin Goodfellow
5 months ago

I’m not sure Raskalnikov deserves to be listed with the other ‘bad men’. He is tortured with guilt for having commited murder, and this brings about his eventual redemption. Macbeth doesn’t repent, but accepts his fate. The other two have no feelings of wrongdoing, so deserve to be called bad. Simpson seems more like them, but I’ve sometimes thought his self-understanding was questionable. Did he have brain damage from concussions, perhaps? It’s not easy to tell.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago

Isn’t he simply a narcissistic sociopath?

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
5 months ago

And yet, he forgave her anyway. — He did it for his own sake, not for the sake of the killer. That’s how forgiveness works; it’s a means of trying to shed the sort of unhealthy emotion that makes life intolerable, sucking all the joy from whatever time one has left.
I am curious who this “we” is that allegedly forgave OJ. The most common sentiment toward him was indifference. He did it. Even some of the jurors who voted to acquit know he did it as an American tv series some years back chronicled.

Richard Ross
Richard Ross
5 months ago

Race.
Like so much that is sad in the Western World, the answer is race. Try to imagine a white OJ-equivalent (I don’t need to suggest names) following the same public trajectory after committing murder.
Maybe the forgiveness that needs to happen in the media and the world is related to Slavery/JimCrow. The acquittal of OJ was part of a revenge that “leaves the whole world blind”.
Great article; thank you.

trevor david
trevor david
5 months ago
Reply to  Richard Ross

AGREE.
The Caucazoid Neanderthal U-Ropeans has probably murdered over 150 million Black people over past 500 years. Black people would be the most populous race on Earth if White people has not been waging GENOCIDAL war on us for past 500 years. Black population globally would be some 4 to 5 billion. It’s The Caucazoid Cannibals who should be asking Black people and Black Jesus for Forgiveness. His Reign of Terror will soon come to an end.

Richard Ross
Richard Ross
5 months ago
Reply to  trevor david

Yikes.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
5 months ago
Reply to  Richard Ross

I can imagine a good-looking, wealthy, white male celebrity getting away with murder.

Richard Ross
Richard Ross
5 months ago
Reply to  Clare Knight

Well, I suppose we may find out soon. How’s the Alec Baldwin trial coming along?

Howard Ahmanson
Howard Ahmanson
5 months ago

Forgiveness doesn’t require the dismissal of state penalties for crime, nor does it require restoring trust. It just means that you will not store up bitterness in your heart. And the circle is not always closed – the person you are forgiving may not accept the forgiveness or admit he was wrong. In that sense, forgiveness is sort of judgmental – you are saying “I will not store up bitterness in my heart, but you DID do wrong.”

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
5 months ago

Ahhh but he was black and that makes all the difference.
Had he been white the outcome would have been entirely different

trevor david
trevor david
5 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Lol. Yeah OJ won one for the Bipper Gipper? Oh you poor baby for once you could not FIX the outcome. You poor baby with the Crocodile tears. Cry Blacks Folks a River !!

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
5 months ago

The acquittal of the black OJ for the murder of two white people (or one white person and one Jewish person if you prefer) cannot be understand without considering the acquittal of the white police officers who beat up the black Rodney King. The majority black jury in OJ’s trial wanted revenge and they saw that as allowing OJ to get away with the murder of two white people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King

Howard S.
Howard S.
5 months ago

White women who go Black very often do not end well. Even if they received a no-credit limit Platinum Amex card as part of the bargain.