Now how does this support your claim that your opponents in this thread have never heard a single black person claim that OJ was innocent? Please explain the logic slowly so that we can all understand. Perhaps this is just the fault of my feeble mind, but it seems to me that there’s a huge gap between saying, “The blacks I know believe he was guilty” and “You people have never heard a single black fella claim that he was innocent!”
BTW, this is entirely separate from the issue of whether the blacks in the aforementioned poll deliberately lied or not – a highly speculative suggestion for which I have yet to seen any shred of evidence.
You didn’t qualify that one. But you did make a racial comment based on something you couldn’t possibly know. The “black folks” didn’t win that day if they cheered to see a man they thought guilty set free. And it wouldn’t speak well of them if they lied to the “white media.” (Your words, not mine.) I believe that you are projecting attitudes onto both blacks and whites that simply aren’t there.
I can’t remember a single time in my life when I cheered injustice. And the blacks that I know have the good sense to realize that two injustices – one for blacks and one for whites – do not make things just again. There is no way ever, ever to make up for Emmett Till.
This has been posted many times before in Great Debates. Maybe it will be helpful to you in future posts: You have a right to your own opinions. You don’t have a right to your own facts.
You know, the first time you mentioned this, I ignored it. I honestly thought you were pulling my leg, so I decided to focus on the second part of your post. My mistake. I will address it now;
I said, "There have been posts in this very thread from posters saying they believe blacks think he is innocent, despite never hearing a single black say that."
And, I said that assuming everyone had read the thread;
Now, Zoe. I knew when I said I was smart enough to qualify everything, I was setting my self up for an ass whooping. But! I really did qualify ev ver ry thing.
When I said, "When the black folks ‘won’, I was actually speaking of a certain group of black peolple that I believe were overly invested in the case for racial reasons. Not the average black man and women I know. But the ones that cheered, celebrated, jumped up and down on overpasses during the slow speed chase, cried tears of joy upon hearing the verdict. I think those black folks think they ‘won’. But I also think there is a group of white folks who were over invested, also. Not your average god fearin’ good and right white man and women… but the white men and women that were outraged to an extreme degree about this racially charged case, but not outraged about all the other injustices in the world. I am talking about racist whites. I think they feel they ‘lost’. This is all my own opinion, remember. My own lil’ humble opinion.
Now, in the words of Jthunder, “yeah, yeah, yeah, you all heard me”. I get the feeling that at this point I am repeating myself over and over. But I it is important that I get all of my opinions out clearly on the matter because I have a bad feeling that you and other posters think that I think black folks ‘won’ something that day. Or that I think it is ok to celebrate injustices. Or that I think black folks can make up for Emitte Till. I have no clue why you included in your post that it had been discussed in great debates plenty of times…but I got an uneasy feeling that you and others are misunderstanding my position. It’s not my position that it is ok to be happy OJ got off. I just don’t believe that the people who* are* happy he got off actually thinks he is innocent. That’s all. I have no idea why that is a problem for me to believe. Being black and from the black community, I just can’t take seriously the idea of whites telling us what we think based on polls. No matter how many times one brings the polls up, it is not going to make me not believe that I have never met a black proclaim seriously that OJ is innocent. I am not the only black person in this thread that has stated that flat out. We are black. From the black community. We have stated that we don’t know anyone black that thinks that. Why do people think they can change that fact with polls??
The post that you quoted, Zoe, by the way, is post 98. Go ahead and check it again, and see if I didn’t turn myself up in knots, qualifying every single thing, being sure to specify ONLY blacks and whites that were *overly invested for racial reasons. *
Or maybe we are all going to agree that no such people existed at all. I mean, are we all in agreement that there were lots of folks of both races that were way to invested in this case because of race matters?
I have actually heard people say that Nicole Brown Simpson got what she had coming to her for “being a slut.” Several times, includng people I work with. I ask them if they think OJ has been celibant since they split up. I’m amazed people still think "it’s okay for a guy, not for a girl (*sic[/i).
The other “he’s not guilty” people seem to believe it was the work of drug dealers cause Nicole was a big old cokehead. I ask them to tell me other drug killers where the victims were sliced up like sides of beef.
This Washington Post story has some relevance, perhaps. Their 2007 poll showed 40% of blacks feel Mr Simpson is innocent (error +/- 8%).
According to their September 2007 survey, the percentage of blacks who believe Mr Simpson is innocent dropped 31% from 71% in1995, down to 40% in Sep 2007. The article attributes this to blacks losing confidence in their original opinion because of Mr. Simpsons more recent behaviour.
Excerpts:
*"In a nation that largely despised him, O.J. Simpson always had strong support within the black community, where polls showed a majority of people believed he was innocent of charges that he murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her acquaintance Ronald Lyle Goldman outside her home in Los Angeles’s Brentwood neighborhood in 1994.
But after a string of missteps by the former football star – a heated 2003 argument with his teenage daughter in which she called police; a book, “If I Did It,” that raised eyebrows last year; and a dispute over sports collectibles in Las Vegas this month that led to an armed-robbery arrest – black opinion has shifted.
The 31-percentage-point drop among black respondents is a head-turner, sociologists said, because African Americans were such steadfast supporters of the celebrity, cheering in some places when the verdicts were read.
"Blacks in the survey are probably saying, ‘We’re sort of fed up with this guy,’ " said Earl Smith, a Wake Forest University professor who wrote “Race, Sport and the American Dream.” “If you look at his actions since the murder, they’ve all been bad decisions, just constant.”
In accompanying street interviews with African Americans, few thought their views on the issue had evolved.** Many said they felt Simpson was innocent 12 years ago and still do now. **Others said their belief that he was guilty is unchanged.
Evan Holland, 26, of Los Angeles said she cheered the verdict. “At the time it was not far from the L.A. riots where police officers were acquitted of beating Rodney King,” she said. “For me, it was like we need some justice, we need some support, we need a win. I didn’t think he did it.” She still doesn’t."*
Thanks for the cites. To respond to something you said earlier that bothered me, I didn’t mean to ‘smear’ white people. I was responding honestly to gap that I had perceived between what I hear a lot of white people saying about what black folks think, and what I hear from black people.
Similarly, sometime ago, when the whole Kramer from Seinfeld says nigger thing happened, a lot of white people I know were making a lot of statements about how hurtful the word is to black people. I told them, (particularly the white people I work with) that ‘nigger’ or ‘nigga’ has completely changed meaning in the black community. It’s not the same word that hurts and wounds the way it used to. They found this very hard to believe. I have no doubt that these people could cite very scientific studies and polls to prove that nigger was a word that was like a machine gun to the black community; but I just didn’t buy it because of my own experience with the word, in my culture. My boss was actually outraged, and it had me giving him the skeptical side eye…I felt like, whoa…do these white folks want the word to be the indestructable weapon of hurt and pain that it used to be? I honestly believed at that moment that a lot of white people didn’t want us to ‘reclaim’ that word because they liked the power it holds. Now, at the time, the people that the word was used against in Kramer’s audience, were making the talk show rounds, acting all wounded. A lot of black people at home were rolling our eyes. These black folks knew good and well they weren’t cut to their heart because Kramer said nigger. They are playing up to the white media with this shit, (for the record, I call everything the white media in this nation, unless it is a black show or magazine or newspaper). Now of course, I don’t know that those black kids weren’t really cut to their hearts about being called nigger. Just like I don’t know that Evan Holland in your quote wasn’t being completely honest when she says she believes in her heart that he is innocent. I got to be real about that. It is very possible they believe his innocence with all their hearts and souls.
** the bolded part represents some of *our *attitudes at the time. Not meant to mean that we were right about what those kids felt.
Agreed. That is why I said I am sad to say it. I really am. I am sad to say that there are people out there happy that someone ‘got off’ because they believe that somehow ‘sticks it to the man’.
To me, that is a sign that they don’t understand the concepts underlying our Justice system at all, and that is an indictment of our education system more than anything, and that is a whole different ball of wax.
It also resounds with me that the Justice system DOES work in cases like this one even in the face of such arguably common opinions.
I wonder if you would concede that it is not a myth that somewhere between one third and one half of blacks continue to believe in Mr Simpson’s innocence.
Unless one assumes (not a very palatable position) a predilection on the part of blacks to lie to the Washington Post’s pollsters, surely you would concede that it’s certainly reasonable to hold an opinion that a substantial portion of blacks maintain Mr Simpson is innocent. Any alternate opinion would require more than anecdotal observation to be taken seriously.
It is for this reason I wrote that you need to get out and meet more blacks. Your personal circle, and apparently the basis upon which your myth-busting opinion is based, would not appear to be a very representative cross-section.
I am trying, Chief. I honestly am. I know my style doesn’t indicate ‘student’ in these threads, but the truth is, I really do learn and grow, even when it doesn’t appear so. But I cannot concede that between a third to half of all blacks believe OJ is innocent. I am just too immersed in the culture to believe that I am wrong to that degree.
I do concede that lots of blacks believe he is innocent, and I concede that with great resistance. But I cannot concede a third to half. It flies in the face of my experience wayyy too much.
I am unsurprised since it appears your personal bias is so skewed you would rather assume blacks who say they believe Mr Simpson is innocent are lying instead of crediting them with accurately representing their opinions. With such an approach every opinion you hold is unassailable.
No, I am conceding that blacks that say he is innocent are telling the truth. I just don’t believe that the percentage of blacks in this nation that proclaim he is innocent is a third or half of all blacks. I have to admit personal bias. I am basing my opinions on my experience being immersed in black culture and never having had a single black person say that to me in the many conversations that I’ve had on the topic.
But I do accept that black people that say he is innocent are telling the truth. I believe you.
I was just expanding on your sad point more than anything.
Don’t feel too bad though. There is a large percentage of “white people” who believe that Lock Ness and Big foot definitely exist, UFO abductions are common, the moon landings never happened, Hitler is still hiding in Brazil, and that Elvis is working at an ice cream shop in Hoboken.