Twitter Users React to the CNN Headline 'Alt-Right Founder Questions If Jews Are People'

CNN's graphic during a segment that discussed an "alt-right" leader and noted white supremacist had Twitter freaking out.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Twitter had a really strong reaction to a CNN segment that included a sensational on-screen headline that read "Alt-Right Founder Questions If Jews Are People."

The chyron (TV news jargon for a headline graphic on the lower part of the screen) aired during a segment in which CNN host Jim Sciutto was talking with political commentators about Donald Trump's transition to the presidency, and whether the president-elect should formally denounce his supporters from the alt-right.

More specifically, they were talking about Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute, the man who coined the term "alt-right" and one of the country's "most successful white nationalist leaders, a suit-and-tie version of the white supremacists of old," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He's also that guy who led a group of fellow white nationalists in an unsettling “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”​ salute at a conference in Washington, D.C. over the weekend. 

In the CNN segment, Sciutto read this Spencer quote about Jewish people:  "One wonders if these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem." Sciutto called the quote "hate filled garbage," but the internet was not pleased with what it was seeing on the screen.

Some were clearly disturbed by the simple fact that we're even having such conversations in 2016.

Others seemed to think that CNN was actually debating the question of Jewish humanity.

And others were upset by the continued use of the term "alt-right" itself, which many believe is a euphemism that gives legitimacy to white supremacists. 

Likely sensing that something was happening on social media, Matt Viser, the Washing Deputy Bureau Chief for the Boston Globe who appeared in the segment, wanted to clear up any confusion from the jump. 

 

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