Split Screen...

Was OJ Simpson's arrest and trial the beginning of reality TV - and Donald Trump's rise? Nick Bryant, BBC News, New York

 © April 12, 2024, the Griot Poet 

 

I saw the Bronco Chase,

June 17, 1994,

We all watched it like a dark, communal ritual,

The eclipse of our innocence.

The slow meander on the California interstate,

I was witnessing the birth of sensationalism and spectacle.

I witnessed the rift between black and white citizens and how they would perceive the trial proceedings.

 

The trial lasted a year.

It was the “trial of the century.”

A “made for TV” drama.

This was the prototype for Court TV, “reality TV,” and streaming services.

We’re not quite processing how sociopathic this made our society.

 

My Frat brother, Johnny Cochran, was the lead attorney,

And on his team, a name that would go down in infamy: Robert Kardashian,

As his widow and his daughters would make a billion-dollar empire,

On the Shakespearean equivalent of “Much Ado About Nothing.”

Contributing to the public disdain for being an expert at anything,

“Cosmos” by Carl Sagan lasted three years.

“Keeping Up With the Kardashians” has droned on for two decades.

 

Why learn a profession where eyeballs can make you billions?

It’s a strange way to remember the patriarch of their family.

It's ironic because Robert Kardashian was an excellent lawyer.

It's ironic because Robert Kardashian was part of what was dubbed “The Dream Team.”

 

Because of Detective Mark Fuhrman,

And the racial epithet he casually used,

Television censors were on point then,

And the “n-word” entered our lexicon.

 

Orenthal James Simpson,

He was the first post-Civil Rights sports superstar.

He made it a part of his persona to ignore its significance.

He was "respectability politics" before the term came into existence.

He wasn’t as militant as Cassius Clay cum Muhammad Ali,

Or Lou Alcindor cum Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

He reduced his moniker to “just OJ.”

From unusual names to two letters.

He proved himself to be a marketing genius.

 

He advertised Hertz Rent-A-Car.

Running through the kiosks,

So, he naturally had a part in Alex Haley’s semi-plagiarized autobiography, “Roots,” the original seven-part series,

When we thought, then, finally, there might be recognition and reconciliation before reparations.

That, of course, passed.

He was an actor, to boot.

He is as recognizable in “The Naked Gun” series as the star, Leslie Nielsen.

 

He was a guest on variety shows and celebrity interviews.

He dated Nicole Brown when she was barely legal.

Despite being the mother of his second marriage’s children, he was jealous of her beauty.

One domestic violence call to 911 found her with an imprint of his hand on her face.

The police shrugged and left.

 

I wept at the verdict.

Because I saw the eyes of so-called “white” people roll so hard to see their brain stems.

Because I saw so-called “black” people cheer, not that “The Juice” got away with murder but for my Frat brother, Johnny Cochran.

It was the fact that OJ could pay for expert lawyering, which many of us could not possibly afford.

 

Most of us go into the jaws of the beast,

Each time we go into the criminal “justice” system,

The Central Park 5 were almost railroaded into the electric chair by a full-page ad in the New York Times,

Exonerated by DNA evidence,

And the real predator confessing,

 

Kalief Browder, however, was mauled by the beast, committing suicide after three years of confinement without a “speedy trial” in sight.

He was framed for stealing a backpack that he didn’t steal.

 

Because we so-called “black” people have always known:

The system is broken.

It was always rigged against us and for the so-called “white” and privileged.

“1681,” the Bacon Rebellion, is when they invented a lie to divide us.

 

We have been waiting:

Since Crispus Attucks in 1776,

Since Medgar Evers in 1963,

Since Malcolm X in 1965,

Since Martin Luther King in 1968,

Since Rodney King in 1991,

After OJ in 1994 drove a Bronco in slow-mo.

 

Maybe,

After the slow white Bronco “chase,”

After an acquittal, that just didn’t seem right,

When he got sentenced for civil liability, you cheered just like you did when he was on the gridiron.

Did you cheer when the token respectability “golden boy” got off scot-free?

Dying after prostate cancer isn’t exactly dying peacefully,

But he did die, surrounded by family.

We thought:

Maybe you could finally see how a system rigged by rich people,

It might blow back in your collective faces.

 

But you didn’t.

And here we are,

Waiting for another rich celebrity to game a broken system on a “Stormy” Monday.

A former president goes on trial,

For hiding his secret affairs with an adult film actress and a playboy centerfold.

It wasn’t “hush money”: it was FEC violations, denying American citizens the RIGHT to know what character the man who arranged the scheme had who was RUNNING for president AFTER the Access Hollywood tape!

 

“Absolute immunity” is absolute nonsense.

But I expect that from a criminal whose only time he is not committing crimes is the few hours he’s sleeping.

Fingers crossed, on “Stormy Monday,” for justice.