Obama victory officially supplants O.J. acquittal as greatest celebration in African American history
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They danced at Grant Park in Chicago. They danced at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. They danced at Popeye’s Chicken and Waffles locations in numerous metropolitan areas throughout the country.
Indeed, screen shots on multiple news networks confirmed Tuesday night that victory dances among African-Americans following Barack Obama’s Presidential election win officially surpassed the number of jubilant celebrations following O.J. Simpson’s acquittal of double murder during his landmark trial in 1995.
“I was there in 1995, standing right next to Kato Kaelin on a street corner in Los Angeles when the verdict came down,” said Harvey Levin, managing editor of TMZ.com. “Let me tell you, those were happy days for African-Americans — a nice, irony-soaked fuck you to all the oppressive whites who had taken a big crap in their face since slavery.
“But honestly, the sense of elation was nothing like when Obama claimed victory from John McCain tonight. I mean, he took down an old, powerful white man from the Republican party. That’s the kind of David vs. Goliath scenario that even got someone like Oprah to cry. And she’s really, really, really rich.”
Earlier in the day, political analysts had predicted levels of mass hysteria to potentially rival the excessive celebrations that followed Simpson’s acquittal — one that fell sharply on racial lines and turned back the progress set forth years earlier by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney’s historic “Ebony and Ivory” collaboration.
And though Simpson has had new brushes with the law while fruitlessly searching for his wife’s real killer all these years later, his triumph over white supremacy via the judicial system was long seen as the milestone to beat in the African-American community.
“You know how white folks canonize George Washington and all those old dudes,” said author and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson. “Well, O.J.’s moment was our moment as a proud people. We never thought that level of united celebration was gonna be topped. We loved rubbing that shit in white people’s faces all damn day and for several more after.”
Though he admitted to brandishing a “Marcia Clark is O.J.’s bitch” sign in the weeks following Simpson’s acquittal, Martin Shabazz of Harlem said Obama’s victory feels decidedly different for African-Americans. This time, he’s “more than happy to let Latinos, Asians, and even those ‘liberal-ass’ Whites join in the overwhelming celebration.”
“O.J. was just one for the win column. We knew that motherfucker was guilty as sin, but we just didn’t care. We wanted to raise a middle finger to the man for all the racial profiling we’ve faced, all the police brutality we’ve endured, and especially that wack-ass Vanilla Ice shit,” Shabazz said.
Added Maurice Tyson of Chicago: “I’m happy all races came together on this Obama business. It’s a shared victory. I wasn’t even offended when the pasty white chick standing next to me in Grant Park had a Young Jeezy song as her ringtone. She earned it tonight.”
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