Don Lemon is in the middle of some controversy again because he is continuing his quest to call out the uneducated, black poor folks. Lemon has called out sagging jeans as a major contributor to unemployment among black youth.
I agree that walking around with your butt hanging out does not exactly scream CEO but maybe a challenged economy may have more to do with high unemployment among young African-Americans.
Lemon decided to get help in his quest to point out all the bad issues in the black community by asking historically critical comedian of black culture Bill Cosby to be a guest on his show.
Bill Cosby responded to folks who criticize him for airing black folks dirty laundry in public when he responded:
Now I have much respect for Bill Cosby and the major difference I see between these two dudes is that Cosby has had a long history of supporting black youth, education especially among HBCU's like Spelman and Morehouse.
I have spent 20 years educating, ispiring and mentoring students many of which have been young African-Americans. So I can speak with confidence on some of the challenges the community faces because I have been in the trenches.
My issue with Lemon is I am not sure how he has participated in working with youth as a mentor or using his media status to support other orgaznizations committed to affirming work within the black community.
Also CNN with its small stable of mostly light skinned talent is not exactly an expert on black culture.
I would like to see Lemon teach a journalism class at a small HBCU and come face to face with all the challenges you deal with in helping young black folks successfully negotiate mainstream environments with very little or sometimes no point of reference of collegiate life.
If he keeps this up Lemon is going to just sound like sour grapes.
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