Jay-Z and OJ

Sociology of Sport Journal, 2020, 37, 192-206 https://doi.org/10.1123/ssj.2020-0053 © 2020 Human Kinetics, Inc. ARTICLE Jay-Z and O.J.: Sport and the Performance of Race in Hip-Hop Music Kellen Jamil Northcutt Kayla Henderson University of Central Florida University of Washington Kaylee Chicoski University of Central Florida The purpose of this study was to understand the symbolic messaging in hip-hop music as it relates to the lived experiences and realities of Black Americans in the United States. The study examined the song and music video titled “The Story of O.J.,” by hip- hop artist Jay-Z to gain a better understanding of how Jay-Z interpreted the impact of Black Americans’ lived experiences in the United States on their identity and ability to progress economically and socially, regardless of social standing, within subcultures such as sport. Employing a content analysis method, data were collected and analyzed using critical race theory. The results of the analysis of lyrical and video data identified three major themes: (a) battle with Blackness, (b) economic enslavement and financial freedom, and (c) systematic subjugation. “NBC News reporter Sandy Vanocur (NNR): What is it something worthless and degrading” (King Jr. M.L. [NBC about the Negro, I mean every other group that came as an News]. 1967). immigrant somehow? Not easily, but somehow got around it. Is According to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1967 interview with it just the fact the Negros are Black?” The National Broadcasting Company, the identity of Black Amer- Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK): “White America must see icans has been defined through the lens of White society for centuries. that no other ethnic group has been a slave on American soil. That Past research (Hawkins, 1998b; Landrine & Klonoff, 1996; Neville, is one thing that other immigrant groups haven’t had to face. Viard, & Turner, 2015; Steele & Aronson, 1994) has shown the Black The other thing is that the color, became a stigma. American struggle to be one that has to overcome negative symbolical and society made the Negroes’ color a stigma. America freed the slaves cultural perceptions created about their ethnic group. Historically, in 1863, through the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham White Americans fashioned opposing images of themselves, com- Lincoln, but gave the slaves no land, and nothing in reality. pared with Black Americans, to support the legalization of oppressive And as a matter of fact, to get started on. policies that created a hierarchy that essentially made them the At the same time, America was giving away millions of acres dominant culture and subjugated Black Americans to second-class of land in the west and the Midwest. Which meant that there was a citizenship (Cooper, 2012; Helms, 1994). This established culture willingness to give the white peasants from Europe an economic robbed Black Americans of an opportunity to develop a positive base, and yet it refused to give its black peasants from Africa, who identity and created a milieu of perceived difference. These differ- came here involuntarily in chains and had worked free for two ences were interwoven throughout American society through science, hundred and forty-four years, any kind of economic base. religion, and policy (Hawkins, Francique, & Cooper, 2017). For And so, emancipation for the Negro was really freedom to example, perceptions associated with one’s skin color produced hunger. It was freedom to the winds and rains of Heaven. It was opposing views, as Black Americans were considered unclean and freedom without food to eat or land to cultivate and therefore was evil, while White Americans were defined as pure and good. freedom and famine at the same time. Scientifically, phrenological studies, coupled with the eugenics And when white Americans tell the Negro to ‘lift himself by movement of the 1800s, created false narratives about Black his own bootstraps,’ they don’t oh, they don’t look over the legacy intelligence reinforcing White superiority (Hawkins, 1998b). In of slavery and segregation. I believe we ought to do all we can and religion, the conversion of Black slaves to Christianity concerned seek to lift ourselves by our own boot straps, but it’s a cruel justice many slave owners due to the threat of rebellion. This concern to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own caused some to create a reinterpretation of the Bible to maintain the bootstraps. status quo, justifying slavery through stories, such as one found in And many Negroes by the thousands and millions have been Genesis 9:19–27. In this story, Ham, the father of Canaan, sees his left bootless as a result of all of these years of oppression and as a father, Noah, naked and is therefore cursed and subjected to Shem result of a society that deliberately made his color a stigma and and Japheth (Myrdal, 2000). Further, the Civil War challenged White superiority and created turmoil for White slave owners. This tension led to de jure (legalized) policies, such as anti-miscegena- Northcutt is with the DeVos Sport Business Management, University of Central tion and Supreme Court (e.g., Plessy vs. Ferguson) decisions, that Florida, Orlando, FL, USA. Henderson is with the University of Washington, sought to divide the races and reestablish a social hierarchy Seattle, Washington, WA, USA. Chicoski is with the College of Business whereby Black Americans were second-class (Branch & Young, Administration, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA. Northcutt 2006). Subsequently, it led to the formation of the Jim Crow laws, ([email protected]) is corresponding author. which remained in effect until the mid-1900s. 192 Unauthenticated | Downloaded 09/30/21 06:52 AM UTC Examining the Black Experience 193 Given these challenging circumstances, the identity of Black offered him acceptance into mainstream White America (Hunt, Americans was compromised, thus, making it difficult for them to 1999). However, in 1994, this so-called acceptance was derailed, exist in and assimilate into American society successfully. DuBois as O.J. Simpson was considered a person of interest and eventu- (1903) described this struggle: ally charged with the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. He was acquitted of It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense ’ the murders in 1995, but the racially charged monumental trial of always looking at one s self through the eyes of others, of was the catalyst that critics (Howard, 2016; Walton & Chau, measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in ’ — 2018) believe eroded O.J. s mainstream acceptance. amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness, an What is unique about O.J. Simpson’s Black identity conflict American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled was that it was flanked by critical time periods when social unrest strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged was at its peak. At the beginning of Simpson’s acceptance into the strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of mainstream in 1968, the Watts, California, riot was still a recent — the American Negro is the history of this strife, this longing to memory (1965), and the Vietnam War was being protested all over attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a the world. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy were better and truer self. In this merging, he wishes neither of the both assassinated, and the Summer Olympics in Mexico City were older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for being protested by Black athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith. America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would Similarly, when O.J.’s acceptance began its erosion in the early fl not bleach his Negro soul in a ood of white Americanism, for 1990s, four Los Angeles Police Department officers were acquitted he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He of the crime of savagely beating a Black man, Rodney King, in simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro spite of condemning video evidence. This acquittal subsequently and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his led to the riots of 1992 in Los Angeles, California, and a version of fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed hip-hop, known as Gangsta Rap, had already emerged with groups roughly in his face. (p. 2) like Niggaz Wit Attitudes and artists such as Ice-T. Their respec- tive songs challenged police brutality with titles such as “Fuck Tha Many scholars have tried to better understand the formation of Police” and “Cop Killer” (Walton & Chau, 2018). O.J.’s trial and Black identity development because of the negative experience and acquittal served as the climactic event of the 1990s that ended with conflict DuBois (1903) described. Cross (1991) sought to define Simpson’s sentiment “I’m not black, I’m O.J.” This sentiment was the various stages (i.e., preencounter, encounter, immersion– referenced by an activist and organizer of the Olympic Project for emersion, and internalization) Black Americans experience based Human Rights, Dr. Harry Edwards, in the ESPN film O.J.: Made in on conditional and environmental factors through his theory of America (Edelman, 2016). It reinforces the notion that “identity is Nigrescence. This transformation can be described as going from a constituted by characteristics that are not chosen, such as race” Eurocentric point of view that is considered anti-Black and nega- (Neville et al., 2015). When O.J.’s performance ceased with the not tive to one that is Afrocentric and considered pro-Black and guilty verdict, his Blackness prevailed, and the consequences of his positive (Cross, 1991).

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