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View Full Version : Don Lemon's 'Tough Love' for Black Community Inspires Hate-Filled Backlash



zulater
07-29-2013, 08:33 PM
http://www.ijreview.com/2013/07/68951-cnn-host-don-lemons-tough-love-for-black-community-inspires-hate-filled-backlash/

Bill O’Reilly enraged many with his “Talking Points Memo” criticism of black culture in America. One surprising ally was CNN’s Don Lemon who approved of O’Reilly’s critique, and even said that he didn’t go far enough.

His five points were simply but eloquently elaborated.

5) How sagging pants evolved from prison culture and reflects poorly on the self-esteem of the perpetrator of this fashion statement:

Sagging pants, whether it’s Justin Bieber or no-name Derek around the way, walking around with your ass and your underwear showing is not okay. In fact, it comes from prison when they take away belts from the prisoners so that they can’t make a weapon. And then it evolved into which role a prisoner would have during male-on-male prison sex. The one with the really low pants is the submissive one. You get my point?

4) Use of the n-word in popular culture degrades blacks:

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.

3) Littering your own community shows disdain for yourself and those around you:

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.

2) Not making use of the educational opportunities afforded you:

Finish school. You want to break the cycle of poverty? Stop telling kids they’re acting white because they go to school or they speak proper English. A high school dropout makes on average $19,000 a year. A high school graduate makes $28,000 a year. A college graduate makes $51,000 a year.

1) Having children out of wedlock erodes educational and economic opportunity:

Number one, and probably the most important: just because you can have a baby, it doesn’t mean you should. Especially without planning for one or getting married first. More than 72 percent pf children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock. That means absent fathers. And the studies show that lack of a male role model is an express train right to prison and the cycle continues.

Not surprisingly, this has inspired just as much hatred from the black community as O’Reilly’s comments did. MSNBC’s Goldie Taylor calls him a “turncoat mofo,” while Toure also took to twitter to revile the common sense points Lemon made. Many others in the black community took to social media to excoriate Lemon’s remarks. Many decided the best course of action was to describe Don Lemon himself as an N-word, while others took a homophobic angle.

silver & black
07-29-2013, 09:02 PM
...And yet, if you agree with this, you're labeled a racist

GoSlash27
07-29-2013, 09:06 PM
Reminds me of the simple "3 step program" for avoiding poverty:
#1) Graduate High School
#2) Don't get married until you're at least 21 and don't have kids until you're married.
#3) Get a full time job.
According to the Brookings Institute, those 3 are enough to make your chances of ending up in poverty less than 2%. I would add a couple more:
#4) Don't spend more money than you make.
#5) Don't spend everything you make. Save some of it for later.

Speaking as a guy who came from that environment, I believe that the single biggest obstacle to the success of the black community *is* the black community. Particularly their attitude towards people who are trying to better themselves.

X-Terminator
07-29-2013, 09:14 PM
Reminds me of the simple "3 step program" for avoiding poverty:
#1) Graduate High School
#2) Don't get married until you're at least 21 and don't have kids until you're married.
#3) Get a full time job.
According to the Brookings Institute, those 3 are enough to make your chances of ending up in poverty less than 2%. I would add a couple more:
#4) Don't spend more money than you make.
#5) Don't spend everything you make. Save some of it for later.

Speaking as a guy who came from that environment, I believe that the single biggest obstacle to the success of the black community *is* the black community. Particularly their attitude towards people who are trying to better themselves.

Yep. I've been called everything in the book, from a sellout to an Uncle Tom because I speak properly and wanted to make something of myself. Of course, you know why he got that backlash, right? Because he spoke the truth, and they all know it. Our community has a real problem with dealing with and accepting the truth.

GoSlash27
07-29-2013, 09:37 PM
Yep. I've been called everything in the book, from a sellout to an Uncle Tom because I speak properly and wanted to make something of myself. Of course, you know why he got that backlash, right? Because he spoke the truth, and they all know it. Our community has a real problem with dealing with and accepting the truth.

It's a "human nature" thing, and not unique to the black community. They don't want to admit that their situation is ultimately their own fault. They want to blame somebody else for their problems, so they have a vested interest in keeping others in their situation down. That way they never have to accept the responsibility for their own failure. Drug addicts don't want to see a fellow addict get clean. Poor folks (regardless of race) don't want to see someone else rise up out of poverty. Criminals don't want to see a fellow hoodlum go straight. They use all of their peer pressure to make sure it doesn't happen.
Ask any white guy who ever worked a dead-end summer job to pay his way through college while dealing with the "you think you're better than me" crap from the knuckleheads he works with. It's universal.