#oj: made in america

[cinemaocd]

Barry Scheck pulling out that police call sheet that showed that Vannater took Simpson's blood from the police station TO the crime scene was the real smoking gun of the OJ trial. In what universe do police take evidence TO the crime scene? Everyone remembers the bloody gloves and no one talks about Vannater's little blood errand.

[ytcomments-archive]

[mistersleepy]

Watching OJ Made in America. The framing is actually so funny.

Like you get two episodes of context on the specifics of racism in LA, but the conceit of the show is that its being told to you by people related to the oj case in some way.

Which means.... the Cop So Racist He Made Himself Unwell But Happens To Have Found The Glove gives you his perspective on the LA riots (he's lying through his teeth the whole time.)

[thinksideways]

The Court TV docuseries OJ25 (2020) is the best and most truthful account of the trial.

2016 Vulture interview with juror Sheila Woods:

I guess maybe black people cheering was less about O.J. and more about the politics of the LAPD at the time, police brutality. A lot of their catharsis was bigger than O.J. I can understand that. But at the end of the day, two people were murdered.

I think most people thought we based our decision on race. Race never came up in the topic of our deliberation, or even how the LAPD treated black people.

Like, regarding Fuhrman, none of his comments really …

The thing with Fuhrman was once his credibility was shot, you really could discount anything he said. He was definitely a liar — he lied on the stand — and when he came back to the court, he took the fifth on everything. Why would you trust anything he said? He was the detective that found all this evidence: the blood on the Bronco, on the back fence, on the glove … all of that created reasonable doubt.

Was there a moment in particular during the trial that really swayed your decision towards reasonable doubt?

Yeah, when they started talking about the blood evidence. There was, like, a milliliter of blood they couldn’t account for. And they found blood on the back fence of Nicole’s condo, and that particular blood also had the additive in there. That additive is only found in [a test tube of blood], so why would the blood sample on that back fence contain that additive unless somebody took the blood from the test tube and placed it there?

Do you think O.J. was framed?

I don’t know if he was necessarily framed. I think O.J. may know something about what happened, but I just don’t think he did it. I think it was more than one person, just because of the way she was killed. I don’t know how he could have just left that bloody scene — because it was bloody — and got back into his Bronco and not have it filled with blood. And then go back home and go in the front door, up the stairs to his bedroom … That carpet was snow white in his house. He should have blood all over him or bruises because Ron Goldman was definitely fighting for his life. He had defensive cuts on his shoes and on his hands.

O.J. only had that little cut on his finger. If [Goldman] was kicking to death, you would think that the killer would have gotten some bruises on his body. They showed us photos of O.J. with just his underwear just two days after, and he had no bruises or anything on his body.

I'm dying to know why you sent this to me OP

[princehendir]

One of the more interesting, side plots, for lack of a better term, in the docuseries OJ: Made In America, is where you first figure out that the most iconic footage of both the LA riots and the OJ Simpson car chase was actually taken by the same helicopter pilot because the same voice is in each and you're like wow. Okay. What a career. And then like 20 minutes later they cut to an interview done for the series in the present day and you find out that said helicopter pilot is now a woman.

[jkottke]

This is a great piece: Ezra Edelman (OJ: Made in America) spent five years making a documentary about Prince but now Prince’s estate is blocking its release because it depicts him not only as a majestical genius but also “dark, vindictive and sad”.

[liesmyteachertoldme]

History of Kamala

The year was 1994. Former NFL superstar OJ Simpson has just fled from police in the infamous low speed chase in his white Ford Bronco. Pulp Fiction was playing in the cinemas.

And 29 year old Kamala Harris began dating one of the most powerful politicians in the State of California— Willie Brown.

Brown had been in politics for decades at that point and has risen to become the Speaker of California State Assembly, then Mayor of San Francisco.

(And despite having spent his entire adult life in politics, Brown somehow managed to amass a collection of $6,000 suits and expensive sports cars.)

Willie Brown was also at 60 years of age back in 1994 (he’s 90 now), three decades older than his girlfriend Kamala.

Obviously she was in it for love. I’m sure that’s the case.

But it just so happened that, barely a few months into their steamy relationship, Speaker Willie Brown appointed Kamala to multiple, senior-level positions in the state, including a seat on the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the Medical Assistance Commission.

I’m also sure that Brown appointed his girlfriend due entirely to her competence, and absolutely no other reason whatsoever.

These appointments, along with Sugar Daddy's public support and endorsement, were integral in Harris's later campaign to become San Francisco District Attorney, then Attorney General of California in 2010.

Willie Brown also endorsed her for Senate when she declared her candidacy in 2016, and was instrumental in securing her top endorsements, including from Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

Again, all of this success was clearly due exclusively to Kamala’s tremendous competence and nothing more.

Now, a lot of people have been remarking lately that Kamala is a DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) hire.

But that’s completely unfair. Talk about a low blow. I mean, Kamala’s critics have completely missed the point that this woman— who claims to embody female empowerment— got her start by having sex with a powerful California politician 30 years her senior.

So let’s give credit where credit is due: she slept her way to the top well before she became a DEI hire.

In fact it wasn’t until she was picked to be Joe Biden’s running mate that she started benefiting from the DEI obsession.

Curiously, it is now considered racist to even bring this up. CNN has decided that calling Vice President Kamala Harris a “DEI Candidate” is a “pseudonym for the N-word” and “racist dog whistle”.

That’s absurd. Joe Biden’s entire presidency has been about promoting DEI candidates, and he admitted this himself recently when he said:

“To me the values of Diversity, Equality, Inclusion are literally— and that’s not kidding— the core strengths of America. That’s why I’m proud to have the most diverse administration in history that taps into the full talents of our country. It starts at the top with the Vice President.”

Biden also made it perfectly clear in 2020 that he wanted to select a woman of color as his running mate.

So why exactly is it controversial to assert that Kamala was a DEI hire? Is it also controversial that the sky is blue, or that Michael Jordan was an exceptional basketball player?

But these people in charge have a way of acting offended about even the most basic and obvious truths. It’s quite a talent.

Speaking of talent, Kamala has none.

Whenever she opens her mouth, she is as incompressible as Joe Biden yet without the excuse of age and dementia. Like this gem:

“So I think it’s very important... for us, at every moment in time, and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past, but the future.”

This is also the person that was put in charge of the border security, which has been a total disaster. But in her televised explanation, she justified having not been to the border by saying she hadn’t been to Europe either.

Wow, really racking up those foreign policy credentials!

And on the topic of foreign policy, check out this inspiring quote as Kamala showcased her encyclopedic understanding of European affairs:

“Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine, so, basically, that’s wrong.”

Note that this wasn’t an interview on Nickelodeon or some event with elementary school kids. This was an actual response in a real interview about the war in Ukraine.

One of my favorite Kamala stories, though, is when she visited Puerto Rico earlier this year.

Protesters were in the streets of San Juan, singing in Spanish. Kamala merrily clapped along, until an aide quietly whispered that the song was protesting her visit as a representation of the federal government’s “colonization” of Puerto Rico.

Her track record as a prosecutor is also far from impressive.

As the Attorney General of California, she prosecuted and incarcerated cannabis users. But in 2019, asked if she herself had ever smoked weed, she cackled and said, "I have. And I inhaled."

In 2014, Kamala’s office argued to keep non-violent inmates (including from minor drug convictions) locked up so that the state would have free prison labor to fight wildfires.

But Kamala would prefer that her Black Lives Matters voters forget about all that.

The Big Lie they are now force-feeding us is that the party of democracy is energized and united around Kamala Harris.

Personally I think they are terrified and desperate. Deep down they know this woman is an incompetent buffoon. And more importantly, they are still incredibly fractured.

This continues to look like a group that is completely out of touch, but insists that they have everything under control... which is pretty much par for the course given the last few years under Biden.

Having said all that, it would be foolish to think they won’t pull out all the stops— continue to create all the propaganda, tell whatever lie, manufacture whatever hoax, and suppress whatever truth is necessary to win.

[ladiablesse]

cannot believe that oj simpson subject of the oscar winning 2016 documentary oj: made in america has died

[starswheeledoverhead]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/01/oj-and-jeffrey-toobin-black-bogeyman-auctioneer/

I wish that ESPN would take my name off of their racist production “O.J.: Made in America”. I thought that Ezra Edelman, the black producer, would have some control over the project, but higher ups apparently decided to take Jeffrey Toobin’s racist line that blacks are “incapable of recognizing reality.”* He says that the black jurors in the criminal trial and elsewhere can’t think as well as whites, and shouldn’t receive “a pat on the head.” The late Norman Mailer, Mr. Incoherent, suggested something similar in New York magazine. This is a Eugenics line, which holds that blacks make decisions based on emotions, and not reason, which must come as a surprise to the black scientists who work at NASA.

The second part of Toobin’s pro-police, pro-prosecution theory was that the decision in the criminal case was the jury paying the LAPD back for its past brutality against blacks. (One of the jurors was white!) Bill Hodgman got sick and wasn’t able to try the case, yet there he was on “O.J.: Made In America,” voicing his theory of the case.

In the series, other prosecutors yammered on and on about theories that were disproven in court. A detective who might have planted evidence was allowed to take up time. In order to make the case that the decision in the criminal trial was based on black grievances about the LAPD, or Mark Furhman, they used a black juror whose opinion fit this marketable line instead of jurors who voted on the basis of evidence that had been tampered with. The late Philip Vanatter never explained why he carried a vial of the victim’s blood to O.J.’s estate.**

Of course, Toobin, who is Harvard trained and Harvard married and whose parents were well-off, refuses to believe that the police plant evidence, even when Mark Furhman had a history of such practices.

Those who are making money from black Bogeyman marketing, in this case O.J. is the commodity, neglect to mention that the jury in the criminal trial included a white and a Hispanic. Interviewed recently, the Hispanic juror said that he was convinced that the police had planted evidence. Are Hispanics prone to conspiracy theories or just blacks? He’s backed up by three of the top American forensic experts: Henry Lee, Michael Baden and Cyril Wecht. Wecht believes that O.J. Simpson was guilty, but believes that the police planted the blood on the sock found in O.J.’s bedroom. Other blood evidence was obviously taken from the lab because it was tainted with a chemical preservative.

One of the positive results of the trial was that it exposed the sloppy way that evidence is handled in the country’s crime labs, resulting in thousands of innocent people being sent to prison. Though much was made of O.J.’s shoes appearing at the crime scene, Michael Baden said that policemen, who refused to wear booties, made most of the prints.

Toobin’s idea of evidence is hair samples found at the crime scene, which he says belonged to O.J. Many scientists dismiss hair evidence as junk science. Moreover the hair found at the crime scene was dyed. O.J.’s barber said that O.J. didn’t dye his hair. The media neglected to mention that hair identified as Caucasian hair was also found at the crime scene and the DNA found under Nicole’s fingernails gathered there when she fought off her attacker or attackers didn’t belong to O.J. Instead of turning the blood evidence over to the lab, one of the detectives carried it around.

Toobin’s book, The Run Of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson, was used in both O.J. series.”O.J.,Made in America,” and Fox’s “The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” The book was used to cover up police and prosecutorial misconduct. He recently said that the idea of prosecutorial misconduct is “ridiculous.” Tell that to the thousands of black and Hispanic defendants in jail because of lying policemen and prosecutors withholding exculpatory evidence. Incidentally, one of the black jurors was a DNA scientist. She didn’t appear on either of the O.J. moneymakers because she would have upset the line promoted by ESPN and earlier Fox, that blacks played the “Race Card,” instead of being persuaded by the arguments made by Barry Scheck and the other forensic scientists. In order to stir media’s big money maker–The Racial Divide–ESPN showed the usual footage of blacks cheering the decision and whites expressing gloom. Whites in a Buffalo bar cheered the decision. O.J. played football in Buffalo.

As for the civil trial held in Santa Monica, 64% of the white jurors mostly*** believed in O.J. Simpson’s guilt before they were seated. They finally captured the coon in Las Vegas where he foolishly invaded a hotel room for the purpose of retrieving his own memorabilia. ESPN omitted the fact that the F.B.I. was informed of the sting weeks before it happened.**** The O.J. revenge sentence was delivered by Judge Jackie Glass, who had to insist that it had nothing to do with the Brentwood murders. She gave him 33 years. Some saw this as excessive. It was. It was meant to make up for the life sentence that the jury in the criminal case refused to deliver.

ESPN suggested that O.J. deserved the sentence by preceding the Las Vegas caper with scenes of a decadent O.J. partying with scantily clothed white women, a scene that has always been a big money maker for the perverse to leer at, which is why the porno movie genre called combo is a big hit even among KKK members. This porno angle has brought power to people like Tennessee’s Senator Corker, who won an election by pairing his black opponent Harold Ford, Jr. with white Playboy bunnies. Corker is on the short list to be Trump’s Vice Presidential nominee.

When the “producer” Ezra Edelman interviewed me, I made all of the points I’ve enumerated here. Moreover, James Poniewozik in The New York Times, June 20, 2016, made none of these important points in a friendly summary of the two O.J. entertainments. It was a Times reporter who agreed with Toobin that the murderer’s gloves fit O.J. He, like Toobin, didn’t witness the demonstration.

My interview wasn’t used because it would have disturbed this entertainment that was meant to comfort a white audience into believing that all of the questions about the Brentwood murders have been answered. They haven’t. 35 million people watched it. That’s why it faithfully supported the line of the prosecutors and the police, regardless of whether O.J. is guilty or innocent of the Brentwood murders.

Meanwhile Jeffrey Toobin, the black Bogeyman entrepreneur, has probably made more money pimping O.J. than all of the money made from Virginia slaves during a given year. He’s the new kind of slave trader. He wants more. Who is the next black Bogeyman that Toobin will deliver to an audience that can’t get enough of this garbage in, garbage out? It’s been announced. It’s Cinque of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Fox will make a film about Patty Hearst using Toobin’s point-of-view.*****

HOW AM I STILL GETTING OJ QUESTIONS

[skoolweirdo]

Watching OJ made in America with old ass white men claiming that they’re the real victims and there’s no proof of cop brutality or that it’s an anomaly is so insane to watch

[cinemaocd]

What is the OJ docu called. I can’t remember.

30 for 30: OJ: Made in America

[dhaaruni]

Esther and I are watching the OJ: Made in America documentary

[manitat]

The 100 greatest TV series of the 21st Century

BBC Culture polled 206 TV experts from 43 countries in order to find the greatest TV of the 21st Century – here’s the top 100

01 The Wire (2002-2008) 02 Mad Men (2007-2015) 03 Breaking Bad (2008-2013) 04 Fleabag (2016-2019) 05 Game Of Thrones (2011-2019) 06 I May Destroy You (2020) 07 The Leftovers (2014-2017) 08 The Americans (2013-2018) 09 The Office (UK) (2001-2003) 10 Succession (2018-) 11 BoJack Horseman (2014-2020) 12 Six Feet Under (2001-2005) 13 Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) 14 Atlanta (2016-) 15 Chernobyl (2019) 16 The Crown (2016-) 17 30 Rock (2006-2013) 18 Deadwood (2004-2006) 19 Lost (2004-2010) 20 The Thick Of It (2005-2012) 21 Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000-) 22 Black Mirror (2011-) 23 Better Call Saul (2015-2022) 24 Veep (2012-2019) 25 Sherlock (2010-2017) 26 Watchmen (2019) 27 Line Of Duty (2012-2021) 28 Friday Night Lights (2006-2011) 29 Parks And Recreation (2009-2015) 30 Girls (2012-2017) 31 True Detective (2014-2019) 32 Arrested Development (2003-2019) 33 The Good Wife (2009-2016) 34 The Bridge (2011-2018) 35 Fargo (2014-) 36 Downton Abbey (2010-2015) 37 Band Of Brothers (2001) 38 The Handmaid's Tale (2017-) 39 The Office (US) (2005-2013) 40 Borgen (2010-2022) 41 Schitt's Creek (2015-2020) 42 Peep Show (2003-2015) 43 Money Heist (2017-2021) 44 Community (2009-2015) 45 The Good Fight (2017-) 46 Homeland (2011-2020) 47 Grey's Anatomy (2005-) 48 Inside No 9 (2014-) 49 The Bureau (2015-) 50 Halt And Catch Fire (2014-2017) 51 Small Axe (2020) 52 This Is England 86, 88, 90 (2010-2015) 53 Call My Agent! (2015-2020) 54 Happy Valley (2014-) 55 The Shield (2002-2008) 56 The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019) 57 The Young Pope (2016) 58 Dark (2017-2020) 59 The Underground Railroad (2021) 60 House Of Cards (2013-2018) 61 Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008) 62 The Good Place (2016-2020) 63 Pose (2018-2021) 64 Detectorists (2014-2017) 65 Orange Is The New Black (2013-2019) 66 Mare Of Easttown (2021) 67 RuPaul's Drag Race (2009-) 68 Stranger Things (2016-) 69 24 (2001-2010) 70 Battlestar Galactica (2004-2009) 71 Enlightened (2011-2013) 72 Gilmore Girls (2000-2007) 73 Planet Earth (2006) 74 Utopia (2013-2014) 75 Babylon Berlin (2017-) 76 Rick And Morty (2013-) 77 American Crime Story (2016-) 78 The Killing (Denmark) (2007-2012) 79 Mindhunter (2017-2019) 80 House (2004-2012) 81 OJ: Made In America (2016) 82 Big Little Lies (2017-2019) 83 Insecure (2016-2021) 84 Normal People (2020) 85 Narcos (2015-2017) 86 How I Met Your Mother (2005-2014) 87 The Comeback (2005-2014) 88 The OA (2016-2019) 89 Dexter (2006-2013) 90 It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (2005-) 91 Westworld (2016-) 92 Show Me A Hero (2015) 93 Treme (2010-2013) 94 Louie (2010-2015) 95 Luther (2010-2019) 96 Catastrophe (2015-2019) 97 Hannibal (2013-2015) 98 Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015-2019) 99 Steven Universe (2013-2020) 100 The Queen's Gambit (2020)

[jkottke]

A thoughtful video essay from The Cinema Cartography about 15 of film’s greatest documentaries, including OJ: Made in America, The Thin Blue Line, Grizzly Man, The Act of Killing, Shoah, and Hoop Dreams.

[gardengnosticator]

reading toobin's oj book has put me down a rabbit hole of further investigating the racial tensions in america and one of the key moments discusses the LAPD killing of eula love.

eula love was 39 year old widow and mother and during a confrontation with a gas meter reader over an unpaid bill there was an argument and a scuffle and police were called. the police shot her dead in her front lawn. later LAPD chief daryl gates was on tv discussing the events and he made sure to mention that all this originated over love's failure to pay a 69 dollar gas bill as if that somehow warranted her death and you hear that, and you look at how thing like this keep happening and its just fucking depressing.