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What Had Happened Was: 6/15/16

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    Rodney King
    This May 1, 1992 file photo shows Rodney King making a statement at a Los Angeles news conference. AP Photo/David Longstreath
    By Rhiannon Walker Ryan Cortes Kofie Yeboah

    SOCIAL STATUS

    On Tuesday, ESPN Films released Part 2 of its five-part 30 for 30 O.J.: Made in America. The conversation about black bodies, women, police brutality and more drove a lot of the chatter surrounding the episode.

    The history lessons about Rodney King and Latasha Harlins were especially big topics for those who stored it away or just weren’t educated on King’s brutality at the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department or Harlins’ murder by a Korean-American store owner.

    And then there was how Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown was let down by so many different people as she suffered constant domestic violence leading up to her murder:

    BLESSINGS!

    We here at ESPN and The Undefeated know how much people like to binge-watch television shows, and because of that, here’s the link to all five of the O.J.: Made in America episodes.

    You can thank us later (if you, uh, are an ESPN3 subscriber).

    200

    FOR THE CULTURE

    After 71 years, Johnson Publishing sold Ebony and Jet magazines to Clear View Group, a firm based out of Austin, Texas.

    Actor/musician Donald Glover, aka Childish Gambino, will have a big role in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

    A sixth-grade black girl and her family in Waco, Texas, are suing her school for $3 million after three white boys wrapped a rope around her neck and dragged her around. Photos of the girl’s neck are gruesome.

    Back in March, Teen Vogue published a personal essay on one woman’s acceptance of queerness as a Muslim. It’s become all the more poignant in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting.

    How on Earth did Baltimore’s 911 system crash for little more than an hour?

    TOP THREE TWEETS

    Every morning we’ll hit you here with the best of what we saw on social media the previous night. Why? Why not?

    1. CAN’T TELL ME NOTHIN’

    https://twitter.com/giveyouIife/status/742805971525898240

    2. LINE ME UP, BRO

    https://twitter.com/gloed_up/status/742757611993477120

    3. WUT

    #ICYMI

    Our brother Justin Tinsley wrote about the moment millennials realized O.J. Simpson was absolutely the wrong black man to ride for:

    But to my generation? Now? He’s viewed as a master of deception. And we caped for him — stood up and took to the streets with “FREE O.J.” posters and T-shirts for him. We caped for the wrong black man. Simpson manipulated the pain of the past. He manipulated us. For years, dating to the ’60s, Simpson, by way of his celebrity, managed to separate himself from much of the overt bigotry many of his contemporaries dealt with and protested against. “I’m not black. I’m O.J.,” the documentary quotes him saying). OK, then. As a friend said to me after watching the trailer last month, “That fool O.J. gets no sympathy from me. Because he had none for us … until he needed it.”

    PICTURE PERFECT

    Rhiannon Walker is an associate editor at The Undefeated. She is a drinker of Sassy Cow Creamery chocolate milk, an owner of an extensive Disney VHS collection, and she might have a heart attack if Frank Ocean doesn't drop his second album.

    Ryan Cortes is a staff writer for The Undefeated. Lemon pepper his wings.

    Kofie Yeboah asks for Sweet Tea at every restaurant and recites approximately 2.5 Spongebob lines per hour.

    This Story Tagged: What Had Happened Was O.J. Simpson