CNN political commentator Ashley Allison said Friday on CNN’s “News Central” that O.J. Simpson “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, “I posted something on social media last night about what was your conversation and your home in 1995 when the verdict came down and what was it last night when we found out O.J. died? My premise is that it’s still rooted on race. The issue is the reason why that case was so charged, I too got to watch the verdict in eighth grade and I saw it happening. I was happy. I don’t think I had a concept of who was guilty in who was not. I was a child. I probably shouldn’t have been watching the case about two people being killed at the end of the day.”
She continued, “It was so racially charged because of what had happened just before with Rodney King, but also just how black Americans feel about policing. It’s not like O.J. Simpson was the leader of the civil rights movement of his era, you know, 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 and the history around how black people have been persecuted during slavery. There was just so many layers.”
She added, ” I would just close with this this is that there was racial tension then there’s racial tension now, it might not be the backdrop of the Trump campaign, but until this country is ready to actually have an honest conversation about the racial dynamics from our origin story until today, we will always have moments like a O.J. Simpson that manifest and our country will always be divided if we don’t actually deal with the issue of race.”
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