"I've Got to Do Something. I've Got to Say Something”: A Conversation with CNN’s Don Lemon

The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 catalyzed Black Americans far and wide, and CNN’s Don Lemon, the only African-American cable news anchor in primetime, was no different. Lemon joins Inside the Hive to discuss his bestselling new book, This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism. In it, Lemon describes how the Trump years exposed America’s racial wounds, but also cleared the way for a new era of accountability. "People are being held accountable and they cannot just say something bigoted or racist or insensitive or inappropriate with impunity anymore,” Lemon observes. 

But he also believes in forgiveness. Addressing free speech and “cancel culture,” Lemon says, "I think you have to allow people grace in the conversation and in the act of trying to do the right thing.” 

Despite the divisions of the last four years, Lemon remains optimistic about the promise of pluralism, if for no other reason than demographics and the logic of capitalism. “We're all gonna have to learn to get together because that's what our country will be,” he says. “I think the way that we're going to do that is not by segregating ourselves, but by having relationships with people who don't look like us, because when you do that you get to experience other people's humanity, it is harder for you to treat them as other."

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