The Key Detail Missing From the Narrative About O.J. and Race

Simpson died this week at the age of 76, almost 30 years after being accused of killing his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, many reflections on his life made the same, familiar point about his legacy: His 1995 acquittal represented a “racial divide,” with many more Black than white Americans cheering the verdict. In fact, a rarely discussed part of the story of the “racial divide” he represents is that it was white people, not Black people, who elevated Simpson at almost every turn. “Juice was brought forward with great fanfare,” Wiley would later write of Simpson in his prescient book of essays, Dark Witness: When Black People Should Be Sacrificed. The case was supposed to be a window into America’s “race relations”—more evidence that Black and white people were hopelessly divided on matters that seemed undeniable.