Don Lemon Proves People Are ‘Really Sensitive’ About Race with One Epic CNN Shout-Fest
“This one is going to spark some controversy,” Don Lemon said after a CNN commercial break Wednesday afternoon. “How do I know it? Because we’re going to talk about race.” From there, a discussion that was ostensibly about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ recent comments about racial sensitivity blew up into an off-the-rails shout-fest between Lemon’s two ideologically-opposed guests.
On one side was the editor of ConservativeBlackChick.com, Crystal Wright, who agreed with Thomas that “we are too sensitive” when it comes to race. She accused people like MSNBC’s Al Sharpton of “wanting to keep racism alive so they can make money” and said she sees a “hyper-sensitivity where white people are afraid not to even engage an honest dialogue on race.
On the other side, Atlanta radio host Mo Ivory disagreed with Thomas and, in turn, Wright. “There wouldn’t be a race card if something racial wasn’t going on,” she said, defending the actions of Sharpton and others. And when it came to white people not being able to criticize President Barack Obama because of his race, Ivory said, “There is a whole network that is dedicated to criticizing President Obama on a racial issue.”
While Lemon continually attempted to bring a degree of focus and civility to the debate, his two guests began to rapidly talk over each other, with shouts of “Let me finish!” flying in multiple directions and each woman accusing the other of being dishonest.
At one point, Lemon was able to slow things down by citing the reaction to his own comments last night about the mix-up between actors Samuel L. Jackson and Laurence Fishburne as a time when he felt wrongly accused of racial insensitivity. Without naming any names, Lemon said his comments were “turned around by people who are in the business of getting clicks on their website.”
When he finally managed to wrap up the segment, Lemon said he had successfully proved the point that “people are really sensitive when it comes to race.”
Watch the full segment below, via CNN:
[photo via screengrab]
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