April 27, 2024 • 45 mins
The Black Effect Presents... Straight Shot No Chaser with Tezlyn FIgaro!
On this episode of Straight Shot No Chaser, we're diving deep into a pivotal moment in history with a special guest, Dr. Steve Perry. Join us as we reflect on the legacy of OJ Simpson, from his glory days on the field to the infamous trial that captivated the nation. Tezlyn shares her personal connection to the case and explores how perceptions have shifted over time.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Don't want to ask your question real good.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Let's just keep it real straight. Shout with No Chase,
say I'm gonna get a little bit rougher. I'm here
for it.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Those who really believe in the American process, all of
us street shot No Chase with your girl Teslim Figure
Out on the Black Effect podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
At work Tea, everybody, this is Teslim Figure Out.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Tap in with Teslim Figure Out, a news show. I
think we're on episode eight. I believe very very excited
about this new platform. Shout out to all of the
team that is making this work. A new platform called
two Way. Shout out to the homie Chris Gotti. Today
We're gonna do something a little bit different. I am
also streaming live on my Instagram. Shout out to my
(00:50):
Instagram family. I see you guys popping up.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I see my YouTube family popping up. I see my
Twitter family popping up.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I'm doing this on.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Purpose because I have a very very special guest with me,
doctor Steve Perry, and I want to involve those that
follow my work and his work because we do, I
guess you would call it cross pollinate in many of
the same circles, and so I thought this was a
really really good conversation Instagram family. As you know, I
(01:23):
am always looking at your comments, so I will be
looking down and on the two Way app. Let me
give a moment to explain what that will be. It
will be an app very similar to what we do
on Instagram. So you guys know my comment caucus. I
see you in the building. I see you, Cliff, he said,
he is the chairman of the comment Caucus. And so
(01:46):
I'd like to everybody knows on Instagram that I love
to bring you in my conversations.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
You are literally my third host.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So as you watch this, I am going to direct
you to watch this on two Way on YouTube stream
streaming right now on the two Way app on YouTube.
My apology so you is Google and put in two
way and put in just put in two Way, tesslim
figure o that app should that YouTube channel should pull up,
(02:14):
and then you can watch us live.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
But fear not, this.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Link will be available if you want to actually see
the video. So if you're on Instagram saying hey I
can't see the video, let them know comment a caucus chair,
I see you in the building. Let people know that
they will be able to watch this video. We're gonna
have this up this evening, no later than in the morning,
so let's get straight to it. So, Wow, I was
(02:39):
going to come on and talk about something else today.
I wanted to talk about abortion. I wanted to talk
about what's happening in politics. But then we learned of
the passing of O. J.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Simpson.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I immediately got on the phone to talk to doctor
Steve Perry because this was such an important conversation and
those of you know, I normally don't just follow whatever's tree,
you know, whatever conversation is trending. I don't just jump
on every conversation for the sake of clicks and views.
But this is so important because it really is was
a milestone in my life. Would it is This particular
(03:12):
case in nineteen ninety five when I was in high
school really made me want to get into the legal profession.
It also showed me what commentating was all about on
court TV. You know, I learned that, Wow, you can
be an attorney and have an opinion without getting in
trouble and TV all at the same time. My mother
was the news director's assistant, and we would come home
(03:34):
and she would record this case every day on VHS.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
For those who don't know what that is, it is
actually a tape that you used.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
To have to put in a machine that would record.
And so this was just a pivotal, pivotal time in
my life. There's probably not a motion, an objection and
piece of evidence that I don't know about this case.
I literally watch it even until this day. It is
something that that just from a legal standpoint, has always
(04:03):
been fascinating. Man set aside of O. J. Simpson, but
just the case set aside. I normally, Doctor Perry, I
don't even like getting in these conversations with people because
I am so in deep with this case that I
always feel as if, you know, I'm speaking to somebody
that may not have watched it the way that I did,
and I always feel that it's an uneven conversation. But
(04:23):
you are the man for the conversation for today. We
don't have a lot of time, so there's only a
few things that we can unpack with this case. First,
let me introduce to you doctor Steve Perry, an educator,
best selling author, founder of founder and head of schools
Capital Preparatory Schools, Arthur of Man Up, Nobody's Coming to
Save Us? And push has come to shove. You've seen
(04:43):
him on many platforms much larger than mine.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So I am humbled in honored.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
He's shaking his head, humbled in honor to have him
joined the little old me Teslam fiery on, tap it
with tens he Hello, doctor Perry.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Says, I am so humbled to be part of your great,
big platform because what you do is tackle topics that
other folks are either afraid to or incapable of offering
up the nuances to engage in. So this is a
conversation I could not be happier to have.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah, it's a blessing to have because you know, we
unpacked things all the time, you know, and the listeners
don't notice, but.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
We unpack all the time, the show between the shows,
the show between the.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Show, so they're really just going to be listening to
a conversation that we would just typically have cameras off
and just you know, just you and I just really
talking about So we heard Ojay Sinson passed away from
cancer to age of seventy six. A lot of people
wasn't awhere. You know that he was suffering with cast
so a lot of people do keep that private. My
mother did.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
It's not something that people broadcast. I don't know how
many people knew it or not. Of course, there's so
many conspiracy theories that are out today. Of course there
always is, UH, there's always going to be somebody on
the Internet that comes up with their own theory. But
I really wanted to jump in due to limited time,
and thank you for taking out your in time today.
There's so many different layers to this, so many different
we can peel this onion all day.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I really want to go back to nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Five, and now I know there's gonna be people who
will say, you know, focus on the good things, focus
on the NFL and eleven seasons, Focus on the Heisman Trophy,
Focus on how he was regarded as one of the
greatest running backs of all time. I know people say,
don't talk about the negative, don't talk about, you know,
all of the negative things. The reality of it is,
when you are a public person, all of those things
(06:28):
will be talked about.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Even if you're not a public person.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
You go just to your cousin's funeral, people are gonna talk.
They're gonna talk about the memories that that person left.
And one of the most impactful memories that people have
of O. J. Simpson, Many people who were introduced to O. J. Simpson,
at least speaking for myself in high school, because when
he was in his prime.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
I wasn't old enough to know who he was or
you know, people may be familiar.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
He did one on good Yeah, went on good times
and did hurts and all that.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
But I was a little girl. I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
So my really first introduction of learning who OJ Simpson
was and learning about him and everything about him was
through the O. J. Simpson trial because I was young,
so I learned everything. And one of the things in
the trial is presenting that person's life from beginning to end.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So I want to go back to that time.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Where we were as a culture and where we are now,
and if we can, if you will compare the two,
because a lot has changed over nineteen ninety five versus
now at that time, and then I'm going to flip
it to you. At that time, there was a Black
America many said that he did not do it. There
was also Black America that said, if he did, let's
(07:39):
charge it to the game. What I have noticed is
in this generation, many have basically said I remember there
was a time where you just could not get into
a discussion on oda sins.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
What I said, there's no way he didn't do it,
didn't do it.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
But now as more evidence has come out, now that
the book he wrote it, if I did it has
come out, Now that even there was a mean today
that they were sharing what he was mocking stabbing somebody.
Now that more and more has come out, there is
a sector of Black America that now was saying, you
know what, it might be some truth to it, but
we're still going to charge it to the game. So
(08:14):
take us back, doctor Perry, from your perspective, where were
we in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Let's see you put step back. Patrick Mahomes is arguably
the most celebrated football player of his generation, and even
he wasn't isn't what oj Simpson was as an actlete.
For those of us who grew up in the seventies,
(08:39):
we watched the Juice do the impossible two thousand yards
in the season, things that were not even seen, and
he was universally regarded as the greatest of all time.
So for many of us who grew up during the seventies,
he was for us a foray into great team Muhammad
(09:03):
Ali were seen as not just athletes, but individuals who
transcended times. Jim Brown along those same lines. These were
men who are black, but who transcended their role as
an athlete and even made their way into what we
(09:24):
now know is mainstream. During that time, we didn't have
access to somebody's every move. We could only live through
the law that was created through the media. At that
time that many of us had three networks ABC, NBC A, CBS,
and there were not twenty four hours worth of news,
so we had limited access. And so when we got access,
(09:46):
it was through the way in which that person was portrayed,
and in his case, he was portrayed as a hero.
He was portrayed as an absolute hero. Put that on
the shelf for a moment. Nineteen ninety one, just a
couple of years before, we still did not have much
access to the world at large, and there were rumors
(10:08):
and laws and experiences of African Americans in this country
of being mistreated by the police, mistreated by the justice system.
And in nineteen ninety one, we saw for the first
time in mass in American history, a black man in
the Rodney King being beaten to what appeared to be
(10:31):
within eaches of his death.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And now you mean just to put a pin right there,
meaning we saw what we already knew. I just want
to put because many of us saw it, but it
confirmed that we.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Know correct mass but as a country, yes, for the
first time we all saw. I remember being in college
during that time, and I remember white kids coming to
my dorm room and they were stunned, like, oh my god,
can you believe it?
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Now? Yeah, I can believe it.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
The only thing I can't believe is that we finally caught.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
It on video.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
We're finally caught it.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
And so we as many of us, as like the
American at the time, especially young black people as I was,
we just knew got these mugs. This time, we finally
got they ass this time. Watch and see what's gonna happen.
Watching and see what's gonna happen now, watching, See what
all these people in California you're gonna do. Watch and
see where you have the video of this man being
(11:22):
beaten to with inter and of his life. All of
them get on, every single one of them, get off
the streets, turn into riots. People were bold, they say
what they got to say, and then shortly on the
heels of that, our hero is accused of killing a
white woman. That's the context of the beginning of the O. J.
(11:44):
Simpson trial. It's not probable that a man of his
station in life would do something like that. Many of
us thought, who would even think of earning their wife?
Who would lose all that O. J. Simpson happen? Who
would doing so That's how we start this conversation. The
conversation starts with what is today's Patrick Mahomes, what is
(12:09):
the nineties Michael Jordan, a man who transcended his sport,
was an international phenomenon, being accused of the most gruesome
act of all, killing the wife that he had and
the mother of his children in cold, gruesome blood. That's
the foundation of the council.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Now, the next layer to that would be, I want
you to take us back to the obvious on It
wasn't just a wife and a mother, it was a
white woman.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Now again, at that.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Time, I was in high school and I was not
the lens that I was looking through. Well, let me
be clearing my mother because she was a news director's assistant,
because she was in the media. My first professional meeting
was in ABJ National Association Black Journey. My mother was
very mindful of rest in peace of my mother also
(13:07):
passed away with cancer, but very mindful of images, very
mindful of For example, I tell people all the time,
I couldn't watch Sanford and Son. She didn't like the
fact that a black man was calling his son a dummy.
What many people find that show hilarious, great comedy, she
didn't like it. I could not watch a Good Time.
That's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I could not watch Good Times.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
We know that we're going to be unpacking that because
we know that's about to come out on Netflix, and
that has sparked a lot of conversation. I'm sure you
and I unpacked that. But what's so interesting, just I
just want to put a pin with that, even with
Good Times now, how they're seeing it in almost a
parody form, we don't know yet what that looks like.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
That's how my mother saw it then.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
So when I see people applaud it and say, oh man,
Good Times one of the best shows ever in history.
Yes it was a black father, yes it was a
black mother, all of those things. But my mother had
the same problem with it. That the had with it
behind the scenes. So although I did sneak to watch
those shows, she was very much against itid but she
was very much in supported to be watching George Jefferson.
(14:10):
She was proud of the fact that he was an entrepreneur.
She was proud of moving on up. She wanted to know, well,
when are they gonna ever get out the ghetto on
good times? When is it ever gonna be? You know,
when do we ever get to the other side. I'm
sitting out here to say, doctor Parr, because I'm trying
to set the scene going back to man.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I wish my mother was alive so we could talk
about this. Many reasons I wish she was alive, but this.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Is one, but I'm trying to paint a picture for
the listeners on what that meant. When I would come
in from school and we would pop in the tape
that had a yellow piece of time, I mean, even
be we have either a white or yellow sticker on it,
I can see it's so clear. And we would watch
this and unpack this because my mother wanted me to
(14:51):
know what was happening in the media, what we're seeing
the media, which we see with the infamous Johnny Cochrane.
It was surreal to me to be standing next to
the Carl Douglas just a couple of years ago at
a press at one of his press.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Conferences with Attorney care Carl Douglas says, yes, So, Carl Douglas.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
For those who are not familiar with this case, Carl
Douglas was one of the members of the Dream Team,
the infamous Dream Team that Johnny Cochrane put together. Well
that we can say that he I don't want to
say put together because OJ selected his team, but Johnny
Cochrane ended up leading that team after the Kardashian his
(15:28):
his friend at the time, was not leading the team
in the direction that OJ believed it need to go
in and Johnny Cochran came in and changed it. And guys,
if you're not for me with the Oda sis in case,
it is so many different movies, documentaries, things, but I
encourage you to watch them.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
All and paler together and then.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Go on YouTube and watch the actual trial. They still
have the trial available every single day of YouTube. So
Carl Douglass was a member of the Dream Team. So
for me to be standing next to him two years
ago in one of his cases, it was just surreal.
I'm taking you back to that Doctor Perry, because when
I was watching this ian through the lens of a teenager,
I was looking at all of those different things.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
And we knew.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
What I knew about interracial relationships at the time is
not what I know now.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
So it was not just.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
But my mother put me up on game that it
was not just about a man killing his wife, but
it was a white wife.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And so then the conversation started happening.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
People are even saying in the comments, now, if he
killed his black wife, it would have never been a thing.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
You said, you were in grad school at the time.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
What was the conversation about it being a white woman
at the time, and why did that make a difference?
And why did we give a pass? Because let's be
honest about it. O. J. Simpson to many abandoned his community.
Johnny Cochrane had to go in and blackify without a
new word that I just made up today his house
(16:49):
so that when the jurors came by, he was a
He took all the white pictures off the wall and
put black pictures on the wall.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So take us back to what how were you guys
looking at it?
Speaker 4 (16:59):
About his I was, Yeah, so I was in social
work school, which.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
Was overwhelmingly white and female. I was I am the
only African American male who graduated from my class in
nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
So the conversations were lopside, to say the least. And
it wasn't just that she was white. She was and
you'll understand the term that she was pretty. She was
a pretty white woman, blond and blonde in all that matters.
It does matter. And during that time, one of the
things that was happening in the media, which we referred
to back then, which is mostly magazines, is they would
(17:39):
actually darken his picture to create a more brooding aesthetic.
So they would go they would put filters on his
picture on the cover of Newsweek and other magazines where
they darkened his esthetic. Now keep in mind, during the
same time, during the same time period, Mike Tyson was
already in prison for rape. So you have our heroes
(18:01):
and again, by parallel, you'd be looking at and I
don't mean to make the parallel, cause I don't want
to put this on this brother, but the likes of
a Pat mahomes the likes of a Lebron James, you know,
the lights on the money Madeweather, like, these cats were
at the top of their game in terms of as athletes,
as entertainers, and as wealthy people. These were the same
(18:23):
things that were happening during that time. So we were
now looking at a global phenomena, an actor who was
being accused of killing a pretty white woman. And so
the presentation of it was the the most taboo of taboo.
Whos we ain't talking about just whistling and a white
(18:43):
woman that em Mattil was accused of, We're talking about
full fledged murder. So for many of us it was like, oh,
if he is accused of killing a white woman to
rap you know, so sad, too bad, brother, you about
to get a death penalty, two three in a row.
You gonna die. And there was no notion that there
(19:04):
was such a thing as an African American who had
the financial wherewithal to be able to hire attorneys of
the caliber that he was able to every single way
that you know, a social work school in Philadelphia at
the time, my knowledge of attorneys was public offenders or
whoever you knew who knew somebody would get you in there. Basically,
(19:25):
you were still going to be guilty, but you would
you wouldn't go to prison for the entire rest of
your life. And you rolled on somebody, you might be
able to see the light of day at some point.
So this notion that you could even conceive that you
might get off, that was something that was inconceivable. So
(19:47):
I remember where I was the day that he was
found not guilty. I watched the case myself. During that time,
I was doing an internship for an African American man
was pretty wealthy, and during that time I was doing
an internship and in his office they had you know,
the CNN. We were watching it, and I remember we
(20:09):
were all sitting in the conference room and I remember thinking,
OJ going to jail, OJ get a death sentence, OJ
going to die. And then I remember seeing the verdict
and I remember that CNN if it was what because
I was watching seeing it in the time. I remember
(20:30):
they went to I think it was Howard University, and
people jumped up like we had just won the election
of President Obama. They all there was just like this, hooray.
And I'll be honest with you, I grew up watching
someone be domestic I grew up in a domestic violence
Ashold for the time that they were together, and I
(20:52):
remember knowing what it's like to watch my mother under
those conditions, and as a social worker, I had seen
it enough time that I had seen it, and as
a black man, there was a part of me that thought,
did we just get away with this? We didn't get
away with the Ridy King thing, didn't get away with
the Mike Tyson thing. Did we just get away with this?
(21:15):
Or a spell? Even as somebody was going with a
master's on social work, the complexity of the emotions were
like wow. I never thought for a second, and to
this day I never thought that he was innocent.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
I didn't still, you know, there was a time you
would never say that people would just you know, because people, truly.
Johnny Cochrane had a way and this is what I
actually teach a class on the how to win in
the court of public opinion. He created such an environment
that people actually believed that ol J. Simpson and people
(21:52):
can are still debating this to this day, that people
believe that it's no way that one man could do this,
even though they showed how it's I don't people who
have stabbed multiple people at that time, or even though
they shown and even though the blood was everywhere, even
though the DNA was everywhere, even though you know, his
hand was cut, even though Johnny Cochran did such a
(22:15):
masterful job of his job.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
So let's just pause there for a moment.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Let's really deal with what people were celebrating, the majority
of what black people were celebrating. It was not a
matter of Now, there were people who believed he didn't
do it, but there was not a matter of if
he did it or didn't do it. It was what
you said, did he actually get away with this? And
did a black man an attorney make that happen? Was
(22:41):
the system finally beat? And what I think is interesting
is how O jay sentence because even at that time
he went to the Black church, like Johnny Carran really
did it, like he brought him to the Black church.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
He did all.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Imagine if that happens now. I'll just use an example
with Candice Owns. A couple of weeks ago, everybody kept
asking my pen on that you know somebody who people said,
you know, it's not for us who mocked the murder
of George Floyd. Mocked the murder of George Floyd. And
she's pretty much going on at Black Church tour, and
I'm looking at the majority of people saying no, no, no,
(23:14):
you can't come back over here. And then there's some
people say, well, you know, she kind of got a point.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
It reminds me of this O. J. Simpson.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
He was embraced, and I want you to talk a
little bit about that. Do you think some of the
embracement was the the love, because you know, I did
bear me when I get my words. I did a
podcast on this, on the love that we have, the
forgiving love that we have, the come on back home.
(23:41):
The prodigal son was some of that, you know, were
hurt that you left us, because oh, they did leave
the black community.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Let's just be clear.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It wasn't even just about maryoring a black a white woman.
It was about he disconnected himself. And it made for
me to say that he was not black. He's ojay,
go ahead, He's not the one.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
I'm gonna answer that question a second. There are many
black people who we see in media today who if
you check the last ten people they've spoken to, if
you check the last ten people they have text, you text,
the last ten people they went and hung out with,
then none of them are black. They're hired by media
to come on and talk from the perspective of being
African American, but many of them are on MSNBC and CNN.
(24:23):
They don't have black friends, they don't have black partners,
they don't live in the black community at all, not
at all. They can reflect on having grown up in
the whatever community. But if you look, they went to
our lady of this or that, or prep for this
or that, and they went to this elite school, and
so you'll hear them. Those people spend this significant amount
(24:45):
of their time in the black community. Here the distinction
between them and of the black people. But many white
people don't know the difference. They just see two black people.
They don't know that there's a significant, not nuanced difference
between these people who've only gone to private white schools
and then to an elite college, but who were still
phoenotypically black, and these people who are phoenosipically black, but
who spend the lion's share of their time engaging with
(25:07):
the African Americans experience writ large, not just the ink
Well experience, not to Jack and Jill experience, but the
full experience. I don't think that people, and I'll start
with me. We the people I was talking to you
during that time, we weren't celebrating OJ Simpson. I was
never expecting OJ to come back. I accepted that he
was gone. I except that he was gone. What I
(25:31):
as a black man who was just getting to a
place where for the first time in my life, I
thought that I might be an intellectual. Like I remember
growing up thinking I was stupid. I stayed back in
the third grade. I was our medio classes. I just
thought I was stupid. I knew I struggled to read.
I didn't know why I thought I was stupid, Like
I thought all the black boys like we were just
not smart. But we were ones got in most trouble.
(25:51):
School wasn't for us. So I remember coming into what
I believed to be my intellectual own during that time,
and I remember somebody calling me intellectually one time. I
thought they were trying to clown me, like somebody trying
to call me white, Like yo, what you just called me?
So to see Johnny Cochran, I was like.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
That that.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
During that same time, you have to realize Cornell West
was starting to do this speaking engagements. During that same time,
Mike Dyson was doctor Mike Dyson was out there. So
you got West Dyson and and and and and Cochrane
who people like me were starting to read what Garrick
Bell were reading face at the bottom of the well,
like we're reading this stuff and we're starting to stuff.
(26:31):
This is I need you to understand. It's the same
time as the Million Man March. So the Million Man
March is happening, right, So you got the Me and
Man March coming to coming to be. So I'm in
Philly during this time and I'm going to see Fara
con and he's doing organizing. So we got black men
coming together. We got uh Derek Bella we're reading, We
got uh uh kawanzi be Drinjufu, We got all these
people like we're starting to be like, okay, so you
(26:53):
can be black and you can smart about o J. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Just to put a pin there and got thinking to
join us just quickly. I'm this is doctor Steve Perry.
We got a couple of hundred on Instagram, five hundred
on YouTube. Make sure you tap in, do a quick
search and put in two way with teslam figure oh
god on YouTube, and you want to see this line,
don't forget your thought down pair. I just want to
make sure I'm putting a pin in that on what
you're actually saying.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
For the first time, you got.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
To see the black intellectual be black, present black, act black,
talk black, and be smart.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
During the same time. During that time, black hip hop
was about black medallion's no goal. During that time, self
destruction was what we were talking about. That was so
there was a there was a black consciousness occurring simultaneous
to literally saying burn Hollywood, burn yes.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
And if the police so let's be clear, so they're
all will sign, will take that.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
You had that goal on that, but you had nw ain't.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Who I subscribe to where you had Because again we're
coming out of Rodney Key, you know, shout out to Spot.
I talked about him all the time. I'm my very
best friends.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
He was a part of the Blood and Crypt treaty.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
So now you're coming out of you're seeing what I
call the homies were the black militia, those on the ground,
those same men that went to the Mallie Man March.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
The homies saying no, yes, yes, he's treaties, yes, wasn't.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Crips in certain sets were coming together and say, yo,
what are we doing. So there was a black consciousness
that was taking shape and it was running alongside when
we referred to as gangster rap, but it was gangster
rapping because it was people who were saying, we are
tired of you having your boot on our neck. We're
tired of y'all beating us and getting away with a
wee about that one of us is gonna get it through.
It's either the thugs and we're gonna get out, or
(28:35):
it's gonna be the intellection. But one of us gonna
make it to the top and we ain't gonna make
it being polite. That was what this was about. So
you have all these things happening at the same time.
I don't ever think that there were any capsule like
come on back, OJ, trying a hell OJ. That was
not even what I was thinking when I was connected
to and what the brothers who we would have these sets,
because we would have these sets at my cribbin and
(28:57):
Philly brothers would sit around they like I mean brothers,
like brothers, brothers even like real dudes, like I don't
want to go through you understand what I'm saying. Like
those dudes were sitting around and were debating over over
what topics it was. This is the time when even
the roots, the group, the Roots, this is when they
were in Philly and they were coming up like that
(29:18):
was just black consciousness. Black thought in that, like this
is who we were. And so at the same time
as we're going to the million man March planning committees,
at the same time as we've got black men coming
to campus to speak to us on white campuses, at
the same time as we got Rodney King being his
head split literally open, we have OJ comes in. So OJ,
(29:42):
for many of us himself was not who we were
pulling for. I never thought for a second that the
cat was in it, and it just didn't seem like
it made sense. But for me, it felt like, if
we're gonna play this thing, let's play it all the
way out. They just got to put reasonable doubt in here,
right m.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Hm showed for us.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
I never felt good about OJ getting off. I said
it then and I say it now. I never felt
good about that.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Why do you think people did why?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Why do you think there were people that just did
not believe that it was possible that one person could.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Decapitate two people. And again, if.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
People actually go back and watch the trial and actually
look at the evidence, which you know nobody likes evidence
who wants to read. But if you actually go back
and look at how Ron Goldman was, how Nicole's head
was basically chopped off, there was no fighting two people
at the same time, and then there was the struggle
with that's correct correct? So why do you think because
(30:43):
even now, even looking in the comments, you know, resting
piece of oj OJ, I wonder if these people are
really connected to the man oj are still connected to.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
I wasn't charged even then, And let me be clear,
let me not attempt to present myself as someone who
was deeply thinking during that time. I want to make
sure that I'm clear. What I don't want to do
is into the conversation pious I'm saying, I know where
I was sitting in mister Wade's conference room when it happened. Yes,
(31:12):
I know, I know, feeling a duplicitousness. I watched the
kids down at Howard say what they were saying, and
I watched them celebrate, and I felt badly about that,
But there was enough of me, if I'm gonna be frank,
to think about we got one, they got four hundred
(31:37):
years of it. We got one right. I didn't feel
good about what the we was. I didn't feel good
about what the one, what the one was. But any
black man who's ever been pulled over by a cop,
any black father who's ever had to say to his
son before he leaves the house, listen, do this, do this,
do this? Do this. Up the street from me, literally
(31:58):
less than a mile from me, a young black man
about two years ago was murdered by cops. He was
murdered like it was what it was. I mean, they
broke the window. There was they had the young man
surround it. They broke the window, he's still strapped in
the seat, and they just unload into the car, just
(32:19):
unload into the car. He was murdered. That's murdered. That's
murd that's murdered. None of those cats have been none.
All of them have been reinstated. Everyone, every cop who
did that has done it. So there so there's still
this feeling of in the way in which many of
us can celebrate a drug dealer, like we can celebrate
a drug dealer because he's getting his he's trying to
(32:41):
do right by him. At the same time, it is
feeling very, very conflicted about the fact that he's killing
somebody's mother right now. Like somebody's mother right now is
a drug addict. Somebody's father right now is a drug addict.
I just I just lost a very good friend of
mine last week to an overdose. I don't feel good
(33:01):
about that. It's just a matter of who do we
identify with at what point. I don't ever feel like
the people who I was around were ever like pro Oj.
We loved him as an athlete, but then we just recognize.
And I'm saying this because I want to Test. I
want so many people who watch you to understand that
you Test are different than a lot of the black
(33:22):
women and men that they see on television. And he
has gone the radio, and I want people to really
understand that a lot of those people you see, a
lot of the ones you see, they don't spend a
lot of time in the black community, and they damn
sure don't spend a lot of time with poor black people.
They may spend a lot of time with the intellectual elite,
(33:43):
which again, thank God, go you great that your mother
and father have been successful. I mean, I'm now that
person to my own sons, I don't want somebody dog
and my sons out because they don't spend time in poverty.
That's just not their lifestyle. But it does give them
a certain perspective that the kids who they went to
school with in our school who don't have our kids,
have a very different experience. So I want people to
(34:06):
understand that. Very often the commentators who are talking, who
are telling you what black people think, don't spend a
lot of time around black people who we would typically
consider when we think of black people. They're not talking
about them, even.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Though they say all the time, the barbecue, the barbecue.
For some reason they think that makes them look cool.
But continue they keep saying, who's invited to the barbecue?
And I mean, you ain't at the barbecue. The barbecues
and I go to you wouldn't be invited, but.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
Let's let's call it. Let's call it what it is.
They would be the ones who would stop by the
Costco and get you the macaroni chief She's like, I
see the sticker on it. Come on, what did you
just do here? Now I invited you. I look like
a goddamn fool because you come up to this joint
and you got costco.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Yes, and well with let's and while let's let's use
that that metaphor that analogy. Johnny Cochrane brought OJ to
the barbecue. He brought them to the bar because he's
left many many times.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
Let me put let me push you on that. Let
me push you that. I don't think Johnny Cochrane brought OJ.
I think Johnny Cochrane was always seen as there. So
it's just like, it's just like the cousin who you bring,
who brings his girlfriend or his friends to the to
the cookout. You're like, he's cool because he's with you,
but if you leave, he gotta go.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Yes, yes, yes, No, nobody goes to the crom table
playing space.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
He ain't get nobody's partner the space table. He's gonna
this dude is gonna is gonna cut your your your
ace of spades. Yes, you're gonna put it down the
spade and this dude gonna throw he gonna.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
You know, well, that's what I mean.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
It was.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
It was a plus one deal.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
And I want to put a pin here too, because man,
this is such a good conversation.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
You guys tag a friend, join in.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
But I want to put a pin in here too,
because what I talked about a couple of weeks ago
with the Candice Owns conversation is the love of a
black woman, because this is very critical and how we.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Love and love and love and love and.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Take back and take back and take back and stand by.
That's why I compared the love of black woman to
the love of God, the forgivingness, the even now you
know people saying, you know, hey, I'm looking in the
coming Kaitlyn jenneral is out of pocket, we are quick
to lace up our shoes and fight.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Even if you're wrong.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
We will still go put that house up, get you
out of jail, custs you out all the way home.
We will still say no matter what you did. So
even in using the analogy of the barbecue, if O. J.
Simpson came back and the brother's like, hey, we know
what you want.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
We ain't really with you.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
But since you with Johnny, that's cool, that black woman
is still gonna say can I fix your plate?
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Can I get you something?
Speaker 4 (36:42):
Have you eate?
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Now? Some of the sisters are gonna say, no, you
want to go with that white girl.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Move on.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
But the reason why I'm using this example doctor pear
is because fast forward to Jonathan Majors now and obviously
he didn't murder anybody, But I look at the comments,
and I look at the black women. When he got
back with before he started dating Megan, the black women
(37:08):
were saying some were saying, you learned your lesson.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
It is what it is. This would have been a different.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Time in nineteen ninety five because the black women, for
the most part, were lining up behind O. J. Simpson
because they looked at his black mother, they looked at
his black daughter. But now you have I wonder what
this will be like now, because now you have black
women say, hey, Jonathan Major, you shouldn't have been over
there anyway. But there's still an overwhelming amount of black
women that are still saying, you know what, you made
a mistake. We're gonna ride with you anyway. What we're
(37:36):
not gonna do is let them tear you down. What
we're not gonna do is let them take everything from you.
We hope you learn and if you don't learn, whatever
this learning lesson is, because there's still people say love
for you, love, We don't have a problem learning you love.
But there's always been this thing where black women what
pains us, and I'm gonna give it back to you.
The trauma that pays us is being forgotten about being
(37:57):
left like O. J. Simpson's first wife, being there with
that man through it all thick and thin. You get money,
and then you leave us. Kanye said it leave you
for a white girl. Ironically, Kanye did the same thing.
So black women at that time moved past that pain.
Some stayed in that trump and said no, they say
where you at? But we're gonna rule for Johnny Cochran.
(38:18):
So just now I see the same things happening in
these conversations, just you know, looking at Jonathan Major's for example,
what's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Yeah, So I would say this to me, it's bigger
than just the woman, the second woman he married. For me,
it is when I look at Judge Clarence Thomas, I
think of him as someone who rarely ever engages with
(38:47):
African Americans. It's not just that he's married to a
white woman. It is that he is someone who has
very little sway or interest in the uplift the African
American community versus someone like a Dawn Stanley, who I'm
told is with a white woman. I don't think that
(39:09):
there are very few people who doubt her integrity for
cultural integrity or commitment to our greater cause. I think
most people, if there were a black draft, would put
Dawn Stanley at the top of their card, and she
would be a first round draft pick to borrow from
(39:29):
The Chappelle Show. So I think in the case of O. J. Simpson,
I think of the in the case of Clarence Thomas,
I think in the case of Candice Owens, these are
people who have very little put into the cultural bank,
very little interest other than the functional interest of I
(39:51):
ain't got nobody else. It's like being they would have their.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Way to remove themselves basically.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
Well, I would say, but if it's even more than that,
it's being the person who that person never wanted to date.
And then when the other people drop you, you go
back and say, well, at least there's always you, like
WHOA right, right, I don't feel right. I don't think
I won right there, I don't feel like I won.
(40:20):
So I don't feel that people. I feel that people.
And I use it Dawn as an example because she's
someone who aint nobody on question her quote unquote blackness.
I don't think I think you have to Well, let
me just say this. They are always when people question
people's blackness. I'm not that group.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
But the majority of a miracle was rooting for her.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
For those who listen, you're talking about Don Staley, the
coach of UH doctor South Cairlineman.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
That's correct, National champion coaches South Carolina, one of the
greatest athletes of male.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Who won three times.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
But go ahead, right, so you know, but but but
Ann did so jet black and so jet black when
she gave her victory speech that was torn from a
Baptist pulpit that might have been a pental costal. Four
o'clock in the afternoon, church is still going on from
eleven a m right. So oj was never that and
(41:18):
there was an anti race perspective that he had taken
and had ridden to his zenith. Again, I'm gonna stay
here for a second because a lot of people, a
lot of people love Michael Jordan, but not a lot
of people who love Michael Jordan have loved him for
his open love of the black community. Right, They've not
(41:38):
openly said that. He has been the guy who has
taken stances on the African American experience. Michael Jordan's done
fine for himself. He's done really really well for himself,
you know, and it's one of the greatest athletes of
all time. I don't know what he's given or what
he hasn't given. I'm not in that man's pocket, but
I'm saying is well, he said.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
He's about selling shoes, so he said, don't don't look
to him for the.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
I remember when he actually, I actually remember when he
said that. But let's just use some you know, there
are certain people who are and you and I talk
about this, who are conservative, let's just say, who have
a political perspective that is not let's say, bought and
sold by the by the by the left. But I
would say, you would say they're just as black as anybody.
Just because they don't believe in abortion, and just because
(42:22):
they don't think that they mean they're as committed to
the community as anybody. They go to a black church,
they know what to bring to a cookout. They could
be a spade part that. They are the people who
are in the community doing the work. They're deeply committed.
They just have a different different spin on what who
to vote for and why. That's not what we're talking about.
What we're talking about is people who buy and large
(42:45):
have no interest, connection, or commitment to the black community. O. J.
Simpson was that person and was proud of it. I
don't know him as a man. I'm just talking about
what his public right. What do the public offerings were right?
Because even even somebody like a Jim Brown who said
you've been throwing white women out windows, or James Brown
who was doing his share of, you know, domestic violence,
(43:08):
each one of them at points in their lives were
very clearly trying to organize other black men's proud to
be resources.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
And that's so important, Doctor Perry. I'm so glad man,
this is good. Y'all.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Make sure y'all tag somebody again. Let me just reiterate
there and put a pen in it, because I'm looking
at the comments and want to make sure they know
exactly what you're saying. This is not about saying that
anybody that has an interracial relationship is anti black.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
It is about the position.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Because we can look to Harry Belafonte, there is no
question about his blackness married to a white woman. So
this is not a bred Douglas that's right, Yes, it's right.
So this is not about because you know, they always
try to dumb that to day. I owe somebody just
mad because somebody. No, that's not it. It is about
the intentional disrespect, the intentional separation, the intentional.
Speaker 4 (43:54):
Not just abandon.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Proud about it.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
That's an aggressive how'd an aggressive abandon? Like the if
y'all want to know who these people are, they're the
black student that you see when you're walking on campus,
who looks away. It's like who raised you?
Speaker 3 (44:12):
If you?
Speaker 4 (44:12):
If you if you're a black kid on a white
campus and you see another black person walking towards you, you
don't give the head nod. I see you, little boy,
I see you. But remember somebody else is gonna see
you too. It's that person who's at the company that
you both work at, who's African American, who doesn't even
acknowledge your existence. That's like, wow, that's what we're doing. Now.
I got you and said you're gonna go off. You're
gonna go off for crack beers with them. Tell me
(44:34):
how long it's gonna take before they drop an inWORD
on you. They just say they just playing, And yet
it don't come over to me afterwards.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
That's right. And yet it's the and see that. That's
the point.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
Some people say, don't come over to me afterwards. But
we find ourselves as black people, what are forgiving? Loving self?
And that's the part that I think I say, interesting. Yeah, not,
There's plenty of us to say, no, duly, no toe.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Stay where you're at it, where you're at it.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
If you like what you heard on straight Shot No Chaser,
please subscribe and drop a five our review and tell
a friend. Straight Shot No Chaser is a production of
the Black Effect podcast Network in iHeartRadio on Tesline figure Out,
and I'd like to thank our producer editor mixer Dwayne
Crawford and our executive producer Charlotta Magnea God. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(45:17):
wherever you get your podcasts.
Don't want to ask your question real good.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Let's just keep it real straight. Shout with No Chase,
say I'm gonna get a little bit rougher. I'm here
for it.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Those who really believe in the American process, all of
us street shot No Chase with your girl Teslim Figure
Out on the Black Effect podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
At work Tea, everybody, this is Teslim Figure Out.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Tap in with Teslim Figure Out, a news show. I
think we're on episode eight. I believe very very excited
about this new platform. Shout out to all of the
team that is making this work. A new platform called
two Way. Shout out to the homie Chris Gotti. Today
We're gonna do something a little bit different. I am
also streaming live on my Instagram. Shout out to my
(00:50):
Instagram family. I see you guys popping up.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I see my YouTube family popping up. I see my
Twitter family popping up.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I'm doing this on.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Purpose because I have a very very special guest with me,
doctor Steve Perry, and I want to involve those that
follow my work and his work because we do, I
guess you would call it cross pollinate in many of
the same circles, and so I thought this was a
really really good conversation Instagram family. As you know, I
(01:23):
am always looking at your comments, so I will be
looking down and on the two Way app. Let me
give a moment to explain what that will be. It
will be an app very similar to what we do
on Instagram. So you guys know my comment caucus. I
see you in the building. I see you, Cliff, he said,
he is the chairman of the comment Caucus. And so
(01:46):
I'd like to everybody knows on Instagram that I love
to bring you in my conversations.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
You are literally my third host.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So as you watch this, I am going to direct
you to watch this on two Way on YouTube stream
streaming right now on the two Way app on YouTube.
My apology so you is Google and put in two
way and put in just put in two Way, tesslim
figure o that app should that YouTube channel should pull up,
(02:14):
and then you can watch us live.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
But fear not, this.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Link will be available if you want to actually see
the video. So if you're on Instagram saying hey I
can't see the video, let them know comment a caucus chair,
I see you in the building. Let people know that
they will be able to watch this video. We're gonna
have this up this evening, no later than in the morning,
so let's get straight to it. So, Wow, I was
(02:39):
going to come on and talk about something else today.
I wanted to talk about abortion. I wanted to talk
about what's happening in politics. But then we learned of
the passing of O. J.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Simpson.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I immediately got on the phone to talk to doctor
Steve Perry because this was such an important conversation and
those of you know, I normally don't just follow whatever's tree,
you know, whatever conversation is trending. I don't just jump
on every conversation for the sake of clicks and views.
But this is so important because it really is was
a milestone in my life. Would it is This particular
(03:12):
case in nineteen ninety five when I was in high
school really made me want to get into the legal profession.
It also showed me what commentating was all about on
court TV. You know, I learned that, Wow, you can
be an attorney and have an opinion without getting in
trouble and TV all at the same time. My mother
was the news director's assistant, and we would come home
(03:34):
and she would record this case every day on VHS.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
For those who don't know what that is, it is
actually a tape that you used.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
To have to put in a machine that would record.
And so this was just a pivotal, pivotal time in
my life. There's probably not a motion, an objection and
piece of evidence that I don't know about this case.
I literally watch it even until this day. It is
something that that just from a legal standpoint, has always
(04:03):
been fascinating. Man set aside of O. J. Simpson, but
just the case set aside. I normally, Doctor Perry, I
don't even like getting in these conversations with people because
I am so in deep with this case that I
always feel as if, you know, I'm speaking to somebody
that may not have watched it the way that I did,
and I always feel that it's an uneven conversation. But
(04:23):
you are the man for the conversation for today. We
don't have a lot of time, so there's only a
few things that we can unpack with this case. First,
let me introduce to you doctor Steve Perry, an educator,
best selling author, founder of founder and head of schools
Capital Preparatory Schools, Arthur of Man Up, Nobody's Coming to
Save Us? And push has come to shove. You've seen
(04:43):
him on many platforms much larger than mine.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So I am humbled in honored.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
He's shaking his head, humbled in honor to have him
joined the little old me Teslam fiery on, tap it
with tens he Hello, doctor Perry.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
Says, I am so humbled to be part of your great,
big platform because what you do is tackle topics that
other folks are either afraid to or incapable of offering
up the nuances to engage in. So this is a
conversation I could not be happier to have.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Yeah, it's a blessing to have because you know, we
unpacked things all the time, you know, and the listeners
don't notice, but.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
We unpack all the time, the show between the shows,
the show between the.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Show, so they're really just going to be listening to
a conversation that we would just typically have cameras off
and just you know, just you and I just really
talking about So we heard Ojay Sinson passed away from
cancer to age of seventy six. A lot of people
wasn't awhere. You know that he was suffering with cast
so a lot of people do keep that private. My
mother did.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
It's not something that people broadcast. I don't know how
many people knew it or not. Of course, there's so
many conspiracy theories that are out today. Of course there
always is, UH, there's always going to be somebody on
the Internet that comes up with their own theory. But
I really wanted to jump in due to limited time,
and thank you for taking out your in time today.
There's so many different layers to this, so many different
we can peel this onion all day.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I really want to go back to nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Five, and now I know there's gonna be people who
will say, you know, focus on the good things, focus
on the NFL and eleven seasons, Focus on the Heisman Trophy,
Focus on how he was regarded as one of the
greatest running backs of all time. I know people say,
don't talk about the negative, don't talk about, you know,
all of the negative things. The reality of it is,
when you are a public person, all of those things
(06:28):
will be talked about.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Even if you're not a public person.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
You go just to your cousin's funeral, people are gonna talk.
They're gonna talk about the memories that that person left.
And one of the most impactful memories that people have
of O. J. Simpson, Many people who were introduced to O. J. Simpson,
at least speaking for myself in high school, because when
he was in his prime.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
I wasn't old enough to know who he was or
you know, people may be familiar.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
He did one on good Yeah, went on good times
and did hurts and all that.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
But I was a little girl. I didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
So my really first introduction of learning who OJ Simpson
was and learning about him and everything about him was
through the O. J. Simpson trial because I was young,
so I learned everything. And one of the things in
the trial is presenting that person's life from beginning to end.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So I want to go back to that time.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Where we were as a culture and where we are now,
and if we can, if you will compare the two,
because a lot has changed over nineteen ninety five versus
now at that time, and then I'm going to flip
it to you. At that time, there was a Black
America many said that he did not do it. There
was also Black America that said, if he did, let's
(07:39):
charge it to the game. What I have noticed is
in this generation, many have basically said I remember there
was a time where you just could not get into
a discussion on oda sins.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
What I said, there's no way he didn't do it,
didn't do it.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
But now as more evidence has come out, now that
the book he wrote it, if I did it has
come out, Now that even there was a mean today
that they were sharing what he was mocking stabbing somebody.
Now that more and more has come out, there is
a sector of Black America that now was saying, you
know what, it might be some truth to it, but
we're still going to charge it to the game. So
(08:14):
take us back, doctor Perry, from your perspective, where were
we in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Let's see you put step back. Patrick Mahomes is arguably
the most celebrated football player of his generation, and even
he wasn't isn't what oj Simpson was as an actlete.
For those of us who grew up in the seventies,
(08:39):
we watched the Juice do the impossible two thousand yards
in the season, things that were not even seen, and
he was universally regarded as the greatest of all time.
So for many of us who grew up during the seventies,
he was for us a foray into great team Muhammad
(09:03):
Ali were seen as not just athletes, but individuals who
transcended times. Jim Brown along those same lines. These were
men who are black, but who transcended their role as
an athlete and even made their way into what we
(09:24):
now know is mainstream. During that time, we didn't have
access to somebody's every move. We could only live through
the law that was created through the media. At that
time that many of us had three networks ABC, NBC A, CBS,
and there were not twenty four hours worth of news,
so we had limited access. And so when we got access,
(09:46):
it was through the way in which that person was portrayed,
and in his case, he was portrayed as a hero.
He was portrayed as an absolute hero. Put that on
the shelf for a moment. Nineteen ninety one, just a
couple of years before, we still did not have much
access to the world at large, and there were rumors
(10:08):
and laws and experiences of African Americans in this country
of being mistreated by the police, mistreated by the justice system.
And in nineteen ninety one, we saw for the first
time in mass in American history, a black man in
the Rodney King being beaten to what appeared to be
(10:31):
within eaches of his death.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
And now you mean just to put a pin right there,
meaning we saw what we already knew. I just want
to put because many of us saw it, but it
confirmed that we.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Know correct mass but as a country, yes, for the
first time we all saw. I remember being in college
during that time, and I remember white kids coming to
my dorm room and they were stunned, like, oh my god,
can you believe it?
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Now? Yeah, I can believe it.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
The only thing I can't believe is that we finally caught.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
It on video.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
We're finally caught it.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
And so we as many of us, as like the
American at the time, especially young black people as I was,
we just knew got these mugs. This time, we finally
got they ass this time. Watch and see what's gonna happen.
Watching and see what's gonna happen now, watching, See what
all these people in California you're gonna do. Watch and
see where you have the video of this man being
(11:22):
beaten to with inter and of his life. All of
them get on, every single one of them, get off
the streets, turn into riots. People were bold, they say
what they got to say, and then shortly on the
heels of that, our hero is accused of killing a
white woman. That's the context of the beginning of the O. J.
(11:44):
Simpson trial. It's not probable that a man of his
station in life would do something like that. Many of
us thought, who would even think of earning their wife?
Who would lose all that O. J. Simpson happen? Who
would doing so That's how we start this conversation. The
conversation starts with what is today's Patrick Mahomes, what is
(12:09):
the nineties Michael Jordan, a man who transcended his sport,
was an international phenomenon, being accused of the most gruesome
act of all, killing the wife that he had and
the mother of his children in cold, gruesome blood. That's
the foundation of the council.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Now, the next layer to that would be, I want
you to take us back to the obvious on It
wasn't just a wife and a mother, it was a
white woman.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Now again, at that.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Time, I was in high school and I was not
the lens that I was looking through. Well, let me
be clearing my mother because she was a news director's assistant,
because she was in the media. My first professional meeting
was in ABJ National Association Black Journey. My mother was
very mindful of rest in peace of my mother also
(13:07):
passed away with cancer, but very mindful of images, very
mindful of For example, I tell people all the time,
I couldn't watch Sanford and Son. She didn't like the
fact that a black man was calling his son a dummy.
What many people find that show hilarious, great comedy, she
didn't like it. I could not watch a Good Time.
That's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I could not watch Good Times.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
We know that we're going to be unpacking that because
we know that's about to come out on Netflix, and
that has sparked a lot of conversation. I'm sure you
and I unpacked that. But what's so interesting, just I
just want to put a pin with that, even with
Good Times now, how they're seeing it in almost a
parody form, we don't know yet what that looks like.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
That's how my mother saw it then.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
So when I see people applaud it and say, oh man,
Good Times one of the best shows ever in history.
Yes it was a black father, yes it was a
black mother, all of those things. But my mother had
the same problem with it. That the had with it
behind the scenes. So although I did sneak to watch
those shows, she was very much against itid but she
was very much in supported to be watching George Jefferson.
(14:10):
She was proud of the fact that he was an entrepreneur.
She was proud of moving on up. She wanted to know, well,
when are they gonna ever get out the ghetto on
good times? When is it ever gonna be? You know,
when do we ever get to the other side. I'm
sitting out here to say, doctor Parr, because I'm trying
to set the scene going back to man.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
I wish my mother was alive so we could talk
about this. Many reasons I wish she was alive, but this.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Is one, but I'm trying to paint a picture for
the listeners on what that meant. When I would come
in from school and we would pop in the tape
that had a yellow piece of time, I mean, even
be we have either a white or yellow sticker on it,
I can see it's so clear. And we would watch
this and unpack this because my mother wanted me to
(14:51):
know what was happening in the media, what we're seeing
the media, which we see with the infamous Johnny Cochrane.
It was surreal to me to be standing next to
the Carl Douglas just a couple of years ago at
a press at one of his press.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Conferences with Attorney care Carl Douglas says, yes, So, Carl Douglas.
Speaker 3 (15:06):
For those who are not familiar with this case, Carl
Douglas was one of the members of the Dream Team,
the infamous Dream Team that Johnny Cochrane put together. Well
that we can say that he I don't want to
say put together because OJ selected his team, but Johnny
Cochrane ended up leading that team after the Kardashian his
(15:28):
his friend at the time, was not leading the team
in the direction that OJ believed it need to go
in and Johnny Cochran came in and changed it. And guys,
if you're not for me with the Oda sis in case,
it is so many different movies, documentaries, things, but I
encourage you to watch them.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
All and paler together and then.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Go on YouTube and watch the actual trial. They still
have the trial available every single day of YouTube. So
Carl Douglass was a member of the Dream Team. So
for me to be standing next to him two years
ago in one of his cases, it was just surreal.
I'm taking you back to that Doctor Perry, because when
I was watching this ian through the lens of a teenager,
I was looking at all of those different things.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
And we knew.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
What I knew about interracial relationships at the time is
not what I know now.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
So it was not just.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
But my mother put me up on game that it
was not just about a man killing his wife, but
it was a white wife.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
And so then the conversation started happening.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
People are even saying in the comments, now, if he
killed his black wife, it would have never been a thing.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
You said, you were in grad school at the time.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
What was the conversation about it being a white woman
at the time, and why did that make a difference?
And why did we give a pass? Because let's be
honest about it. O. J. Simpson to many abandoned his community.
Johnny Cochrane had to go in and blackify without a
new word that I just made up today his house
(16:49):
so that when the jurors came by, he was a
He took all the white pictures off the wall and
put black pictures on the wall.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
So take us back to what how were you guys
looking at it?
Speaker 4 (16:59):
About his I was, Yeah, so I was in social
work school, which.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
Was overwhelmingly white and female. I was I am the
only African American male who graduated from my class in
nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
So the conversations were lopside, to say the least. And
it wasn't just that she was white. She was and
you'll understand the term that she was pretty. She was
a pretty white woman, blond and blonde in all that matters.
It does matter. And during that time, one of the
things that was happening in the media, which we referred
to back then, which is mostly magazines, is they would
(17:39):
actually darken his picture to create a more brooding aesthetic.
So they would go they would put filters on his
picture on the cover of Newsweek and other magazines where
they darkened his esthetic. Now keep in mind, during the
same time, during the same time period, Mike Tyson was
already in prison for rape. So you have our heroes
(18:01):
and again, by parallel, you'd be looking at and I
don't mean to make the parallel, cause I don't want
to put this on this brother, but the likes of
a Pat mahomes the likes of a Lebron James, you know,
the lights on the money Madeweather, like, these cats were
at the top of their game in terms of as athletes,
as entertainers, and as wealthy people. These were the same
(18:23):
things that were happening during that time. So we were
now looking at a global phenomena, an actor who was
being accused of killing a pretty white woman. And so
the presentation of it was the the most taboo of taboo.
Whos we ain't talking about just whistling and a white
(18:43):
woman that em Mattil was accused of, We're talking about
full fledged murder. So for many of us it was like, oh,
if he is accused of killing a white woman to
rap you know, so sad, too bad, brother, you about
to get a death penalty, two three in a row.
You gonna die. And there was no notion that there
(19:04):
was such a thing as an African American who had
the financial wherewithal to be able to hire attorneys of
the caliber that he was able to every single way
that you know, a social work school in Philadelphia at
the time, my knowledge of attorneys was public offenders or
whoever you knew who knew somebody would get you in there. Basically,
(19:25):
you were still going to be guilty, but you would
you wouldn't go to prison for the entire rest of
your life. And you rolled on somebody, you might be
able to see the light of day at some point.
So this notion that you could even conceive that you
might get off, that was something that was inconceivable. So
(19:47):
I remember where I was the day that he was
found not guilty. I watched the case myself. During that time,
I was doing an internship for an African American man
was pretty wealthy, and during that time I was doing
an internship and in his office they had you know,
the CNN. We were watching it, and I remember we
(20:09):
were all sitting in the conference room and I remember thinking,
OJ going to jail, OJ get a death sentence, OJ
going to die. And then I remember seeing the verdict
and I remember that CNN if it was what because
I was watching seeing it in the time. I remember
(20:30):
they went to I think it was Howard University, and
people jumped up like we had just won the election
of President Obama. They all there was just like this, hooray.
And I'll be honest with you, I grew up watching
someone be domestic I grew up in a domestic violence
Ashold for the time that they were together, and I
(20:52):
remember knowing what it's like to watch my mother under
those conditions, and as a social worker, I had seen
it enough time that I had seen it, and as
a black man, there was a part of me that thought,
did we just get away with this? We didn't get
away with the Ridy King thing, didn't get away with
the Mike Tyson thing. Did we just get away with this?
(21:15):
Or a spell? Even as somebody was going with a
master's on social work, the complexity of the emotions were
like wow. I never thought for a second, and to
this day I never thought that he was innocent.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
I didn't still, you know, there was a time you
would never say that people would just you know, because people, truly.
Johnny Cochrane had a way and this is what I
actually teach a class on the how to win in
the court of public opinion. He created such an environment
that people actually believed that ol J. Simpson and people
(21:52):
can are still debating this to this day, that people
believe that it's no way that one man could do this,
even though they showed how it's I don't people who
have stabbed multiple people at that time, or even though
they shown and even though the blood was everywhere, even
though the DNA was everywhere, even though you know, his
hand was cut, even though Johnny Cochran did such a
(22:15):
masterful job of his job.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
So let's just pause there for a moment.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Let's really deal with what people were celebrating, the majority
of what black people were celebrating. It was not a
matter of Now, there were people who believed he didn't
do it, but there was not a matter of if
he did it or didn't do it. It was what
you said, did he actually get away with this? And
did a black man an attorney make that happen? Was
(22:41):
the system finally beat? And what I think is interesting
is how O jay sentence because even at that time
he went to the Black church, like Johnny Carran really
did it, like he brought him to the Black church.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
He did all.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Imagine if that happens now. I'll just use an example
with Candice Owns. A couple of weeks ago, everybody kept
asking my pen on that you know somebody who people said,
you know, it's not for us who mocked the murder
of George Floyd. Mocked the murder of George Floyd. And
she's pretty much going on at Black Church tour, and
I'm looking at the majority of people saying no, no, no,
(23:14):
you can't come back over here. And then there's some
people say, well, you know, she kind of got a point.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
It reminds me of this O. J. Simpson.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
He was embraced, and I want you to talk a
little bit about that. Do you think some of the
embracement was the the love, because you know, I did
bear me when I get my words. I did a
podcast on this, on the love that we have, the
forgiving love that we have, the come on back home.
(23:41):
The prodigal son was some of that, you know, were
hurt that you left us, because oh, they did leave
the black community.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Let's just be clear.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It wasn't even just about maryoring a black a white woman.
It was about he disconnected himself. And it made for
me to say that he was not black. He's ojay,
go ahead, He's not the one.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
I'm gonna answer that question a second. There are many
black people who we see in media today who if
you check the last ten people they've spoken to, if
you check the last ten people they have text, you text,
the last ten people they went and hung out with,
then none of them are black. They're hired by media
to come on and talk from the perspective of being
African American, but many of them are on MSNBC and CNN.
(24:23):
They don't have black friends, they don't have black partners,
they don't live in the black community at all, not
at all. They can reflect on having grown up in
the whatever community. But if you look, they went to
our lady of this or that, or prep for this
or that, and they went to this elite school, and
so you'll hear them. Those people spend this significant amount
(24:45):
of their time in the black community. Here the distinction
between them and of the black people. But many white
people don't know the difference. They just see two black people.
They don't know that there's a significant, not nuanced difference
between these people who've only gone to private white schools
and then to an elite college, but who were still
phoenotypically black, and these people who are phoenosipically black, but
who spend the lion's share of their time engaging with
(25:07):
the African Americans experience writ large, not just the ink
Well experience, not to Jack and Jill experience, but the
full experience. I don't think that people, and I'll start
with me. We the people I was talking to you
during that time, we weren't celebrating OJ Simpson. I was
never expecting OJ to come back. I accepted that he
was gone. I except that he was gone. What I
(25:31):
as a black man who was just getting to a
place where for the first time in my life, I
thought that I might be an intellectual. Like I remember
growing up thinking I was stupid. I stayed back in
the third grade. I was our medio classes. I just
thought I was stupid. I knew I struggled to read.
I didn't know why I thought I was stupid, Like
I thought all the black boys like we were just
not smart. But we were ones got in most trouble.
(25:51):
School wasn't for us. So I remember coming into what
I believed to be my intellectual own during that time,
and I remember somebody calling me intellectually one time. I
thought they were trying to clown me, like somebody trying
to call me white, Like yo, what you just called me?
So to see Johnny Cochran, I was like.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
That that.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
During that same time, you have to realize Cornell West
was starting to do this speaking engagements. During that same time,
Mike Dyson was doctor Mike Dyson was out there. So
you got West Dyson and and and and and Cochrane
who people like me were starting to read what Garrick
Bell were reading face at the bottom of the well,
like we're reading this stuff and we're starting to stuff.
(26:31):
This is I need you to understand. It's the same
time as the Million Man March. So the Million Man
March is happening, right, So you got the Me and
Man March coming to coming to be. So I'm in
Philly during this time and I'm going to see Fara
con and he's doing organizing. So we got black men
coming together. We got uh Derek Bella we're reading, We
got uh uh kawanzi be Drinjufu, We got all these
people like we're starting to be like, okay, so you
(26:53):
can be black and you can smart about o J. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Just to put a pin there and got thinking to
join us just quickly. I'm this is doctor Steve Perry.
We got a couple of hundred on Instagram, five hundred
on YouTube. Make sure you tap in, do a quick
search and put in two way with teslam figure oh
god on YouTube, and you want to see this line,
don't forget your thought down pair. I just want to
make sure I'm putting a pin in that on what
you're actually saying.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
For the first time, you got.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
To see the black intellectual be black, present black, act black,
talk black, and be smart.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
During the same time. During that time, black hip hop
was about black medallion's no goal. During that time, self
destruction was what we were talking about. That was so
there was a there was a black consciousness occurring simultaneous
to literally saying burn Hollywood, burn yes.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
And if the police so let's be clear, so they're
all will sign, will take that.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
You had that goal on that, but you had nw ain't.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Who I subscribe to where you had Because again we're
coming out of Rodney Key, you know, shout out to Spot.
I talked about him all the time. I'm my very
best friends.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
He was a part of the Blood and Crypt treaty.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
So now you're coming out of you're seeing what I
call the homies were the black militia, those on the ground,
those same men that went to the Mallie Man March.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
The homies saying no, yes, yes, he's treaties, yes, wasn't.
Speaker 4 (28:12):
Crips in certain sets were coming together and say, yo,
what are we doing. So there was a black consciousness
that was taking shape and it was running alongside when
we referred to as gangster rap, but it was gangster
rapping because it was people who were saying, we are
tired of you having your boot on our neck. We're
tired of y'all beating us and getting away with a
wee about that one of us is gonna get it through.
It's either the thugs and we're gonna get out, or
(28:35):
it's gonna be the intellection. But one of us gonna
make it to the top and we ain't gonna make
it being polite. That was what this was about. So
you have all these things happening at the same time.
I don't ever think that there were any capsule like
come on back, OJ, trying a hell OJ. That was
not even what I was thinking when I was connected
to and what the brothers who we would have these sets,
because we would have these sets at my cribbin and
(28:57):
Philly brothers would sit around they like I mean brothers,
like brothers, brothers even like real dudes, like I don't
want to go through you understand what I'm saying. Like
those dudes were sitting around and were debating over over
what topics it was. This is the time when even
the roots, the group, the Roots, this is when they
were in Philly and they were coming up like that
(29:18):
was just black consciousness. Black thought in that, like this
is who we were. And so at the same time
as we're going to the million man March planning committees,
at the same time as we've got black men coming
to campus to speak to us on white campuses, at
the same time as we got Rodney King being his
head split literally open, we have OJ comes in. So OJ,
(29:42):
for many of us himself was not who we were
pulling for. I never thought for a second that the
cat was in it, and it just didn't seem like
it made sense. But for me, it felt like, if
we're gonna play this thing, let's play it all the
way out. They just got to put reasonable doubt in here,
right m.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Hm showed for us.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
I never felt good about OJ getting off. I said
it then and I say it now. I never felt
good about that.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Why do you think people did why?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Why do you think there were people that just did
not believe that it was possible that one person could.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Decapitate two people. And again, if.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
People actually go back and watch the trial and actually
look at the evidence, which you know nobody likes evidence
who wants to read. But if you actually go back
and look at how Ron Goldman was, how Nicole's head
was basically chopped off, there was no fighting two people
at the same time, and then there was the struggle
with that's correct correct? So why do you think because
(30:43):
even now, even looking in the comments, you know, resting
piece of oj OJ, I wonder if these people are
really connected to the man oj are still connected to.
Speaker 4 (30:51):
I wasn't charged even then, And let me be clear,
let me not attempt to present myself as someone who
was deeply thinking during that time. I want to make
sure that I'm clear. What I don't want to do
is into the conversation pious I'm saying, I know where
I was sitting in mister Wade's conference room when it happened. Yes,
(31:12):
I know, I know, feeling a duplicitousness. I watched the
kids down at Howard say what they were saying, and
I watched them celebrate, and I felt badly about that,
But there was enough of me, if I'm gonna be frank,
to think about we got one, they got four hundred
(31:37):
years of it. We got one right. I didn't feel
good about what the we was. I didn't feel good
about what the one, what the one was. But any
black man who's ever been pulled over by a cop,
any black father who's ever had to say to his
son before he leaves the house, listen, do this, do this,
do this? Do this. Up the street from me, literally
(31:58):
less than a mile from me, a young black man
about two years ago was murdered by cops. He was
murdered like it was what it was. I mean, they
broke the window. There was they had the young man
surround it. They broke the window, he's still strapped in
the seat, and they just unload into the car, just
(32:19):
unload into the car. He was murdered. That's murdered. That's
murd that's murdered. None of those cats have been none.
All of them have been reinstated. Everyone, every cop who
did that has done it. So there so there's still
this feeling of in the way in which many of
us can celebrate a drug dealer, like we can celebrate
a drug dealer because he's getting his he's trying to
(32:41):
do right by him. At the same time, it is
feeling very, very conflicted about the fact that he's killing
somebody's mother right now. Like somebody's mother right now is
a drug addict. Somebody's father right now is a drug addict.
I just I just lost a very good friend of
mine last week to an overdose. I don't feel good
(33:01):
about that. It's just a matter of who do we
identify with at what point. I don't ever feel like
the people who I was around were ever like pro Oj.
We loved him as an athlete, but then we just recognize.
And I'm saying this because I want to Test. I
want so many people who watch you to understand that
you Test are different than a lot of the black
(33:22):
women and men that they see on television. And he
has gone the radio, and I want people to really
understand that a lot of those people you see, a
lot of the ones you see, they don't spend a
lot of time in the black community, and they damn
sure don't spend a lot of time with poor black people.
They may spend a lot of time with the intellectual elite,
(33:43):
which again, thank God, go you great that your mother
and father have been successful. I mean, I'm now that
person to my own sons, I don't want somebody dog
and my sons out because they don't spend time in poverty.
That's just not their lifestyle. But it does give them
a certain perspective that the kids who they went to
school with in our school who don't have our kids,
have a very different experience. So I want people to
(34:06):
understand that. Very often the commentators who are talking, who
are telling you what black people think, don't spend a
lot of time around black people who we would typically
consider when we think of black people. They're not talking
about them, even.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
Though they say all the time, the barbecue, the barbecue.
For some reason they think that makes them look cool.
But continue they keep saying, who's invited to the barbecue?
And I mean, you ain't at the barbecue. The barbecues
and I go to you wouldn't be invited, but.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
Let's let's call it. Let's call it what it is.
They would be the ones who would stop by the
Costco and get you the macaroni chief She's like, I
see the sticker on it. Come on, what did you
just do here? Now I invited you. I look like
a goddamn fool because you come up to this joint
and you got costco.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Yes, and well with let's and while let's let's use
that that metaphor that analogy. Johnny Cochrane brought OJ to
the barbecue. He brought them to the bar because he's
left many many times.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
Let me put let me push you on that. Let
me push you that. I don't think Johnny Cochrane brought OJ.
I think Johnny Cochrane was always seen as there. So
it's just like, it's just like the cousin who you bring,
who brings his girlfriend or his friends to the to
the cookout. You're like, he's cool because he's with you,
but if you leave, he gotta go.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Yes, yes, yes, No, nobody goes to the crom table
playing space.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
He ain't get nobody's partner the space table. He's gonna
this dude is gonna is gonna cut your your your
ace of spades. Yes, you're gonna put it down the
spade and this dude gonna throw he gonna.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
You know, well, that's what I mean.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
It was.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
It was a plus one deal.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
And I want to put a pin here too, because man,
this is such a good conversation.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
You guys tag a friend, join in.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
But I want to put a pin in here too,
because what I talked about a couple of weeks ago
with the Candice Owns conversation is the love of a
black woman, because this is very critical and how we.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Love and love and love and love and.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Take back and take back and take back and stand by.
That's why I compared the love of black woman to
the love of God, the forgivingness, the even now you
know people saying, you know, hey, I'm looking in the
coming Kaitlyn jenneral is out of pocket, we are quick
to lace up our shoes and fight.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
Even if you're wrong.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
We will still go put that house up, get you
out of jail, custs you out all the way home.
We will still say no matter what you did. So
even in using the analogy of the barbecue, if O. J.
Simpson came back and the brother's like, hey, we know
what you want.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
We ain't really with you.
Speaker 3 (36:35):
But since you with Johnny, that's cool, that black woman
is still gonna say can I fix your plate?
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Can I get you something?
Speaker 4 (36:42):
Have you eate?
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Now? Some of the sisters are gonna say, no, you
want to go with that white girl.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Move on.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
But the reason why I'm using this example doctor pear
is because fast forward to Jonathan Majors now and obviously
he didn't murder anybody, But I look at the comments,
and I look at the black women. When he got
back with before he started dating Megan, the black women
(37:08):
were saying some were saying, you learned your lesson.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
It is what it is. This would have been a different.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Time in nineteen ninety five because the black women, for
the most part, were lining up behind O. J. Simpson
because they looked at his black mother, they looked at
his black daughter. But now you have I wonder what
this will be like now, because now you have black
women say, hey, Jonathan Major, you shouldn't have been over
there anyway. But there's still an overwhelming amount of black
women that are still saying, you know what, you made
a mistake. We're gonna ride with you anyway. What we're
(37:36):
not gonna do is let them tear you down. What
we're not gonna do is let them take everything from you.
We hope you learn and if you don't learn, whatever
this learning lesson is, because there's still people say love
for you, love, We don't have a problem learning you love.
But there's always been this thing where black women what
pains us, and I'm gonna give it back to you.
The trauma that pays us is being forgotten about being
(37:57):
left like O. J. Simpson's first wife, being there with
that man through it all thick and thin. You get money,
and then you leave us. Kanye said it leave you
for a white girl. Ironically, Kanye did the same thing.
So black women at that time moved past that pain.
Some stayed in that trump and said no, they say
where you at? But we're gonna rule for Johnny Cochran.
(38:18):
So just now I see the same things happening in
these conversations, just you know, looking at Jonathan Major's for example,
what's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Yeah, So I would say this to me, it's bigger
than just the woman, the second woman he married. For me,
it is when I look at Judge Clarence Thomas, I
think of him as someone who rarely ever engages with
(38:47):
African Americans. It's not just that he's married to a
white woman. It is that he is someone who has
very little sway or interest in the uplift the African
American community versus someone like a Dawn Stanley, who I'm
told is with a white woman. I don't think that
(39:09):
there are very few people who doubt her integrity for
cultural integrity or commitment to our greater cause. I think
most people, if there were a black draft, would put
Dawn Stanley at the top of their card, and she
would be a first round draft pick to borrow from
(39:29):
The Chappelle Show. So I think in the case of O. J. Simpson,
I think of the in the case of Clarence Thomas,
I think in the case of Candice Owens, these are
people who have very little put into the cultural bank,
very little interest other than the functional interest of I
(39:51):
ain't got nobody else. It's like being they would have their.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Way to remove themselves basically.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
Well, I would say, but if it's even more than that,
it's being the person who that person never wanted to date.
And then when the other people drop you, you go
back and say, well, at least there's always you, like
WHOA right, right, I don't feel right. I don't think
I won right there, I don't feel like I won.
(40:20):
So I don't feel that people. I feel that people.
And I use it Dawn as an example because she's
someone who aint nobody on question her quote unquote blackness.
I don't think I think you have to Well, let
me just say this. They are always when people question
people's blackness. I'm not that group.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
But the majority of a miracle was rooting for her.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
For those who listen, you're talking about Don Staley, the
coach of UH doctor South Cairlineman.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
That's correct, National champion coaches South Carolina, one of the
greatest athletes of male.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Who won three times.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
But go ahead, right, so you know, but but but
Ann did so jet black and so jet black when
she gave her victory speech that was torn from a
Baptist pulpit that might have been a pental costal. Four
o'clock in the afternoon, church is still going on from
eleven a m right. So oj was never that and
(41:18):
there was an anti race perspective that he had taken
and had ridden to his zenith. Again, I'm gonna stay
here for a second because a lot of people, a
lot of people love Michael Jordan, but not a lot
of people who love Michael Jordan have loved him for
his open love of the black community. Right, They've not
(41:38):
openly said that. He has been the guy who has
taken stances on the African American experience. Michael Jordan's done
fine for himself. He's done really really well for himself,
you know, and it's one of the greatest athletes of
all time. I don't know what he's given or what
he hasn't given. I'm not in that man's pocket, but
I'm saying is well, he said.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
He's about selling shoes, so he said, don't don't look
to him for the.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
I remember when he actually, I actually remember when he
said that. But let's just use some you know, there
are certain people who are and you and I talk
about this, who are conservative, let's just say, who have
a political perspective that is not let's say, bought and
sold by the by the by the left. But I
would say, you would say they're just as black as anybody.
Just because they don't believe in abortion, and just because
(42:22):
they don't think that they mean they're as committed to
the community as anybody. They go to a black church,
they know what to bring to a cookout. They could
be a spade part that. They are the people who
are in the community doing the work. They're deeply committed.
They just have a different different spin on what who
to vote for and why. That's not what we're talking about.
What we're talking about is people who buy and large
(42:45):
have no interest, connection, or commitment to the black community. O. J.
Simpson was that person and was proud of it. I
don't know him as a man. I'm just talking about
what his public right. What do the public offerings were right?
Because even even somebody like a Jim Brown who said
you've been throwing white women out windows, or James Brown
who was doing his share of, you know, domestic violence,
(43:08):
each one of them at points in their lives were
very clearly trying to organize other black men's proud to
be resources.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
And that's so important, Doctor Perry. I'm so glad man,
this is good. Y'all.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
Make sure y'all tag somebody again. Let me just reiterate
there and put a pen in it, because I'm looking
at the comments and want to make sure they know
exactly what you're saying. This is not about saying that
anybody that has an interracial relationship is anti black.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
It is about the position.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
Because we can look to Harry Belafonte, there is no
question about his blackness married to a white woman. So
this is not a bred Douglas that's right, Yes, it's right.
So this is not about because you know, they always
try to dumb that to day. I owe somebody just
mad because somebody. No, that's not it. It is about
the intentional disrespect, the intentional separation, the intentional.
Speaker 4 (43:54):
Not just abandon.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
Proud about it.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
That's an aggressive how'd an aggressive abandon? Like the if
y'all want to know who these people are, they're the
black student that you see when you're walking on campus,
who looks away. It's like who raised you?
Speaker 3 (44:12):
If you?
Speaker 4 (44:12):
If you if you're a black kid on a white
campus and you see another black person walking towards you, you
don't give the head nod. I see you, little boy,
I see you. But remember somebody else is gonna see
you too. It's that person who's at the company that
you both work at, who's African American, who doesn't even
acknowledge your existence. That's like, wow, that's what we're doing. Now.
I got you and said you're gonna go off. You're
gonna go off for crack beers with them. Tell me
(44:34):
how long it's gonna take before they drop an inWORD
on you. They just say they just playing, And yet
it don't come over to me afterwards.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
That's right. And yet it's the and see that. That's
the point.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
Some people say, don't come over to me afterwards. But
we find ourselves as black people, what are forgiving? Loving self?
And that's the part that I think I say, interesting. Yeah, not,
There's plenty of us to say, no, duly, no toe.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Stay where you're at it, where you're at it.
Speaker 3 (44:55):
If you like what you heard on straight Shot No Chaser,
please subscribe and drop a five our review and tell
a friend. Straight Shot No Chaser is a production of
the Black Effect podcast Network in iHeartRadio on Tesline figure Out,
and I'd like to thank our producer editor mixer Dwayne
Crawford and our executive producer Charlotta Magnea God. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(45:17):
wherever you get your podcasts.
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