Copeland's Corner: April 12, 2024
O.J. Simpson threw it all away with one vicious, bloody act of jealous violence.
Over the last forty-eight hours, there’s been a lot of vitriol directed at O.J. Simpson, who died of prostate cancer this week at the age of 76. Simpson, who is being remembered as one of the most polarizing figures of the 20th century, is the subject of a multitude of memes, several including some form of or reference to burning in Hell. Others show the infamous slow speed Bronco chase with the white truck being digitally altered to resemble a white hearse. Then there’s Simpson’s declaration after he was acquitted by a jury in his 1995 homicide case for allegedly butchering his ex-wife and her waiter friend (a relationship that most scholars of the case still don’t fully understand to this day) that he would spend the rest of his life hunting for “the real killers” with photos of a grave with Simpson’s name and the words REAL KILLER etched on it.
Even though he was acquitted and there remain serious questions about the chain of evidence, the motives of Mark Fuhrman, the racist cop who found the bloody gloves worn by the killer who was recorded with the “N” word coming out of his mouth like water, most people (including yours truly) believe that Simpson murdered those people in cold blood.
He later went to jail for 9 years in Nevada for attempting to steal back memorabilia that rightfully belonged to him and upon his release, spent the remainder of his days as a latter-day Lizzie Borden, the 19th century New England dowager who was acquitted in a sensational trial of hacking her father and stepmother to death with a hatchet, yet lived out her life convicted by the court of public opinion.
One of the most interesting things I received regarding Simpson’s death was a collage of celebrity and TV appearances he made pre-murders. I was a child of the 70s and I knew Simpson for his football career, his work on Monday Night Football as an analyst, his acting in the Naked Gun movies and TV shows of the era like The Lucy Show, Medical Center, Dragnet and dozens more like it. I remember his imposing presence over a young Kunta Kinte (played by LeVar Burton) in Roots. And, of course I remember the years he spent as a pitchman for Hertz rent-a-car and as a foil for Bob Hope on the comedian’s periodic network specials.
When I view the man’s life in its totality, it makes me sad. As a young black boy growing up at a difficult time in America, to see this good-looking, athletic charismatic guy who looked like me was inspirational. It was a symbol of what I could be. He was aspirational. Then, he threw all of that away with one vicious, bloody act of jealous violence.
It’s sad, really. When we think of Simpson and when historians write about his life, the focus will be on his worst act, not his positive contributions, whatever they may be.
It reminds me of Michael Jackson. My Millennial children don’t know about the brilliance of the Thriller album or how we marveled as children at the magic of the Jackson 5 when they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. All they know about Jackson is dangling babies out of high-rise windows, a middle-aged man sharing a bed with 12-year-old boys and a list of grooming and child molestation allegations that seem to grow larger with each passing year.
The legacies of both these men were destroyed by their own actions. It is a terrible thing to have your entire life defined by your worst act, but, as my dear friend radio host Gil Gross once told me, we write our own obituaries.