A CNN contributor sparked outrage on Thursday after saying that OJ Simpson “represented something for the black community … particularly because there were two white people who had been killed.”
Ashley Allison made the comment during the network’s coverage of the death of the 76-year-old Simpson, the disgraced NFL legend who was acquitted in 1995 of the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.
Allison was weighing in on the racial tensions that pervaded the country during the Simpson trial and its aftermath.
She said the Simpson case brought to the fore “just how black Americans feel about policing.”
“He wasn’t a social justice leader, but he represented something for the black community in that moment, in that trial, particularly because there were two white people who had been killed,” Allison said.
“And the history around how black people have been persecuted during slavery.”
Allison’s commentary sparked a backlash, with one X user remarking: “Absolutely unhinged racism.”
“They’re continuing to say the quiet part out loud,” another X commenter wrote.
An X user wrote that if they said the same thing about white people on Fox News, “I’d be cancelled so fast.”
The Post has sought comment from CNN and Allison.
