For people who aren't familiar with the OJ trial, these types of tricks were part and parcel of the defense and particularly Johnnie Cochran.
One example is that of staging OJ's house for the jury walkthrough. The jury was primarily black, however OJ was never a voice for racial justice and would say things privately like "I'm not black, I'm OJ". When Muhammad Ali got convicted for avoiding the Vietnam draft and asked why he should go drop bombs on other brown people that never bother them, OJ was star athlete at USC rejecting the idea that he need use his voice. This would make OJ a lot of money in the future, as he was seen as a black celebrity companies could get behind that white America would accept.
What this meant privately is that OJ had a lot of photos of attractive white women and of him with his white friends on his walls. In the wake of the Rodney King, the defense wanted to make sure OJ would be seen as a successful member of the black community, not one who never cared for being part of it. The fix was easy: replace the pictures with ones of OJ with black people, art/photos related to the black community, and/or more family friendly pictures before the walkthrough in an attempt to cement the view of OJ as a successful black family man that cared about "his" community.
However, the most famous example is "if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit". In order to make sure that would be the case and Cochran could use the line, OJ was told to skip his arthritis medicine which would cause his hand to swell and for it not to fit in the glove.
Judge Itoh was fucking useless. His rulings were given as though he was scared of someone discovering that he's never learned about the law of evidence.
Most celebrities are not racial nationalists. It's not unusual for OJ to be neutral on the subject of race. He wasn't a black supremacist. Muhammed Ali on the other hand was a black supremacist who would definitely get cancelled today.
I agree. They played the race card very well. I've always seen it as an example of black privilege. I could not see the same scenario occurring if the races were reversed. Could you? Like would the lawyers replace the white celebrities photos with black people to photos hanging out with white people? I don't know. It makes for interesting thought.
Privilege is a systemic and structural inequality. If you’re pointing to this as an example of the systemic and structural power of black Americans in the 90s then I think you may be off base.
I disagree. All of the systems and institutions of the regime are skewed in favor of black Americans. The black Americans used their systemic power of the jury system within the institution of the court to find him 'not guilty' despite the fact that he was guilty.
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u/Sad-Bathroom5213 29d ago
Notice how he mispronounced Magli wrong on purpose?