If you’re over the age of 40, it is hard to forget the image on your TV screen of the white Ford Bronco driving down a 4-lane highway in Los Angeles at 25 miles per hour followed by dozens of cop cars and cheered on by people on over passes holding signs saying, “Run O.J. Run”. If you’re over the age of 50 and a sports fan, it’s hard to forget the images of number 32 for the Buffalo Bills weaving in and out of defenders, and out racing would be tacklers to the end zone while people in the stands cheered and held signs saying, “Run O.J. Run”. Hall of Fame football player, Hollywood actor, TV pitchman, and double murderer, O.J. Simpson died on Thursday at age 76 of prostate cancer.
In 1995, Simpson was found “not guilty” of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman – a vicious crime that he obviously committed. The evidence was so overwhelming that it was clear that he got away with murder. And it is also clear that the Brown and the Goldman families have been left these last 30 years with an empty feeling of injustice for their loved ones who they lost at the hands of Simpson. O.J.’s acquittal of the murder charges was seen as a form of jury nullification – a purposefully incorrect verdict meant to make up for past injustices that have been perpetrated on members of the African American community over the years by our judicial system.
Longtime writer for ESPN, William Rhoden wrote that, “Simpson’s acquittal by a predominantly Black jury in 1995 was celebrated by many African Americans as a long-overdue victory over a legal system that historically had been unforgiving to them.” How can a miscarriage of justice be seen as a victory to anyone? The fact that they are admitting that the Simpson verdict helped even the score for previous injustices is an admission that Simpson was in fact guilty. But their verdict did not make up for anything, that is the fallacy of the social justice movement where they are trying to achieve justice by creating more injustice. That’s what the Simpson jurors tried to do, construct a mutated form of justice out of an obvious injustice. And when you do that, you end up creating more injustice which brings more pain and requires more retribution.
For the first half of his life, O.J. Simpson evaded tacklers, and the second half of his life, he evaded justice. But now, he’s finally in a place where he can no longer outrun the justice that has been waiting for him for far too long. Many people, are taking solace in knowing that justice is finally coming to O.J. Simpson in his death. They are reveling in the fact that he is gone and is quite possibly beginning an eternity in hell. Too often, earthly justice is insufficient, inconsistent and contradictory to such an extent that earthly justice feels more like injustice than justice. But that is the way the world works. The world is littered with injustice. It is everywhere. The only place where justice reigns is beyond this world, in the realm where O.J. Simpson resides right now.
It is easy to delight at the thought that O.J. may be sharing a room with the devil right now. It is easy to be overly moralistic about O.J. Simpson. It’s easy to compare ourselves to him. We are better people than him. We would never murder two people in cold blood. But I don’t know where O.J. is right now. I don’t know what God’s justice for him looks like. What I do know is no matter how bad O.J. Simpson was or how evil his actions were, that is no reflection on me, that does not make me a more moral or better person. I am only accountable for myself. I’m only accountable for my actions. And when I stand before my maker, I can’t tell him to overlook my sins because O.J. Simpson killed two people in cold blood in 1994. Far too often, we tried to cleanse ourselves with other people’s dirty bathwater.
Make no mistake – justice waits for all of us. In the end, justice will be done and I don’t know if that is a good thing. Do we really want justice? It is easy to want justice for O.J. Simpson. But do we want true justice? Universal justice? Do we want to be held accountable for all of our sins in the way that we want O.J. to be held accountable for his sins? But do we want justice for all the times that we hurt other people or neglected other people or failed to help other people? Do we really want justice? That is the question. And it’s a hard question, because in a world where there is so much injustice, it’s easy to rejoice in the thought of justice is actually being done somewhere. But maybe, the reason why there is so much injustice in the world is to teach us that we should stop searching for justice, because what we really need is forgiveness and mercy.
For all those people who constantly demand justice, be careful what you wish for, be careful of what you demand. They’re probably very few of us who would not be horrified at the concept of justice if we knew what justice had in store for us, at the idea of actually getting what we deserve. Most people think they deserve a lot better than they actually deserve. Most of us believe that justice will shine more favorably on us than it actually will. But who among us has lived such a perfect life, such a good and just life, that we wouldn’t tremble at the thought of infinite justice? If we are really honest with ourselves, we don’t want God’s justice, what we need is God’s mercy and forgiveness.
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J Garrett is a graduate of Princeton University. He has been a contributor to the website Real Clear Politics. He has recently published his first novel, No Wind.