Oprah Winfrey says Trayvon Martin case ‘same thing’ as Emmett Till, EW adds ‘it’s easy’ to make comparison
Oprah Winfrey may have fanned the flames of the outrage from Trayvon Martin supporters with her comments made during an interview promoting the film Lee Daniels’ The Butler, a film set partially during the height of the civil rights movement.
During a a brief clip shown on Today, Winfrey compared the Martin case to the famous Emmett Till case, seeing a “parallel” — and adding, “In my mind, [they’re the] same thing.” (Video below)
“You can get stuck in that,” she said, “and not allow yourself to move forward and to see how far we’ve come.”
The Entertainment Weekly coverage seems to agree with Winfrey following their coverage, noting “it’s easy to compare Till’s murder and its aftermath to the 2012 shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.”
Here’s how their article began:
On August 28, 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was savagely beaten and shot through the head in Money, Mississippi, all for the crime of speaking to a 21-year-old white woman. After a widely covered trial, his murderers were acquitted — leading to national indignation and helping to catalyze the civil rights movement.
Critics are quick to point out the violent torture of Till compared to Martin’s shooting and the court’s verdict that George Zimmerman was defending himself.
Till was pistol-whipped, thrown into the bed of a pickup truck and then beat again. His body was found three days later, shot above the ear, in a river weighted down with a fan motor fastened by barbed wire around the neck.
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