{"id":5846,"date":"2014-06-10T20:33:59","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T20:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=5846"},"modified":"2014-06-10T20:33:59","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T20:33:59","slug":"new-poll-o-j-did-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5846","title":{"rendered":"New poll: O.J. did it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Time has a way of healing wounds, they say. It also has a way of changing hearts and minds, apparently.<\/p>\n<p>A new CNN poll says that most African-Americans now believe O.J. Simpson killed his former wife and her friend in that gruesome knife attack 20 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com\/2014\/06\/09\/majority-of-african-americans-now-say-simpson-was-guilty\/?hpt=hp_t2<\/p>\n<p>The poll was done by CNN\/ORC International, a reputable polling outfit.<\/p>\n<p>So, why the change in heart?<\/p>\n<p>A couple of things come to mind.<\/p>\n<p>* A new generation of Americans has come along since the so-called &#8220;trial of the century&#8221; acquitted Simpson after an eight-month circus act in that Los Angeles Superior courtroom. You&#8217;ll recall the video recorded reaction to the acquittal, which a jury reached after just four hours of deliberation.<\/p>\n<p>White Americans were crushed; African-Americans were jubilant. Many white Americans sobbed; African-Americans cheered, laughed, high-fived and embraced.<\/p>\n<p>The state of race relations wasn&#8217;t good in southern California at the time, you&#8217;ll also remember. A black man, Rodney King, was beaten senseless by some white police officers, who then were acquitted of wrong-doing in that beat down. The verdict enraged African-Americans, who then rioted.<\/p>\n<p>Three years later came the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.<\/p>\n<p>O.J. went on trial and the rest is history, correct?<\/p>\n<p>That brings me to the second reason for the change in attitudes.<\/p>\n<p>* Despite the jubilation felt in the African-American community over Simpson&#8217;s acquittal, it became immediately clear that Simpson was not going to give back any of the love and affection he felt from his fellow African-Americans. He sought to return immediately to the life he enjoyed prior to the murder. Did he avail himself to troubled black youth, or did he work as a violence counselor with minorities? No. Was he a high-profile presence at, say United Negro College Fund events or at NAACP gatherings? Nope.<\/p>\n<p>He played golf at exclusive courses and sought to ingratiate himself with gambling interests.<\/p>\n<p>How do you think that looked to those who cheered his acquittal? I&#8217;m betting it didn&#8217;t look good at all.<\/p>\n<p>He ended up getting sued in civil court by the Goldman family, who won a multimillion-dollar settlement after a jury determined Simpson was responsible for the deaths of Nicole and Goldman. And after that? He was arrested for assault in a case involving the recovery of some keepsake items. Another jury convicted him of that crime and sent him to prison, where he remains to this day.<\/p>\n<p>And remember when Simpson said he would move heaven and Earth to find the &#8220;real killers&#8221;? He had the chance before getting tossed into the slammer. I&#8217;d bet real money he didn&#8217;t lift a finger.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Time has a way of healing wounds, they say. It also has a way of changing hearts and minds, apparently. A new CNN poll says that most African-Americans now believe O.J. Simpson killed his former wife and her friend in that gruesome knife attack 20 years ago. http:\/\/politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com\/2014\/06\/09\/majority-of-african-americans-now-say-simpson-was-guilty\/?hpt=hp_t2 The poll was done by CNN\/ORC International, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=5846\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">New poll: O.J. did it<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3173,3306,3366,3798,4015],"class_list":["post-5846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-naacp","tag-nicole-brown-simpson","tag-o-j-simpson","tag-race-relations","tag-ronald-goldman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}