Don Lemon’s Pull Your Pants Up Logic Is Backwards Like Russia’s Anti-Gay Law

Don Lemon

Don Lemon

The other week CNN anchor Don Lemon got on air and made this ridiculous assertion about moving to Harlem, seeing lots of folks walking around with their pants sagging and concluding that racist Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly was correct in his assessment as to why Black people have problems.. It’s because too many folks have their pants sagging..

If we follow Lemon’s line of thinking.. All that’s needed is some is ‘tough love’ maybe in the form of  laws banning the practice of sagging,  along with all our churches, civic organizations and schools going all out pushing the message that poverty, inferior healthcare, subprime lending schemes and institutional racism are secondary causes to our collective mistreatment… It’s sagging pants..

Rick Santorum

Rick Santorum

Message to Don Lemon:  It was just a couple of years ago that we had sitting law makers like Senator Rick Santorum and Congresswoman Michele Bachman to name a few, who were pretty much blaming gay folks who ‘acted upon their sexual orientation’ for having negative impact on kids and society at large. In their minds, if only people like you Don would stay hidden in the closet America would be better off..

How this sort of thinking plays out Don,  is one might claim that if God forbid you were ever discriminated against, harassed or physically assaulted by someone who was homophobic and intolerant, it might be because you brought upon yourself by announcing to the world your sexual preference or if you were seen publicly showing affection to your boyfriend.

If Only Gays Didn't Carry a Rainbow Flag, Russian Homophobes Would leave them alone..NOT!

If Only Gays Didn’t Carry a Rainbow Flag, Russian Homophobes Would leave them alone..NOT!

As you know Don, this backwards thinking is playing itself in countries like Russia who just recently enacted a anti pro gay law that will apply to people like yourself who visit the country to cover events like the Olympics. This new law will allow you to be put in jail for 14 days if you display something pro-Gay like the rainbow flag or if you speak in support of Gays..

The wording  of the law is vague which means people may act all sorts of ways in interpreting and enforcing it..  but the logic is the same as yours.. ‘If only these gay people would pull up their sagging pants (translation..be quiet and don’t say anything indicating their sexual orientation) Russian society would be better off.

This backwards thinking which is now law is no different from what has been espoused by unknown and prominent folks alike who feel that a women who is harassed or raped, brought it upon herself because wearing a skirt hat was too short or she showed too much cleavage… he Don Lemon-sque logic goes ‘f only women dressed ‘respectably’ they would not be raped..How about if only those committing rapes behaved correctly and didn’t act so destructively?

Roy MiddletonSince Don Lemon made those dingbat assertions about sagging pants, we’ve seen a number of negative racial attacks directed at Black folks including, sheriff deputies in Florida shooting a 60-year-old unarmed man named Roy Middleton, 15 times as he reached into his car parked in his driveway to get a pack of cigarettes.

How this happened was the man’s neighbor saw the guy rummaging around in the car, he got suspicious and called the police who came through and simply shot Middleton. There was no struggle. There was no argument.. There was no police even identifying themselves..

The sheriff of Escambia County where the shooting took place claims that Mr Middleton lounged for them which is why he was shot 15x… He claims the deputies followed correct police protocol and so needless to say there will be no one charged with the shooting.. Mr Middleton luckily is still alive.. For that we are happy.. What one might question is how is it two officers shot a guy 15x and hit him only twice?

Trayvon Martin wore a hoodie in the rain..In the world of Don lemon and Geraldo, maybe He should've had an umbrella instead

Trayvon Martin wore a hoodie in the rain..In the world of Don lemon and Geraldo, maybe He should’ve had an umbrella instead

In any case, one thing we are certain of is that Roy Middleton wasn’t wearing sagging pants..For that matter neither was Trayvon Martin when he was shot by George Zimmerman, but we had Lemon’s journalism peer Gerald Rivera assert that if only Trayvon had no worn a hoodie, he’d be alive today.

Sean Bell when he was shot 50 times. wasn’t wearing a hoodie or sagging pants, nor was former military vet Kenneth Chamberlain Sr when cops entered his home and shot him to death..

Rekia Boyd who was mistakenly shot by an off duty cop in Chicago wasn’t wearing sagging pants, nor was Brown Beret Annette Garcia the mother of 3  when she was shot by Riverside Sheriffs….

There’s a long list of Black folks shot dead by out of control police who were unarmed and not wearing sagging pants…and historically speaking, when Blacks were being lynched with impunity back in the early part of the last century, they weren’t wearing sagging pants either…

Pull Your Pants Up and poverty will end and institutional racism will cease in Don lemon's world

Pull your pants up and poverty will end, police brutality will cease and institutional racism will end in Don Lemon’s world

The larger point I’m getting at is there is the individual and how we as a community think he or she should be dressing and behaving.. And we have what’s systemic… This includes policy, patterns of selective enforcement of laws and the use of deadly force and how one a system holds one accountable when individuals operating within that system does wrong..

So lose me with the whole sagging pants argument when lots of well dressed, articulate law-abiding Black folks are being shot, disrespected and abused by police operating within a system that rewards them rather than punish them for wrong doing..

All that I said should be obvious, but sadly in 2013, there are lots of folks who are granted mainstream access and visibility like Don Lemon and sports columnist Jason Whitlock to name a few who serve the system of white supremacy by constantly apologizing for it.. Ideally folks like Lemon would do better by using their journalisitic resources and unearthing what sort of things are in play that keep alive systems of racial oppression.

Perhaps Lemon can expose how many millions money corporations make off selling oversized pants.. Or perhaps Lemon can talk about the investments media outlets like Viacom have in private prisons.. Instead of co-signing Bill O’Reilly how about exposing how much of their ratings are tied to them demonizing and disparaging Black people? Instead of demanding folks change their way of dressing, how about pushing for people to stop being intolerant?

Maybe Don Lemon can talk about why media outlets like his own CNN spend time sensationalizing the way people dress versus highlighting the millions of hard working people who are doing great work in the communities he wants to lambast.

I’m glad J-Smooth from our sister station WBAI addressed this issue intelligently and humorously with his new Ill Doctrine Commentary.. He Goes In…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmdlMlRdt7Y

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Comments

  1. Don is a idiot and an a co-conspirator with Bill O’Riley to destroy black youth.

    • Fair and Balanced says

      Rasha Entertainment – can you substantiate the claim you made? Are there any facts what-so-ever supporting that nonsense?
      No, there isn’t. Maybe before you jump on the low-information band wagon and make foolish comments in public forums you should actually have something truthful and worthwhile to say. I lost 2 seconds of my precious life reading that garbage.

  2. Don Lemon is a idiot…with his old Uncle Tom sell out ass

  3. smh duck

  4. interesting #18

  5. speak Davey

  6. Sagging pants is not grown man attire tho ijs

  7. The first time I ever saw saggin pants in Hip Hop or tattoos for that matter was on the cover of Jodeci Diary Of A Madband. Amazing the phenomenon it would become still 20 years later (God, has it been that long…).

  8. hiphopnewsmedia says

    cant believe this

  9. I understand but.. Whats the point of wearing your pants down like that anyway.. Whappens when u need to run across the street or something.. ROADKILL INITITATED – 15

  10. Fair and Balanced says

    Since Don Lemon has expressed his personal views that mirror those of his political opposition and…god forbid…a white man, his Progressive Agenda Pals have turned their backs him.
    I find it ironic how politicians, news organizations, and web sites like this one are quick to negatively comment on the un-just “racially” motivated actions of anyone having a political affiliation or opinion that opposes theirs. Comments are fueled with emotionally charged accusations of racism, white supremacy, and/or other forms of hate speech. I thought the abolishment of hate, racial inequality, and profiling in all forms were ideologies that all Americans should value and incorporate into their lives?
    I see it more as “do as I say not as I do” philosophy. The Political Left continuously contradicts themselves with articles like this one. Dictating acceptable social behavior and not holding yourself to your own standards is hypocritical. Demanding the end of stereotypes and profiling based on skin color while writing articles calling Bill O’Riley racist because he is a white Republican, and now ostracizing Don Lemon for sharing an ideal with a fellow news commentator and referring to him as an “uncle tom”. That seems like pretty racist, small minded hate speech to me. Practice what you preach.

  11. How about looking into the PERCENTAGE of police mistakes and realising that people they are doing a great job. The black community is playing the victim card, the other communities are working their asses off. And we wonder why we are losing out. Keep it up Don, when people stop behaving like hooligans they will no loger be treated as hooligans.

  12. I agree about the sagging pants, it’s a jail mentality that’s trend that is WELL past it’s prime but Lemon is a friggin idiot.

  13. Its disgusting and shameful to see a young man with his pants under his butt, shame on their parents, bad habits start at home

  14. Don Lemon is a idiot

  15. Tyrone Biggums says

    J Smooth is not black.

  16. Kaye Square says

    Black folks are bashed on when we go to school and get degrees (being labeled Sell Outs, Toms, House Niggas and Oreos) and we are trashed when we DON’T get educations (as being dumb, lazy, shiftless, thugs, welfare queens, dependents of “the system” and victims of “the man”.) How do we “win”? Correct answer: We CAN’T.

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