Valerie Hoff, Atlanta reporter and CNN contributor
Atlanta, GA — Valerie Hoff, an Atlanta TV reporter and frequent CNN contributor, has resigned after using the N-word in a recent Twitter exchange. But she didn’t use the derogative word towards another person; She used it referring to herself.
An African American man named Curtis Rivers got hold of a video that captured an act of police brutality in Atlanta. He then used his Twitter account to tweet that an overwhelming number of “news ni*ggas” were trying to track him down so that they could get a copy of his video footage.
Hoff saw the message on Twitter, and replied: “Please call this news n*gga.” And that’s when the controversy replied.
Rivers responded “LMFAOO,” but he soon realized that Hoff is white, and said, “I just looked through your photos on Twitter and realized you are not Black but called me a n*gga.”
Hoff then replies, “No, I called myself one.”
Rivers then gets angry, and says, “How would I be able to contact your manager or lawyer?”
He later told a reporter from a local newspaper, “I just think it wasn’t right for her to use that word in regards to a person who is African American on herself or use that word period. If she is bold enough to say it to me being an African American then I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first time she has used that word.”
Hoff was later put on a two-week suspension, but as community pressure built up, she “offered to resign immediately.”
She told reporters that she “was quoting something the gentleman said in a public tweet,” but said that she understands that that doesn’t make her usage of the slur “any less offensive.”
She added that using the word “was incredibly stupid and reckless.”