Monday on his eponymous independent show, former CNN host Don Lemon lashed out at black and Latino men who’ve, at a minimum, shown an iciness toward Vice President Kamala Harris and an openness to former President Trump. This, Lemon argued, was due to consummation of a “center right or far right” media “ecosystem” of “digital, streaming podcasts” as well as “misogyny” and “sexism” “that they're being left behind, especially by women.”
Later in the show, Lemon surprisingly came to the defense of CBS Mornings co-host Tony Dokoupil by rebuking CBS News for their all-but public struggle sessions by pro-Palestinian employees humiliating Dokoupil for his grilling of author Ta-Nehisi Coates.
But starting with minorities being interested in Trump, Lemon first lamented that “young men of all ethnicities are listening to media now...as we call ‘mainstream media’ or ‘corporate media’” but rather “digital, streaming, podcasts, all of this and in that ecosystem, everything is pretty much to the right — either center right or far right.”
Lemon continued by taking a dig at minority men for consuming the same news as white people:
And so, black men and Latino men are listening to the same sort of media BS that white men in general are listening to and let's not forget the elephant in the room...is sexism, is misogyny men feel that they're being left behind, especially by women, they're resentful of it and whether you want to believe that or not, it is a real thing, right?
Pivoting last week to Barack Obama’s public shaming of black men for not rallying behind Harris as the Democratic Party would like, Lemon praised him for what our friend Peter Hasson argued was Obama “clearly implying here that...black men who don’t vote Democrat in this election are secret bigots, as opposed to rational actors.”
“I think telling the truth — many people don't wanna hear it,” Lemon argued in a lead-in to part of Obama’s remarks to a group of black men.
After the clip, he praised Obama for hitting them for “coming up with all these excuses about her that are not right, that your information is off”.
Lemon doubled down on the sexism angle, arguing those expressing uproar about it just don’t like “tough conversations” and won’t accept that “sometimes, people need to be chastised” (click “expand”):
[Y]ou're using every excuse in the book except the one that is probably the most accurate and truthful one. And that is she's a woman and you don't think a woman or you don't want a woman to be the president of the United States because you don't think that she's deserving of it or there's some, you know, internalize misogyny or — and you're being sexist, basically, it's what he said.
(....)
[T]here's also some truth into what Barack Obama is saying and some people may not like to hear it and I think that was a tough conversation to have. Tough conversations are just that tough and people don't want to hear them. Sometimes people need to be chastised, right? You don't want your message to bounce off. I don't think that all the blame should be put on black men, but the black men that I have spoken to and I continue to speak to on a daily basis, come up with these excuses and these reasons that are just inaccurate. They're just plain wrong.
Lemon paused to recap the argument he was making that minority men aren’t getting in line because they’re falling victim to “misinformation,” “the media ecosystem” they consume, misogyny, and being a conservative.
Even the latter was unacceptable to Lemon because “usually, people cannot come up with...reasons” why Harris is bad on policy.
Lemon further unspooled that shaming is caring and compared Obama to a loving parent (click “expand”):
[S]hould you be chastising people? Ummm. Listen — I mean, you guys may not like it. I don't see sometimes, what a little bit — I don't see what's wrong with some chastising. I really don't because, most of the time, that I have learned and I have corrected course has been when someone chastised me — someone who was in a position of power, who knew better when they chastised me and they shocked me into reality.
(....)
I believe Barack Obama is holding up a mirror. Now, I wasn't insulted by it because that did not, I'm a black man. That did not apply to me because I am neither of those things. I'm also informed. And so, that didn't offend me.
(....)
But just because someone is telling you the truth and you don't wanna hear it does not necessarily mean that it's wrong. Because when your parents chastise you, did you want to hear it? Do you think that that was the right thing to do? Were they trying to — was there a sort of scared straight aspect to it? Of course, that's what it is and perhaps in this day and time, maybe folks need that. Now, you can disagree with me all you want. I'm just saying the truth often hurts and people become offended by the truth.
As for Dokoupil, he said “messy conversations” are great so “long as people are respectful” and, when that condition is met, “you should keep the corporate overlords out of it” and “[n]o one should be putting their thumb on the scale.”
Lemon then outlined what CBS should have done, which was stand behind Dokoupil as having engaged in “good journalism” and “spark[ed] another conversation” versus “embarrassing him” and letting news executives run roughshod (click “expand” to read more of what Lemon had to say about this):
Don Lemon argues CBS News should *not* have done the Struggle Sessions embarrassing Tony Dokoupil for his Ta-Nehisi Coates interview:
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 15, 2024
"CBS should have responded, saying this is good journalism and this will spark another conversation and this is what we do at CBS News instead… pic.twitter.com/3Cm1LLOXu1
To see the relevant transcript from Lemon’s show on October 14, click here.
