O.J.: Made in America

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Someone posted a link about it in a thread about the FX docudrama.

I've watched the first three episodes. To this point it is one of the greatest documentaries I've seen and sets the standard for an analysis of the intersection of race, class, and celebrity in America.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Good a place as any to re-post the info that ESPN's app and website are streaming all episodes, at present, for free.


http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index

If only to ask, anyone know if the internet/streaming episodes are censored or uncut?

They are not censored for language, content, or nudity (Episode 5 shows OJ rapping in a music video w/ strippers...don't ask.)

[ARROW2]

It is clear that picnic was not derived from "pick-a-N-word," "pick-a-nig," or similar racist phrases. However, some of the almost 4,000 blacks who were lynched between 1882 and 1962 were lynched in settings that are appropriately described as picnic-like. Phillip Dray, a historian, stated: "Lynching was an undeniable part of daily life, as distinctly American as baseball games and church suppers. Men brought their wives and children to the events, posed for commemorative photographs, and purchased souvenirs of the occasion as if they had been at a company picnic." 2 Bray did not exaggerate. At the end of the 19th century, Henry Smith, a mentally challenged 17-year-old black male, was accused of killing a white girl. Before a cheering crowd of hundreds, Smith was made to sit on a "parade float" drawn by four white horses. The float circled numerous times before the excited crowd tortured, then burned Smith alive. 3 After the lynching the crowd celebrated and collected body parts as souvenirs.

Often the lynch mob acted with haste, but on other occasions the lynching was a long-drawn out affair with speeches, food-eating, and, unfortunately, ritualistic and sadistic torture: victims were dragged behind cars, pierced with knives, burned with hot irons or blowtorches, had their fingers and toes cut off, had their eyes cut out, and were castrated -- all before being hanged or burned to death. One Mississippi newspaper referred to these gruesome acts as "Negro barbeques." 4

In many cases -- arguably in most cases -- lynch mobs had a particular target and confined their heinous aggression to a specific person. Blacks were lynched for a variety of accusations, ranging from murder, and rape (often not true), to trying to vote, and arguing with a white man. In 1938, a white man in Oxford, Mississippi declared that it was "about time to have another lynching. When the ****ers get so they are not afraid of being lynched, it is time to put the fear in them." 5 There were many blacks lynched randomly, to send a message of white supremacy to black communities. As noted by Dominic J. Capeci, a historian, when it came to lynching, "one black man served as well as another." 6

We often think of a mob as an insane, bloodthirsty collection of adult male ruffians. However, respectable community leaders, including police, often lynched blacks. Although women and children were not typically the active aggressors they were often in the audience; and, they, too, celebrated. There were "secret lynches," but there were many done publicly -- and planned. Of course, news of an impending lynching traveled fast. Lynching was a brutal attempt to reinforce white supremacy, but it was also entertainment -- and food was present. According to Dray:

"While attendees at lynchings did not take away a plate of food, the experience of having witnessed the event was thought incomplete if one did not go home with some piece of cooked human being; and there is much anecdotal evidence of lynch crowds either consuming food and drink while taking part in the execution, or retiring en masse immediately afterward for a meal or, in the case of a notorious immolation in Pennsylvania in 1911, ice cream sundaes." 7

In 1903 a black man was lynched in Greenville, Mississippi. A white writer said, "Everything was very orderly, there was not a shot, but much laughing and hilarious excitemen... It was quite a gala occasion, and as soon as the corpse was cut down all the crowd betook themselves to the park to see a game of baseball." 8

The claim that the word picnic derived from lynching parties has existed in Black American communities for many years. Although many contemporary etymologists smugly dismiss this claim, it should be noted that there is a kernel of truth in this month's question. 9 The word picnic did not begin with the lynching of black Americans; however, the lynching of blacks often occurred in picnic-like settings.

[ARROW2]

****ed up ain't it? So get over anybody cheering a verdict. There were fist pumps and high fives after Rodney King verdict too. It is what it is.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by ARROW2

****ed up ain't it? So get over anybody cheering a verdict.

False

http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/picnic.asp


By the 19th century, 'picnic' had successfully made this linguistic shift in meaning. Its history (and that of every other word in the English language) is documented in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and nowhere in its lengthy OED entry is mention made of executions or lynchings or blacks.

[ARROW2]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

False

http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/picnic.asp


By the 19th century, 'picnic' had successfully made this linguistic shift in meaning. Its history (and that of every other word in the English language) is documented in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), and nowhere in its lengthy OED entry is mention made of executions or lynchings or blacks.

So blacks didn't get lynched in picnic like settings? That is false? Come on man...

['Hamas' Jenkins]

There certainly were lynching picnics. If you want a graphic portrayal of one, read "Going to Meet the Man."

Regardless of their existence, they aren't germane to the point.

Black people bled and bled and bled for decades. And all that blood spilled was used to give life to OJ Simpson, a man who didn't care about the black community, who openly despised its members, and who had an almost unimaginable level of physical evidence demonstrably proving his guilt.

So what is the end result? Someone with a shitload of money bought a defense team that eviscerated a largely incompetent police force and prosecution. They used the suffering of the black community to prove a conspiracy that never existed, because if it had, he would have been hauled in on DV charges dozens of times before and would have been a convicted felon for fleeing while under arrest.

Now, imagine you are a dispassionate bystander watching this. What message is sent?

Black people celebrated the acquittal of a man that despised them using defense tactics that trivialized their suffering for his gain. What are the consequences of that going to be? Is it going to lead to greater sympathy for African Americans in the community? Are non-black groups going to listen to leaders of the black community when they adopt their next cause?

The opportunity cost of OJ Simpson's acquittal was a decrease in sympathy for African Americans, an increase in racial strife, a miscarriage of justice, a loss in the credibility of black leaders in the views of the broader community, and the manipulation of decades of suffering by the disenfranchized and disempowered for someone with massive fame and wealth.

It's a shining example of why two wrongs don't make a right. Parents lost their children, brothers and sisters lost their siblings, and children lost their mother.

And the black community celebrated the acquittal of a man who called them ****ers when they entered his neighborhood.

It is ruinous, abject stupidity.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by ARROW2

So blacks didn't get lynched in picnic like settings? That is false? Come on man...

Y'know what's false?

This:

Originally Posted by ARROW2

We all know how the word picnic came about.

****ing race hucksters, man...

[Discuss Thrower]

I suppose we should come up with a new term that describes how you affix a framed painting or photograph to a wall because the word "hanging" is associated with how white people killed black people, right?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Discuss Thrower

I suppose we should come up with a new term that describes how you affix a framed painting or photograph to a wall because the word "hanging" is associated with how white people killed black people, right?

Well the braided fiber I would use to tie something to another thing was pretty central in how white people killed black people so I guess 'rope' is out.

And shit...what are we going to call 'trees' now? Where will I put my car after exiting it in public if these lynchings took place in 'park' like settings?

In short - Arrow is a ****ing idiot.

[stevieray]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

Side note -- I find it crushing, just absolutely crushing, that OJ Simpson and Bill Cosby went from such phenomenal role models for African-Americans to such complete frauds. Especially Cosby. Such a complete shame and waste of their fame, talent and position as potential phenomenal role models.

Loved Cosby/the juice as a kid..They were role models for everybody.

Really wish we'd quit dividing ourselves into categories based on adjectives.

[ARROW2]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

There certainly were lynching picnics. If you want a graphic portrayal of one, read "Going to Meet the Man."

Regardless of their existence, they aren't germane to the point.

Black people bled and bled and bled for decades. And all that blood spilled was used to give life to OJ Simpson, a man who didn't care about the black community, who openly despised its members, and who had an almost unimaginable level of physical evidence demonstrably proving his guilt.

So what is the end result? Someone with a shitload of money bought a defense team that eviscerated a largely incompetent police force and prosecution. They used the suffering of the black community to prove a conspiracy that never existed, because if it had, he would have been hauled in on DV charges dozens of times before and would have been a convicted felon for fleeing while under arrest.

Now, imagine you are a dispassionate bystander watching this. What message is sent?

Black people celebrated the acquittal of a man that despised them using defense tactics that trivialized their suffering for his gain. What are the consequences of that going to be? Is it going to lead to greater sympathy for African Americans in the community? Are non-black groups going to listen to leaders of the black community when they adopt their next cause?

The opportunity cost of OJ Simpson's acquittal was a decrease in sympathy for African Americans, an increase in racial strife, a miscarriage of justice, a loss in the credibility of black leaders in the views of the broader community, and the manipulation of decades of suffering by the disenfranchized and disempowered for someone with massive fame and wealth.

It's a shining example of why two wrongs don't make a right. Parents lost their children, brothers and sisters lost their siblings, and children lost their mother.

And the black community celebrated the acquittal of a man who called them ****ers when they entered his neighborhood.

It is ruinous, abject stupidity.

Nobody is looking for sympathy. Never got it, never will, even when wrongly accused and lynched.

[ARROW2]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Well the braided fiber I would use to tie something to another thing was pretty central in how white people killed black people so I guess 'rope' is out.

And shit...what are we going to call 'trees' now? Where will I put my car after exiting it in public if these lynchings took place in 'park' like settings?

In short - Arrow is a ****ing idiot.

Truth hurts, I know. It may not be in the dictionary but you know the participants called it a pick a N-word and you know it. It is what it is. You just work around it and make the best life you can.

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Well the braided fiber I would use to tie something to another thing was pretty central in how white people killed black people so I guess 'rope' is out.

And shit...what are we going to call 'trees' now? Where will I put my car after exiting it in public if these lynchings took place in 'park' like settings?

In short - Arrow is a ****ing idiot.

God forbid I describe a masters degree as the "linchpin" to future success in the business world.

[eDave]

I'm just 1/3 into the first episode. There is no way a star athlete ever steps foot in a classroom. Ever.

OJ was to the extreme, but there are still too many commitments to donors.

[Spott]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

Side note -- I find it crushing, just absolutely crushing, that OJ Simpson and Bill Cosby went from such phenomenal role models for African-Americans to such complete frauds. Especially Cosby. Such a complete shame and waste of their fame, talent and position as potential phenomenal role models.

I actually liked OJ when he was a commentator and the Naked gun movies were great. But I never liked Cosby. I didn't like the Cosby show and I thought his version of comedy was corny. He always seemed like a dick whenever he was being interviewed, too.