Introduction: Beyond O.J.
This is a book about O.J. Simpson--and much more. It has to be. Although I was a Simpson trial news analyst for the CBSTV affiliate in Los Angeles, I did not know him personally. I met him only once and that was by chance. It was in the spring of 1969 at a fraternity party near the USC campus. O.J. was a senior. He had just won the Heisman Trophy and was everyone's All-American. He was practically a household name in Los Angeles and much of the nation.
The party was packed. The liquor was flowing. Everyone was dancing and having a good time. O.J., his first wife, Marquerite, and another man were sitting in a room adjacent to the kitchen, away from everyone. They were talking quietly. I paused for a moment in the kitchen and watched them. Party goers would saunter into the room to shake his hand and make small talk. Some asked for an autograph. I resisted as long as I could. Finally, I walked in, shook his hand, made small talk about football, and wished him well. O.J. was gracious and polite. He smiled and acknowledged the glad handers. He was not arrogant or condescending.
I could sense that he wanted to maintain his distance. O.J. was conscious of his image and status. There was a clear line of demarcation between him and the public. He existed in a world that few could ever enter. O.J. was a superstar, an allAmerican hero athlete. He was a man consigned to a life of splendid isolation.
The O.J. case generated an estimated gross domestic product of $200 million. This was bigger than the GDP of some Caribbean nations. A legion of TV talking heads, legal experts, and opinion news commentators made money and furthered their careers theorizing, gossiping, and speculating about O.J. and the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Much of the American public also spent endless hours theorizing, gossiping, and speculating about O.J. and the murders. The media and the public reminded me of the people at the party. Like me, they talked about a man they could never really know. The three persons who knew O.J. best were: Marquerite; his mother, Eunice Simpson; and his football pal and confidant, Al Cowhngs. They either refused to talk or gave guarded interviews to the media about him.
Still the press nearly killed the goose that laid the golden egg. The instant the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman were made public, the media dumped onto the public an unprecedented avalanche of tabloid-style rumors, innuendo, gossip, and lies about O.J. The TV networks announced plans to air quickie kiss-and-tell soap dramas purportedly based on his life. Much of the public got sick of it. It soon became common to hear people say, "Oh God, I don't want to hear or read anything else about O.J."
There will be no explosive exposes, revelations, or true confessions about O.J., Nicole, or the murders in this book. I am not interested in titillating or tantalizing anyone with stories of domestic violence, lesbian affairs, sex orgies, cocaine parties, Mafia hit men, or secret confessions. I am not going to speculate about whether someone else did it or why.
I will not second guess the defense, the prosecution, or analyze legal strategy, coroner's errors, crime scene contamination, the reliability of DNA, Johnnie Cochran's attire, Marcia Clark's hairstyles, or how many times the bailiffs searched O.J.'s suits before he changed to come into and leave the courtroom. I was not concerned with that during the months the O.J. case dominated the conversations at dinner tables in America. I am not concerned with it now. Before the trial, as far as the public knew, the only people who really knew who committed the murders were the killer(s).
This didn't stop others from turning wild speculation into fast cash. Three instant "life of O.J. books" were on newsstands and in bookstores within days after his arrest. Another gossipy, trash-toned book on O.J. and Nicole released the same week as Pope John's best-seller, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, racked up one-third more sales that week.
More books will be published about his life, the murders, and his legal battles in the years to come. The O.J. case spawned a new grossly prurient literary genre. But I'm not concerned with that.
What I am concerned with is that the O.J. case made America realize:
- Interracial sex and marriage is the last taboo for whites and blacks.
- There is a slavish need to make icons of its celebrities and sports heroes.
- Many Americans relentlessly manufacture racial, sexual, and class stereotypes and scapegoats.
- There is a retreat into dangerous political know-nothingness in America.
- Many blacks have been driven to the unshakable belief that there are secret plots, conspiracies, and hidden plans to eliminate them.
- Much of the media has turned into gossip and titillation tabloids.
- Many blacks and whites play the race card.
- Justice is peddled to the highest bidder.
This book will tell why these issues go beyond O.J.