How Is Oj Simpson Different From African American Culture

Jay-Z’s emphatic return to the rap game with his critically-acclaimed album “4:44” made waves not only throughout the hip-hop culture, but also all throughout America as an album with a lot of racial undertones. In one of his songs, “The Story of O.J.”, Jay-Z raps “O.J. like, ‘I’m not black, I’m O.J.’ … okay.” In a song that takes direct aim at O.J. Simpson for trying to escape the black community, Jay-Z comments on how certain people try to believe that they are higher than the culture they were brought up in, and there is no more of a quintessential example of this than O.J. Simpson.
O.J. Simpson was one of the most bankable athletes in American culture and media, and was often called the first black athlete to become a media superstar.

In acting as if his skin color was “O.J.’s skin color” instead of black, he allowed white America to believe that he transcended race, while leaving the black community in the dust. There is no better example of this than the shift in his language, from what can be inferred was predominantly African American English to Standard American English. Simpson grew up in the projects of San Francisco’s Petrero Hill, which at the time housed mostly blacks, and where African American English was the standard dialect for the locals there. Simpson’s upbringing was set up perfectly for AAE to have been present in every part of his life. While there is no direct evidence to link Simpson’s childhood to AAE, as in tapes or recordings of Simpson as a child, it can be suggested that Simpson negative attitude towards being called “black” and having to identify with parts of black culture was created in part because of how he wanted to escape his childhood and his roots in San

Ralph Wiley, who was a famed journalist for ESPN, once wrote that “O.J. tried and almost succeeded at being everything but a black guy – and, more importantly, his own guy.” Wiley’s point in this statement was that O.J.’s confusion pertaining to his identity clearly had to do with his insecurity as a black man trying to pave his way into the white community while leaving the black community behind. Wiley went on to state that “He (Simpson) fooled himself. He fooled white people. But he didn’t fool many black people. Not the ones who knew him well, anyways.” Wiley’s bluntness serves as a reminder to Simpson supporters that Simpson himself did not understand how obvious it was to many people from the black community how clearly his disingenuousness shone through his persona. The story that Jay-Z tries to tell in his song is one of loyalty and allegiance to one’s roots. In the chorus of the song, he raps: “Light n*gga, dark n*gga, faux n*gga, real n*gga, rich n*gga, poor n*gga, house n*gga, field n*gga, still n*gga, still n*gga.” To Jay-Z, it is important for everyone in the black community to remember where they originally came from, and he chastises Simpson for trying to erase and avoid the reality that he is still black. There is no avoiding the color of one’s skin, and while it is not necessary to embody every single individual trait of being a certain skin color, the extent to which Simpson