CNN anchor Don Lemon has carved out a section of “journalism” for himself under the banner of assumed authority on matters of race.
One such example was on full display as the host reacted to Oprah Winfrey’s controversial interview with former royals Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Lemon, who continues to present himself as an objective “journalist,” showed no interest or curiosity regarding the legitimacy or validity of the various accusations leveled by Meghan Markle and her subservient sidekick Harry, instead applying “Believe All Women” logic based, this time, on skin color.
“But just imagine being told that your unborn baby won’t have the same privileges, won’t have the same protections, as everyone else in the family,” Lemon began, despite the fact that Archie’s lack of title adheres to a 1917 letter from King George V which declares that “the great-grandchildren of the monarch would no longer be princes or princesses, except for the eldest son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales.” Such instructions have nothing to do with race, and yet Lemon prescribes such context in pursuit of his desired narrative.
Next, he asked his audience to “Imagine one of your in-laws asking questions about the color of your unborn baby’s skin,” despite no evidence provided that this question was even asked or that it was a member of the family who asked it.
Lemon then applied the routine pattern of using evidence of racism in the past as proof of racism in the present.
“Skin color has really been whispered about, talked about right out loud for centuries. As I just talked about Chris — talked to Chris about, I write about it in my book ‘This is a Fire.’ What I say to my friends about racism. And I just want to share the kind of words that I’ve heard and then I wrote about,” Lemon said.
“I say people who were three quarters black were griffes. Mulattoes were half black, quadroons a quarter, octoroons an eight, and so on, down to the 164th black sangmelee.”
“These anachronistic terms offend our ears now, but the old paper bag sliding valuation of skin tone versus stature still whispers in the subconscious mind of the job interviewer and the job applicant, the loan officer, and the loan applicant, the teacher and the student, the cop and the citizen,” Lemon argued.
Assuming a liberal dose of the debunked notion of “subconscious” racism, Lemon draws an equivalence between the racism of the past and his interpretation of the racism of our current society, without actually explaining why such a comparison is in any way valid.
Not only did Lemon assume racism, he assumed guilt without any form of due process. Speaking with CNN’s Brianna Keilar, he said, “Brianna, also, people say we haven’t heard from the other side. What’s the other side going to say? They’re going to say, ‘Of course we’re not racist,’ or whatever.”
“Or whatever.” Unfortunately, this is what the supposed pinnacle of modern journalism has come to. The presumption of guilt without evidence, with counter-arguments deemed unnecessary, arguing that they themselves are further evidence of guilt.
We see such logic in the “anti-racism” rhetoric of figures like Ibram X Kendi, who arrogantly proclaim that “The very heartbeat of racism is denial.” This is the same perspective which resulted in the witch trials of the past — with guilt proven by survival and innocence proven by demise — and this entirely primitive ideology has now taken root at CNN, the “most trusted name in news.”
Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at @ighaworth.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.