Don Lemon leaves a sour taste in the mouths of black people across the nation, when he agreed with Bill O’Reilly’s criticism of the black community. Lemon even took it a step further with his ill-fired five point plan to get the black community back on track in his ‘No Talking Points’ segment:
According to Don Lemon, black people have to be perfect in order to improve race relations in this country. In a recent “No Talking Points” segment, Lemon offered his support to the following criticism of the African-American community by FOX News bigot, Bill O’Reilly: “The reason there is so much violence and chaos in the black precincts is the disintegration of the African- American family. […] Raised without much structure, young black men often reject education and gravitate towards the street culture, drugs, hustling, gangs. Nobody forces them to do that, again, it is a personal decision.”
Never mind the country’s history of institutional racism and systematic oppression. Don Lemon took Bill O’Reilly’s ignorant assertion further by listing five ways black people need to change in order to “fix our community.” In doing so, Lemon inadvertently revealed just how little he thinks of his race. His words:
“Here’s number five. Pull up your pants. If you’re sagging, I mean — I think it’s your self-esteem that is sagging and who you are as a person it’s sagging. Young people need to be taught respect and there are rules. […]
Number four now is the n-word. I understand poetic license, but consider this: I hosted a special on the n-word, suggesting that black people stop using it and that entertainers stop deluding yourselves or themselves and others that you’re somehow taking the word back. […]
Now number three. Respect where you live. Start small by not dropping trash, littering in your own communities. I’ve lived in several predominantly white neighborhoods in my life, I rarely, if ever, witnessed people littering. I live in Harlem now, it’s an historically black neighborhood, every single day I see adults and children dropping their trash on the ground when a garbage can is just feet away. Just being honest here. […]
[Read the rest over at ClutchMagOnline]
Watch his segment—->
http://youtu.be/m01GNibAXkk?t=1m18s
Do you agree with Mr. Lemon? Has he lost his lemons?
What we need more than anything is solidarity. If every black person was like "yea, we can sag if we want. and what!"
then who's gonna stop us? The bottom line is that our message isnt consistent, even within our own community. A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I dont care if you sag, use the n-word, shoot guns, pop bottles, anchor the news, graduate from law school, or start your own business– if we can get on the same page about SOMEthing, then we'll have real power.
12 pt buck
Yes bro, we need to get on the same page.
Don Lemon and Bill were spitting facts.
@BkCarib
Yes I agree. However, compared to the RACISM that blacks collective experience, single motherhood & crime in the black community is a small point. That is a smokescreen.
– Police in our communities going out of their way to lock us up.
– Being denied jobs on the basis of skin every though you have better credentials than other complexions of people.
– Having your image thrown under the bus every single day by the media, where all of America is scared of you & wanna shoot you on sight.
And if you really wanna talk about the single motherhood problem, that was created & exacerbated by our government in 1964 or 1965 with the early welfare programs. To undermine the black family, so the men wouldn’t rise up & challenge racism.
I will be the first one to tell you that these are serious external problems that need to be addressed.
However, as I've learned from my immigrant parents, where there is a will there is a way.
As for you point about the Government's master plan to undermine the black family, I see no correlation between that and the decay of the African-American family.
Everybody involved in the planning agreed it was meant as a temporary situation to help black migrating to the north from the south have housing while they find sustainable lives and eventually move out. Those blacks (Cabrini Green in Chicago as an example) stayed and became comfortable living in squalor and downtrodden conditions. They have none to blame but themselves.
@BkCarib
You are getting to bootstrap, and I am about to just play you to the left.
I am a black conservative. I believe in personal responsibility.
But even successful black folks, immigrant or native, still get profiled, still have to deal with white supremacy.
Piggybacking on Uncle Hugh
I understand that if I am in a 10 ft ditch, as a 6ft man with 4ft wingspan & I need external help getting out of that ditch.
I would be a dumbazz to make the hole deeper to 20ft, where now, instead someone lending me a hand (poverty), now I need a ladder & maybe some pulley to help me up out of that ditch, because I made the hole unnecessarily deeper by bringing kids into the situation, getting a felony etc.
BUT THAT STILL DOESN’T EXCUSE THE PEOPLE WHO PUT ME IN THAT DITCH IN THE FIRST PLACE.
It doesn’t matter how perfect we are, the dominant society is not going to stop putting the foot of white supremacy in the far corners of our collective azzes.
If you cannot understand racism (interracial) vs. intra-racial problems, then I have nothing else to discuss with you homie.
"Never mind the country’s history of institutional racism and systematic oppression."
I hate how some people try to pretend as institutional racism doesn't exist or undermine it's effects on the African American community. And I think its even worse when educated black people do it. Oppression destroys, just look at the Native American community. A whole race of people pushed to the brink of extinction by the force of oppression.
My recent post New Poll Shows Single Black Men Want Long Term Relationships More Than Black Women
I hear what you're saying, however…Lemon has a point.
Just looking at the points he discussed, institutional racism really only comes into play with regards to getting an education. If you can make a case for racism causing the other issues Lemon discusses, I'd love to hear it. Go on. I'll wait.
I want to say this as quick as possible.
Systematic oppression by whites is our #1 issue.
Everything else is secondary.
Don Lemon was more idiot than he was right. And remember most of these coon are paid by whites AND want to be apart of the white structure sooooooo bad.
Getting on the same page & pooling our money would lighten the load on the racism front.
Remains to be seen!
No it is not.
Please explain how my whole immigrant family made it too the middle class and a few people above in one generation seeing as we're black, from far off lands, and speak with funny accents.
My parents received an amazing public education despite what many Americans will tell you about the West Indies. They had to repeat school because White America said their educations were sub-par despite the fact that both my parents ended up in the top 5 of their classes.
The truth of the matter is if you work hard, and help yourself, people will take note because at the end of the day most people see green before white or black.
@BKCARIB
One more time. Stop hitting with the bootstrap argument.
I don’t know what goes on in the West Indies, and I have no idea where you get your info.
But black people in the state are being purposely undermined on all fronts. Educationally, spiritually, Legally (I hope you have been keeping up with the Trayvon Martin case, his parent worked hard too, lived in a great middle class neighborhood but that still didn’t stop their son from being profiled & killed.)
At least when you come from Africa or the West Indies, I am sure y’all things differently over there.
Yes, discipline, sacrifice, & hard work are excellent virtues to live by, but we still have to address systematic racism waged on people of color, especially black folks.
Stop running from that.
And this is coming from a guy who hates single mothers, & the ratchet behavior that goes on in our communities.
That is another conversation for another post.
Good day. BKCarib
"Do you agree with Mr. Lemon? Has he lost his lemons?"
To a small degree. I agree with what he attempted (but failed) to do: have the black community take responsibility for addressing our own issues. But the fact that three of his five solutions for transforming the black community were stop sagging, stop using the N-word and stop littering, clearly his critique is superficial at best and he's not the man for the job.
Lemon spoke on this because of Bill O'Reilly's comments. I honestly don't think O'Reilly is a racist and he meant well, but he's clueless. However, if we are going to "start the conversation" (I hate that phrase: as if it hadn't been started literally centuries ago), people need to focus.
In the words of Jay-Z, what are we talking about? If racism is the issue, then focus on that discussion. Our community has A LOT of work to do, but that's a different conversation. If a black person is talking about racism, the proper response isn't to point out issues in the black community, it's to talk about racism.
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As an analogy, say your car doesn't start on Tuesday, and you find out it's your fuel pump. You decide to get it fixed on Friday when you get paid. On Wednesday, someone breaks into your car and steals the battery and alternator. You go to the police to file a report that parts were stolen. The police reply with, "we're not going to bother to do anything, you couldn't drive your car anyway because your fuel pump didn't work."
What does that have to do with the crime committed against you? You're not talking about the fuel pump, you're talking about the battery and alternator. This is what happens in these conversations. Mention racism inherent the system, and all they want to say is, "look at your community!" or "this is reverse racism!" Stop changing the subject: how does that justify the inequities in the system?
Again, there is A LOT of work the black community has to do for itself. But that doesn't justify society directly attacking the black community, placing more stumbling blocks in the way or ignoring the issues all together.
I get a little frustrated when the topic of our community comes up these days. Because I see the same divide amongst us everyday people that I do with our "so called" leaders and academics. We have to look at fixing our community through a multi-faceted lens. It does us a disservice when we are dismissive of either the institutionalized racial system of America, or the fact that we as a whole have taken a small step back socially since the civil rights era. They both must be discussed in full context. Why can't we both fight the system that we are aware of, and yet address our own dirty laundry and do what we can to fix our community?
I will be first to admit that racism is alive and well and operates more sinister and subversive than ever, yet since we generally know that the game is rigged, why do we continue to play? You may not agree with what people like Don Lemon, or Bill Cosby or others say about our current state, but we must not throw them under the bus because they hold up a mirror and we don't like what we see. It shows that we are nowhere close to fixing the problem. It's disingenuous to dismiss the practical elements which plague our community, just because we either don't care for the messenger, or how the message is presented. Bottom line, our slip is showing, and it doesn't matter who pulled it down, we have to both put it back in place while at the same time slap away the hands that continue to tug at it. (bad analogy I know)
I agree with langwichartz 100%. I think what Don Lemon is simply trying to say is that although we have a long way to go in fixing race relations in America, we can still do some immediate things to improve ourselves and our communities. That's it.