****
In Contempt (1996) is an extraordinary book. It is extraordinary because it better answers the question white America now asks better than any other.
People are obviously different. Men, as they say, are from Mars, women are from Venus. Who knows what women want? But today, America is more racially divided than ever before. Whites and blacks struggle to find common ground. Christianity is the best place to find it. Sports create uneasy alliances, teammates and shared goals. On the Left, very uneasy political alliances. Six years into the Obama Presidency, however, his promise of racial harmony is no closer to fruition than peace in the Middle East.
But if a white person desires to know what it is like to be black, Darden’s book does a better, more thoughtful job of explaining exactly what the modern black experience is than anything else available. His is, yes, the modern experience of a black man born in 1956; who grew up in a black community on the verge of turning into a ghetto; experienced the 1960s and the militant 1970s; educated himself and used that education to help his fellow man; and saw his race turn against him.
“Perhaps I had to be ‘kicked out’ of the black community to understand my place in it,” wrote Darden. “But sometimes the view is much better from the outside.” At the time he wrote his book, Colin Powell, the black general and hero of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, was contemplating not only a Presidential run, but his own place in the country. Prophesying Obama, Darden foresaw a day when “the Man will be black.” But Darden’s eyes were opened, wide. He now understood racism in all its forms, and it was not just a white sin. It was Mankind’s.
There are some heroes in this tale. Darden, Marcia Clark, the Browns, Ronald Goldman, his family, Ron Shipp, a few dedicated cops; a few others. Additional sorrow landed on Darden not long after the Simpson verdict. His beloved brother Michael died of AIDS. The Darden family recited Psalm 23 at his deathbed, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want . . .”
Darden is a Christian whose faith girded him through his trial by fire. He concluded his memoir with scripture from Revelation 21: 4-5.
And gold shall wipe away all tears from their eyes;
and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow,
nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain;
for the former things are passed away
And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold,
I make all things new.
Fallen angels
By the time O.J. Simpson entered the University of Southern California in 1967, Los Angeles was already the most important city in the world. Its rise had been inexorable, dramatic and swift. After World War II, the greatest migration in human history made L.A. and the state of California the biggest electoral juggernaut in Presidential politics. Hollywood was the American art form, its effect greater than all previous works of art since the Age of Enlightenment. It was ground zero for the music revolution. With the building of Dodger Stadium, it was being called the “sports capitol of the world.” Advertising and cultural trends all seemingly emanated from its environs. The Los Angeles Times was in the process of replacing the New York Times as the greatest, and eventually the most profitable, newspaper in the world. It was a giant of the burgeoning Pacific Rim trade economy, with money being made, a leisure class to spend it, in ways that dwarfed the Roman Empire. It was “the place,” as people said, where people “got it right” when it came to race relations.
New York was mired in crime, economic malfunctions, its streets filthy, beset by union strikes and racial strife. Chicago was the “third city,” its population surpassed by Los Angeles. San Francisco lost all of its 19th and early 20th Century panache, its provincial citizenry green with envy that everything that was anything now happened not in its town, but in hated Los Angeles. London and Paris? Their glory days were over, shattered by two world wars. Moscow and Beijing? Communist, Totalitarian.
Among the smiling, shiny faces of this success story, O.J. Simpson, bathed in Trojan glory, was one of its brightest lights. Over the next 25 years, there was no change in this dynamic. Athletically, USC football, UCLA basketball, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the L.A. Lakers, and the Raiders, established dynasties like none before or since, winning Heismans, national titles, Fall Classics, world championships, and Super Bowls in “Showtime” style. The city produced the greatest Olympics ever held.
Hollywood had its two all-time best decades. The image most people had of Los Angeles was somewhere between a Beach Boys song and a party at Hugh Hefner’s mansion. L.A.’s famed “miracle mile” of advertising agencies produced the cutting edge messages of the modern age. The city produced one President, and when Watergate cut him down to size, they just shrugged it off and produced a better one. Its Military Industrial Complex hummed right along, fueling a gilded age unseen in history, until it bathed Ronald Reagan in the glory of winning the Cold War. When the United States handily defeated Saddam Hussein and Iraq in 1991, political theorist Francis Fukuyama wrote that it was the “end of history,” a victory for the combined forces of conservatism and Christianity, winners of 2,000 years of human experience. No nation, no conquering army, no political idea, no empire had ever been as powerful, its reach greater, its influence as tremendous, in every possible way: sociologically, religiously, culturally. Riding this whirlwind: Republican George H.W. Bush at 91 percent approval ratings.
Los Angeles and the state of California were, as they always had been, Republican. They produced Nixon and Reagan, gave them their electoral votes, and supported Bush. It’s U.S. Senators were Republican, Pete Wilson, then John Seymour. Their Governors were from the Grand Old Party, too: George Deukmejian, then Wilson.
Then came March 3, 1991. On that date, five officers of the Los Angeles Police Department beat Rodney King to a bloody pulp. It was all caught on tape, the ultimate in “reality TV.” The tape was shown non-stop by CNN and most every other news outlet, night and day, for a year. It drove the African-American population, particularly in south-central Los Angeles and environs (Crenshaw, Watts, Compton) to the boiling point.
The officers were tried not in a downtown or even a Los Angeles courtroom, but in lily-white Simi Valley. When they were, for the most part, acquitted, the country went stark raving mad. Blacks erupted all across America. 53 people were killed in the L.A. riots, 2,000 were injured, and most of the black community was in flames. The National Guard and the Marines had to be called in to restore order. All racial harmony, false or not, was lost. The image of a smiling, race-neutral O.J. Simpson now seemed a mocking visage.
Then came June 12, 1994, and the “trial of the century,” ending on October 3, 1995. If the King riots had not totally destroyed all the goodwill, all the greatness of a metropolis, of a Golden State, of what Reagan called a “shining city on a hill,” the Simpson verdict did. The city would never recover. Neither would the country. It was beyond Shakespeare, beyond Greek tragedy; it was Biblical.
Greatness was replaced by mediocrity, in seemingly all ways. The sports champions of Southern California were replaced by champions from Northern California: the 49ers and the Oakland A’s. USC, UCLA, the Dodgers, and the Lakers fell by the wayside. The Rams and Raiders split town, the Raiders finding gritty Oakland better than the gang-infested L.A. Coliseum.
The Republicans found themselves victims of their own success. Having won the Cold War, largely fighting liberal Democrats as much as the Communist ideology responsible for the murder of 120 million human beings, there were no more dragons to be slayed. The Military Industrial Complex, long SoCal’s financial engine, laid off a vast workforce. Over night, the California economy tanked.
After the riots, the 1992 Republican National Convention, which should have been a modern processional worthy of Caesar Augustus, consisted instead of conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan describing mostly-white soldiers patrolling the streets of black Los Angeles, ostensibly protecting white America from violent, rampaging Negroes in what he called
a “culture war.” The liberal press said it “sounded better in the original German.” After that, Bush managed to go from 91 percent approval ratings in 1991 (with the great “help” of Ross Perot) to defeat in 1992.
The 1992 elections were called the “Year of the Woman,” and featured a profound shift in California political power. A new term – politically correct – entered the lexicon. Feminist politicians grabbed hold of a seemingly insignificant event and turned it into a major one. For years, jet fighter pilots in the Marines and Navy gathered in a yearly event in Las Vegas named after the device that grabbed the aircraft, keeping it on the decks of aircraft carriers: the Tailhook Convention.
For years, all those fighter pilots had been men, but in the previous decade-plus, women had entered the ranks of fighter jocks. At the convention, some of the pilots imbibed and got rowdy. A few, God forbid, actually desired carnal relations with women. The feminists treated this as on par with the Roman legions sacking and raping Gaul. They forced one high-ranking Naval officer out of his position. So devastated was he that he committed suicide.
A Republican Congressman from Texas named John Tower was nominated by President Bush to be Secretary of Defense. It was revealed that he once smiled and spoke close up with a woman. For this he was deemed unfit by the same feminists who, when confronted with massive evidence that Bill Clinton had sexually assaulted numerous women, and even raped one named Kathleen Willey, reacted by not reacting. A liberal female member of the media “explained” that Clinton was loved because he protected the right to abort children, which by 2014 amounts to an actual genocide in the form of 65 million dead babies since Roe v. Wade. The liberal female media member added, for good measure, she would happily provide Clinton with oral sex as an added bonus. Ironically, if she stuck to that form of sexual entertainment, she would not need the protections of Roe v. Wade.
As a result of this changing landscape, the state of California, once dominated by Protestant white male Republicans from the Southland, now represented by two Jewish Democrat women from San Francisco, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Orange County, the symbol of rugged individualism in the West, declared bankruptcy.
The nation became weak and feckless enough that Islamo-Fascism, not unlike Adolf Hitler when he saw how unprepared Franklin Roosevelt was in the 1930s, became emboldened enough to start the War on Terror. America was not bold enough to completely win that war.
With the fall of the Military Industrial Complex that so long fueled the L.A. economy, the Bay Area’s Silicon Valley replaced it. They gave us the “information superhighway,” known as the World Wide Web, beginning in 1993. For all its value, it has spread pornography and child molestation . . . the way Satan would do it. Hollywood has never come close to its glory days of the 1960s and 1970s.
Today, California is mired in debt. Several of its cities are largely defenseless against violent crime, diminished police forces ceding the streets to black and Latino gangs. The state that once built the trans-continental railroad, the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the Rose Bowl, Dodger Stadium, magnificent bridges, space ships and weapons bringing the Soviet Union to its knees; now takes decades to re-build the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge. Once filled with evangelical fervor, it is now the abortion capitol of America (to the point where it has reduced black birth rates). The Los Angeles Times became politically correct when Otis Chandler was forced out, was bought by the Tribune Company, and today is unrecognizable by its once-great standards. Its public schools, which in the 1950s and ’60s answered the call for scientists and engineers who won the Cold War, now bow at the altar of global warming, gay marriage, and racial guilt. Decent people move out by the droves, looking to raise children in a moral, Christian manner elsewhere, leaving the state to liberals, criminals and illegal Mexicans by the millions.
Unions, corruption and criminality are the way of California’s modern political “leadership.” Its influence is no more, ceded to the rehabilitated South, the last bastion of “can do” American spirit.
America, once chosen by God to establish liberty and capitalism, to end slavery and protect Democracy, to defeat maniacal Nazism and atheistic Communism, and knock back Islamo-Fascism, sits today rootless and immoral. God uses nations and empires to do His will, as he did with Israel, Rome, and the British Empire. The great question today is whether America is still favored by Him, or whether the United States, like previous powers, has done His bidding but served its purpose. Perhaps America, having defeated the greatest evils in world history, freed billions, creating a marketplace that ultimately allows, through a multiple of mediums, the largest number of human beings ever, to hear the word of God, can rest easy now.
Loose on Earth
The Gospel According to Matthew reads, “I will give you the kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven.” The term “loose” refers to Satan who, after the fall of Man in the Garden of Eden, is now loosed by God to take control of the world. Only Jesus Christ can save sinful man from punishment for letting this happen. Many are called, but few are chosen.
The devil uses many forms to loose himself upon Mankind. First, he used temptation, then knowledge, then hatred of our very brothers. Slavery, racism, intolerance, lies, corruption, war, and immorality have led humans further and further from Him, and from His Truth.
Shortly after the Russian Revolution, V.I. Lenin noted that of all the arts, “cinema is the most important.” Propaganda in film was the leading weapon of Communism and Nazism in the 1930s. The Communists understood that an “enemy within” existed in the society of their greatest rival, the U.S. They began a spy apparatus in the 1920s which extended into our government, the entertainment industry, and the media. American journalists John Reed and Walter Duranty spread lies of “Soviet success” for years. This was the beginning of a long tradition.
But by the 1990s, the United States might have fallen into the trap of congratulating itself on its success, on believing Fukuyama’s theory that “history” was over. Evil, however, never dies. It changes form, strategy, methods of operation. Slavery, Nazism, Communism; each dragon is slayed, a new one is spawned. Just as the King beating and the O.J. Simpson murder trial showed race relations were far from the rosy scenario previously believed, the Simpson case reinvigorated one of evil’s most pervasive tools: the news media.
In the late 1970s, cable television was introduced. By 1994 it was standard in all communities, spread across the glove. At the time of the Simpson case, there were three major networks; ABC, NBC, and CBS. Cable News Network had spun out of Ted Turner’s Atlanta-based WTBS and TNT. Millions of people became fans of the Atlanta Braves, dubbed “America’s team” because they were the first to air all their games nationally. This was followed by ESPN, which rose from humble beginnings to a powerhouse by 1994, only to grow more beyond that. WGN in Chicago nationalized, popularizing the Cubs and White Sox like the Braves. The New York Mets also aired on many cable networks. Eventually, super networks like SNY and Yes changed the dynamics of sports TV. Fans of Marvin Miller and the unions say free agency brought big money into sports. They are wrong. Cable TV, via the free marketplace, did that.
The Menendez and Simpson cases were a huge boon for Court TV. Greta van Susteren of CNN rose to star status, first with Burden of Proof, today with On the Record at Fox News. Catherine Crier of ABC also leapfrogged on the back of the O.J. case. Geraldo Rivera revived his career with the Simpson coverage.
A year after the verdict, Fox News launched, a tremendous sea change in news coverage. Between Fox News and Court TV, women became major television personalities. Looks and glamour became the dominant theme of female news figures. Fox exploited this dynamic more than any other, featuring an array of sexy, oft-blond, short-skirted conservative women, some of whom, like Ann Coulter and Megyn Kelly, skyrocketed to superstar status.
In addition to CNN and Fox News, there was Headline
News, MSNBC, and CNBC. Fox’s dominance uncovered what many suspected, which was that the news media had always been liberal. Only when presented with a balanced alternative did the biases of the other cable news outlets and networks become fully exposed. The result is that news is now a kind of warfare, with Fox tacitly standing up for the Right, all the others using their powers of persuasion on behalf of the Left. Fox stars Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity dwarf all other news personalities.
In 1992, Bruce Springsteen released a song called 57 Channels (and nothin’ on). He did not realize what a prophet he was. Today, Americans have some 700-900 channels to “choose” from, most of which they no not know anything about. High definition has multiplied these choices greatly.
In 1994, Rush Limbaugh was not just the king of conservative talk radio, he was conservative talk radio. His opinions on race and the Simpson case were a profound, honest conservative expression, kept hopelessly under wraps before then. Limbaugh and the Simpson case unleashed a new wave of Right-wing pundits, including the incendiary Michael Savage, who ignored vicious accusations of racism with his scathing assault on the failure of black leadership, the disintegration of the black family, and black crime. These once-taboo topics became touchstones of conservative philosophy, breaking down the Great Society brick by brick. Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy, and Mark Levin are among a host of other conservative talk voices who have dominated this medium.
The Internet was in its infancy in 1994-1995, but the Simpson case propelled it as it propelled all other mediums of communication. From there, social media has practically substituted itself for the news. So-called “smart phones” have created a distracted citizenry, unable to concentrate on much of anything any more. Book reading is down. Newspapers are a joke. The more information available, the more we know, the dumber we have become.
All of this technology has not created an educated class. It has, however, made every form of uncensored, hardcore pornography available to most anyone of any age anywhere in the world. Child molesters and child pornographers feast on this wondrous new entre to predatory behavior. Beautiful young girls grow up today longing not for a professional career, but a “glamorous” life in pornography. In the old Communist bloc, decades of atheism have produced a vapid immorality of breathtaking scope. National heroes are no longer freedom fighters or philosophers, but lingerie-clad Hungarian adult film starlets happily willing to do any sex act with any number of men, all at the same time. The Internet depicts supermodel-hot escorts and prostitutes available with a few clicks of the keyboard.
While all of this was going to be loosed on the world whether O.J. Simpson killed his wife or not, the hunger for scandal, the decreasing shock value created by the lurid case, and the all-encompassing social deviation emanating from this tragedy, helped to exponentially grow a form of medium that seems now to have been taken over by the Prince of Lies.
The Obama Presidency made use of this convergence of liberal media bias, social networks, technology . . . and lies, like none before. While the news has always slanted to the Left, and CNN was even dubbed the “Clinton News Network” by Republicans, when Obama hit the scene all vestige of impartiality went out the window. When George W. Bush ran for President against Albert Gore in 2000, the media made a strong effort to be fair. This was in reaction to Bill Clinton’s scandals, when he was having an affair in the Oval Office and even faced a legitimate charge of rape.
But the Iraq War created a firestorm of media criticism. The vitriol heaped upon Bush was beyond any previous Presidents, with the possible exception of Richard Nixon. By contrast, the so-called “mainstream,” or as 2008 GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin (who faced monumentally unfair criticism) called it, the “lamestream” media, went from being legitimate news to a tacit wing of the Democratic Party, the Obama campaign, and then the Obama Administration.
When President Bush took about 10 or 20 seconds to rise from his seat, in order not to frighten Florida school children upon hearing of the twin towers’ collapsing on 9/11, he was excoriated. When it was learned that President Obama was playing golf and cards most of the day that Osama bin Laden was killed, and later it was learned that he was partying in Las Vegas with rap stars Jay-Z and Beyonce while Navy SEALS were dying in an unsupported defense of the American embassy in Libya, the media expressed the general opinion that whatever Obama needed to do in order to “stay focused” was good for the country.
But the support for Obama by social media took bias to a new level. Throughout the 2012 Presidential campaign, AOL users were greeted every day by the smiling visages of Barack and Michelle Obama, urging them to click links that would wish them “happy birthday,” or “happy anniversary,” or any number of ways to show support. Steve Jobs was an Obama supporter who offered to run the technology/media wing of his campaign before he passed away. Many conservatives are convinced that search engines like Google, social media sites like Facebook, and technology giants like Apple (all run by liberal Democrats) created algorithms that more likely led to positive Obama sites and applications, negative Mitt Romney sites.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”
William Shakespeare’s words from “As You Like It” ring as true today as they did when he wrote them. Certainly, in the melodrama of the O.J. Simpson murder case, the “characters” all seemed to have a unique role, as if set pieces of a cosmic stage craft. 20 years after the murders, there are “winners” and “losers” of this case nobody possibly would have predicted at the time. In the case of Simpson, the irony surrounding his incarceration over a seemingly mundane attempt to retrieve his sports memorabilia, is worthy of anything the Bard could have conjured.
The Browns
Denise Brown was Nicole’s greatest advocate and defender. She started a charitable trust in her sister’s name and is an advocate against domestic violence. In 2007 she had a falling out with the Goldmans when they published If I Did It, which she felt was morally wrong. She canceled a joint appearance with Oprah Winfrey. She makes appearances across the country to raise funds for women’s shelters nationwide and lobbied on behalf of Arlen Spector’s Violence Against Women Act.
“Nicole's legacy will carry on not just through me, but all through the VAWA (Violence Against Women Act),” Brown told Fox411. “After Nicole's murder then Senator Joe Biden asked me to come to D.C. because the VAWA was stalled in Senate Appropriation, after that it was passed,”
Today Brown is a co-host of the D-Talks Internet Radio show which raises awareness of women’s issues and empowerment. She said her father, Lou Brown, was too ill to be interviewed.
“He worked so hard helping domestic violence organizations and lobbying for change, but he hasn't been involved in years," Brown said. "He's 88 years old and still with us."
The Goldmans
Fred Goldman and his family were the most passionate and emotional relatives of the two victims. He never gave up on “getting” O.J. one way or another. Irritated that the ex-football star had effectively hidden his assets, Goldman sued O.J. for his civil role in the deaths of Nicole and his son, Ron. The Goldman’s prevailed and won a $33.5 million judgment, a civil jury effectively concluding what the criminal jury did not: O.J. committed double-murder.
As part of the awards, they were given the proceeds, copyright and media rights to O.J. Simpson’s 2007 “book,” If I Did It. The Goldman’s took the book, co-written by O.J. with Pablo Fenjves, and re-wrote it as a confession by O.J. Titled If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer, the word “If” was barely seen, instead hidden under a large “I,” making it appear to read I Did It. The book included an afterword by true crime writer Dominick Dunne, who covered the entire trial extensively, and listed as author the Goldman Family.
The Goldman’s appeared with Oprah Winfrey to promote it. Oprah expressed displeasure, saying she only scheduled the appearance because Denise Brown had agreed to be a guest, too. When Denise expressed displea
sure with the Goldmans for apparently exploiting the case and making money from it, Oprah sided with her on the issue.
The Goldman’s explained that they were not motivated by money, rather they wanted to deny O.J. profiting from the book, which had the potential of making him millions of dollars. The book sold very well, but the Goldman’s never came close to collecting $33.5 million, because O.J. no longer had that kind of money (due to attorney’s fees, lack of income). What assets he did have had been effectively hidden, unavailable to the Goldmans or anybody else.
Goldman on occasionally weighed in on court cases, including the Casey Anthony murder trial, for various news outlets.
The Simpsons
O.J. Simpson’s four children (two by Marguerite, two by Nicole) had great lives denied them. Lawyers and the Goldman lawsuit drained his money. What money he did hide he needed to maintain some semblance of his lifestyle. Arnelle (46 in 2014) and Jason (44 in 2014) have maintained near-total anonymity. Internet searches reveal almost nothing.
Nicole’s daughter Sydney (29 in 2014) was working in catering in Atlanta in 2012, while Justin (26 in 2014) was living in Florida. It was a far cry from the Hollywood lifestyle her parents enjoyed.
Sydney and Justin lived with the Browns during and immediately after the trial, but there were rumors that they had a falling out with Nicole’s family. In 2012 Denise Brown told Fox News, “The kids are doing great. This isn't just a standard remark, they really are doing great.”
Al Cowlings
Cowlings was a huge casualty of the Simpson tragedy. Had he done the right thing, told the police what O.J. told him, confirmed what his porn star girlfriend told the district attorney’s office, and defended his friend Nicole, he would be viewed sympathetically, maybe even heroically.
Instead, he lost his “meal ticket,” his passport to the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and was left to fend for himself. He faded into total obscurity. According to reports, in 2007 he was working as a handbag sales representative in Los Angeles and facing bankruptcy. His last public sighting was by TMZ outside Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills in 2007.
Marcus Allen
Allen managed to steer just clear enough of the Simpson saga to maintain his reputation. He always denied having an affair with Nicole, although many in the know insist he did. Whether O.J. knew or not, or even whether knowledge of involvement with Allen was an instigator in O.J.’s rage, is not known and probably never will be.
Allen retired from pro football in 1997, was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame (2000) and the Pro Football Hall of Fame (2003). He is considered one of the greatest athletes who ever lived, although in the pantheon probably would rate just below O.J. Simpson both as a Trojan and an NFL running back (despite breaking O.J.’s single-season college records).