CNN has presented controversial coverage of the death of former NFL player OJ Simpson, on multiple occasions struggling to explain why people were happy that he had been acquitted of the double murder of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
Correspondent Stephanie Elam was the first to present her analysis Thursday afternoon.
Elam, a climate change analyst for the network, seemed to imply that people were thrilled to see that OJ, as a black celebrity, could get away with murder.
“It’s also worth noting how impactful this trial has been, Jake, as so many things have happened. We have seen the police change here in the city,” he began.
“And it’s also worth noting that, because of those riots, those race riots in the ’90s, that’s why so many people who may not have been involved with OJ Simpson were just happy to see that someone who was rich and famous and black, he could get away with…” Elam continued, stumbling for a moment, “…what other people in the system did too.”
JUST IN—CNN’s Stephanie Elam, reporting on the death of OJ Simpson, accidentally said the quiet part out loud:
“So many people were just happy to see that someone who is rich and famous and black, could get away with… um… what other people in the system did too.” pic.twitter.com/7j4zPCUlo5
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) April 11, 2024
RELATED: Marc Lamont Hill: OJ Simpson’s acquittal was a necessary response to the racist system
CNN Analyst – OJ Simpson helped right the wrongs of slavery by killing white people
With Friday a new day has arrived. A new start for CNN in its coverage of OJ Simpson. But things didn’t get much better. In fact, commenter Ashley Allison made matters worse with her analysis.
Allison says that while OJ was clearly not a social justice warrior, he Done represent the black community. Why? Because his victims were white.
“I cheered, I was happy. I don’t think I had a sense of who was guilty and who wasn’t,” she said, noting that she was only in eighth grade when OJ came down.
“It was so racially charged because of what had happened earlier with Rodney King, but also how Black Americans feel about the police.”
“It’s not that OJ Simpson was the leader of the civil rights movement of his era. You know, he wasn’t a social justice leader,” Allison explains.
“But it represented something to the black community at the time, especially because there were two white people who had been killed,” he says. “And the story of how black people were persecuted during slavery. There were so many layers.”
WTF: CNN contributor suggests blacks identified with OJ because he killed whites.
“[OJ] it represented something to the black community at that time, in that trial, especially because there were two white people who had been killed.”
These observations are crazy.… pic.twitter.com/zJHNDJ0I7t
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) April 12, 2024
RELATED: Former CNN contributor fired for anti-Semitic comments mocked after demanding next Harvard president ‘must be a black woman’
Interesting analysis
OJ Simpson, 76, died Thursday at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, after battling prostate cancer. CNN failed miserably in its attempt to explain why some celebrated his acquittal for the violent murders of his wife and her friend.
Or maybe they succeeded. Certainly there era a large contingent of people who were happy to see him “get away with… whatever.”
And an equally large contingent that wanted him to get away with it because it would be a victory over the police, damn the victims because they were white.
Marc Lamont Hill, a former CNN contributor who was fired for his extreme comments in the past, also raised eyebrows with his take on the OJ Simpson case.
“OJ Simpson was a violent liar who abandoned his community long before he killed two people in cold blood. His acquittal of murder was the correct and necessary result of a racist criminal legal system,” she wrote on
“But he’s still a monster, not a martyr.”
Allison and Elam seem to disagree.
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