Well, his death was unexpected, I’ll say that much.

Since he was released from prison, he did a relatively good job of not drawing
anymore attention to himself. I will at least give him respect for that. I was
driving along yesterday while at work, and I kept hearing about the “Trial of the
Century,” and the verdict. Why is anyone even still talking about an event 29 years
old?

That’s what I thought to myself.

As I continued to listen, I found out that OJ died of cancer at 76 years old.

Cancer is a horrible way to go. Three of my family members have died from it, and I
would never wish that on anyone. Even people I disagree with or don’t personally
like. OJ Simpson is one of those people that, in many ways, turned his back on his
community. And found out the hard way that if he wanted acceptance into mostly
white worlds, he had to learn how to play by the established rules.

He was handsome, rich, famous, and his second wife, Nicole Brown, was an attractive
blond white woman. If OJ were none of those things, he would have gotten a lot more
grief and trouble over his marriage, especially over the DV that went on throughout
their seven years together, from 1985–1992. Once Brown was killed, all of his
golfing and water polo buddies walked away from him. He was no longer a good guy.
He was, in their eyes, and to pretty much most of us, a murderer. And when he was
found not guilty, the country was divided. Most white people pretty much wanted his
behind locked away forever. And black people, while believing that he killed two
people, were excited that finally the system worked for a black man. Because in the
past black men (people) were given long prison sentences or the death penalty for
crimes they did not commit against white people.

So how do I feel about “The Juice?” I feel that this is a guy that was a hero to a
lot of black kids. And kids in general during the 1970s as a running back for the
Buffalo Bills. He was the first man to rush for 2,000 yards in a season. He starred
in television commercials and in movies. He really had and did it all.

OJ was an arrogant man. I don’t know if he was naturally that way or he developed
an inflated sense of his own importance because of the circles he traveled in, and
him writing the book “If I Did It” was almost as bad as murdering those two people.
He lost his civil suit and was ordered to pay the Goldman family a substantial sum
of money, yet he didn’t want to do it. A guy that was making 42K a year from Social
Security and was collecting a football pension worth $5,000,000, of which he would
receive 125K a year, didn’t want to pay up.

I am sorry for his surviving family members as they should not be grouped together
with him. Many of those members may share his last name. But they are not him. They
did nothing wrong. Whether OJ got his life right before he passed on, I don’t know,
but I wish I could feel more sympathy right now for him than I do.

Maybe some day I’ll get to that point. Or maybe I won’t.