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This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism
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About This Book
In this "vital book for these times" ( Kirkus Reviews ), Don Lemon brings his vast audience and experience as a reporter and a Black man to today's most urgent How can we end racism in America in our lifetimes? The host of CNN Tonight with Don Lemon is more popular than ever. As America's only Black prime-time anchor, Lemon and his daily monologues on racism and antiracism, on the failures of the Trump administration and of so many of our leaders, and on America's systemic flaws speak for his millions of fans. Now, in an urgent, deeply personal, riveting plea, he shows us all how deep our problems lie, and what we can do to begin to fix them. Beginning with a letter to one of his Black nephews, he proceeds with reporting and reflections on his slave ancestors, his upbringing in the shadows of segregation, and his adult confrontations with politicians, activists, and scholars. In doing so, Lemon offers a searing and poetic ultimatum to America. He visits the slave port where a direct ancestor was shackled and shipped to America. He recalls a slave uprising in Louisiana, just a few miles from his birthplace. And he takes us to the heart of the 2020 protests in New York City. As he writes to his young We must resist racism every single day. We must resist it with love.
Reviews
"Readers will savor the well-honed language, but wish for stronger substance."
"Lemon's call-to-action is a soaring examination of the causes of racist violence and injustice past and present, and he expresses his commitment to asking tough questions and seeking demanding answers that he hopes will kindle the fire this time to constructively confront racism in all its forms."
"Journalist Lemon...candidly reflects on history and the major events of 2020, beginning with a heartfelt letter to his nephew in the wake of George Floyd's murder, describing progress and pitfalls in racial equity since Jim Crow ..."
"He puts 2020 in context and gives it the language to sing a quietly outraged song."
"And that's what makes this slight work so counterintuitive"
"But it leaves me wanting more."
"It's both direct in tone and obvious in content—the type of unsparing historical statement from an 'openly Black' news anchor likely to prompt some white viewers to clutch their pearls even as Black viewers look at one another and unemotionally remark, 'Yeah, we already knew that.'"
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