![]() When I was a kid growing up in black New Orleans in the 1960s, O.J. Simpson was a god. We imitated his moves, his swagger. We didn’t want to just play like him. We wanted to be him, gorgeous and running in the California sun. ![]() ![]() We practiced his juking moves in the mirror, our hands too small to hold the ball loosely, the way he did. We even wanted to go to U.S.C., where he led the nation in rushing two years in a row. We were angry when he lost the Heisman Trophy to the white, All-American, clean-cut U.C.L.A. Quarterback Gary Beban, known as “The Great One.” We were triumphant when he won it the next year. I was less engaged by the rapper’s marital troubles or his infamous, caught-on-video 2014 elevator dust-up with his sister-in-law. But I did want to try to understand how, with an $88 million Bel Air mansion a freeway ride from neighborhoods where black people endure with so little, Jay-Z holds onto his younger self — a black man who grew up in the ’70s in the Marcy projects of Brooklyn. It seemed from his new body of work that examining this high-wire act of straddling two places had been stirring more deeply within him — much the way it stirs in me, a Southern black man who grew up revering O.J. ![]() And whose own success is infinitely greater than anyone in my early life would have imagined for me. JAY-Z It's a nuanced song, you know. It's like, I'm specifically speaking to us. May 23, 2017. Employers say that even though an interview can be a formality, you need to actively prepare and listen for cues in order to stand out. The job of your dreams. By Anna Bahney @annabahney May 23, 2017: 12:07 PM ET. You have more control than you think in a job interview -- it's up to you to take it. ![]() And about who we are and how do you maintain the sense of self while pushing it forward and holding us to have a responsibility for our actions. Because in America, it is what it is. And there's a solution for us: If we had a power base together, it would be a much different conversation than me having a conversation by myself and trying to change America by myself. If I come with 40 million people, there's a different conversation, right? It's just how it works. I can effect change and get whomever in office because this many people, we're all on the same page. So the conversation is, like, 'I'm not rich, I'm O.J.' For us to get in that space and then disconnect from the culture. That's how it starts. This is what happens. And then you know what happens? You're on your own, and you see how that turned out. JAY-Z That's right. And for us, like I'm saying, to speak to that the point is, 'Don't forget that,' because that's really not the goal. The goal is not to be successful and famous. That's not the goal. The goal is, if you have a specific God-given ability, is to live your life out through that. And two, we have a responsibility to push the conversation forward until we're all equal. Till we're all equal in this place. Because until everyone's free, no one's free, and that's just a fact. JAY-Z There's a delicate balance to that, right? Because you have to educate your children on the world as it exists today and how it got to that space, but my child doesn't need the same tools that I needed growing up. I needed certain tools to survive my area that my child doesn't need. They're growing up in a different environment. 1 But also they have to know their history. Have a sense of what it took to get to this place. And have compassion for others. The most important thing I think out of all this is to teach compassion and to identify with everyone's struggle and to know these people made these sacrifices for us to be where we are and to push that forward — for us. I believe that's the most important thing to show them, because they don't have to know things that I knew growing up.
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July 2018
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