Black folks are allocated a specific amount of blackness at birth. Like money, our blackness is used and earned throughout one’s lifetime. For example, the face on our 20-dollar bill is Samuel L. “Mother-F****n Snakes-On-A-Plane” Jackson and not the racist, genocidal maniac Andrew Jackson. And like money, black folks need to be careful about how we “spend” our blackness. Much is sacrificed in order to earn blackness (See: Melissa Harris-Perry). So, it irks me when we waste our blackness on people or issues that don’t deserve our influential and unrelenting support.
And that brings me to Orenthal James Simpson, aka O.J. aka JUUUUUIIIIIICCCCEEEEE. FX has created what I consider the GREATEST SHOW on TV today, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, which chronicles the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman and the trial of the century that followed. Johnnie Cochran, who is played beautifully by Courtney B. Vance, says the word “n*gga” (Like, “N*gga, please.” Not academically quoting a racist who says the word with a hard ‘r’) on cable TV while simultaneously being a symbol of black empowerment fighting against the cancer known as white supremacy. The show is also filled with every ’90s reference you can think of, everything from the fictional scenes (Sparking up a square inside of a building) to the actual actors (Cuba Gooding Jr. plays O.J. and Malcolm-Jamal Warner plays Al Cowlings).
The TV show should remind us of two things. How great/terrible the ’90s were and that O.J. didn’t associate himself with black folks. Like, AT ALL. As I look back on the trial of the century, I’m truly flabbergasted that we spent so much of our blackness on O.J. and that damn trial. Ok, did O.J. suffer from a severe case of CTE from playing football? Can it be argued that a substantial portion of our blackness was allocated to the generational racial injustices done to blacks by the criminal justice system? Yes, those arguments are supported on a certain level of credence. However, I contend that we spent way too much blackness. So much blackness that he was found not guilty for allegedly killing two white people, including a white woman (Forget Obama’s election. Some would say this is the only argument for post-racialism to ever exist). Summarily, we wasted a large portion of our hard-earned blackness on a negro that didn’t even like negroes.
By the time O.J. allegedly committed the murders, he was so white, he made Carlton Banks look like Nat Turner. O.J. lived in Ronald-Reagan-Caucasian heaven, where he was accepted through the “Uncle Ruckus Initiative.” White golfing buddies, a white wife, white coworkers and white sidechicks. The Magnus Opus of his whiteness is revealed on the TV show when Cuba Gooding Jr. proclaims, “I’m not Black! I’M O.J.!”
Our bad investment in O.J. and how we spent our blackness should be a warning to us all. So, let’s remember, every black person or issue doesn’t require our black trump cards to be passed around like hot cakes. Simply because certain people share the color of our skin, doesn’t mean they automatically get these 20-dollar Samuel L. “Mother-F****n Snakes-On-A-Plane” Jacksons. Think about it like this: If Stacey Dash gets charged with a double murder tomorrow, are we to waste our blackness on her simple ass? I think not. Sometimes it’s better to save than spend. Intelligently saving and investing our blackness can give us the black triumphs we truly seek.
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Leslie is one of many, many lawyers in the D.C. area. He strives for excellence, moral integrity, awesomeness, changing dope diapers and open bars. He is a contributing writer for a variety of publications and creator of Nerds, Jocks, and Assholes, which is a blog built on the foundation of open dialogue in the arenas of politics, civil rights, science, pop culture and sports. #HarpStarsDad. Follow him on: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
