Don Lemon Interview…
The New York Times’ Bill Carter interviews CNN’s Don Lemon regarding his new book and his publicly coming out…
“I’m scared,” he said in a telephone interview. “I’m talking about something that people might shun me for, ostracize me for.”
Even beyond whatever effect his revelation might have on his television career, Mr. Lemon said he recognized this step carried special risk for him as a black man.
“It’s quite different for an African-American male,” he said. “It’s about the worst thing you can be in black culture. You’re taught you have to be a man; you have to be masculine. In the black community they think you can pray the gay away.” He said he believed the negative reaction to male homosexuality had to do with the history of discrimination that still affects many black Americans, as well as the attitudes of some black women.
“You’re afraid that black women will say the same things they do about how black men should be dating black women.” He added, “I guess this makes me a double minority now.”
Inside Cable News 
May 15, 2011 at 9:47 pm
You get the feeling that there’s maybe four comments out there, but they’re all being moderated?
May 15, 2011 at 10:46 pm
The part that I found interesting is that he is 45. I thought he was around 35.
May 16, 2011 at 4:19 am
I wonder if Don is one of the ones that Rachel Maddow was threatening to out?
I guess good for Don; although it won’t make me watch or not watch him….it just doesn’t matter to me what his sexual orientation is.
May 16, 2011 at 5:32 am
“it just doesn’t matter to me what his sexual orientation is.”
^And that is why h*mo*phobia is declining and g*y marriage will be legal in the next ten years.
When Tina doesn’t care who really does?
May 16, 2011 at 6:08 am
Great! I’ve been dying to know whether that guy that I see on CNN likes shacking up with dudes or chicks. The $64K question has been solved. Wait, wrong CNNer.
Like Tina said, nobody cares. I won’t watch him any more or less than I ever did.
I care more about knowing a news person’s ideology and I knew his before this announcement.
May 16, 2011 at 7:19 am
I always thought he was gay. No one has eyebrows arched so beautifully as he has and not be gay. It didn’t matter to me because I simply don’t like to watch his newsreading no matter what he is. It’s no big deal to me one way or another. I just wish my brows were as nicely arched.
May 16, 2011 at 7:33 am
Seems like male gays as TV news anchors are represented at a higher level than in the general population.
May 16, 2011 at 8:35 am
While the majority of us nowadays profess outwardly and even to ourselves that we don’t care one way or the other, most of us still harbour at least a slight unease about it. It is this “unease” that skilled comedians are so easily able to exploit (i.e.: Seinfeld’s “not that there’s anything wrong with that.”) for a laugh. It remains to be seen whether this “uncomfortable” emotion is a learned behaviour that will continue to dissipate into nothing over subsequent generations or if it is a natural aversion that will forever exist.
So it’s a big deal when a public figure such as Mr. Lemon bares his life in such a most personal way, and he should be commended for doing so. True, a part of me would prefer that he simply live his life and shut up about it, but I get to live my life without ever having to think twice about showing up somewhere in public arm-in-arm with my girlfriend.
Locked in a lie, maybe a career choice in front of a camera is their subconscious mind’s attempt to put an end to the anxiety that is their sense of shame. Or maybe we don’t so much notice the 96% of male anchors who aren’t… which kinda proves Mr. Lemon’s point. Eh?
May 16, 2011 at 8:49 am
someone above said “I care more about knowing a news person’s ideology and I knew his before this announcement.”
get off the fox boat man. geez, is that all you think of when you see someone..putting a liberal or conservative label on people? yall kill me. just because you don’t agree with someone yall label them a certain way. watch the news..not fox news..with an open mind…a mind that wants to be informed NOT entertained and NOT told to think a certain way. there’s a difference. and when you can watch from the being informed position, labeling won’t be important!
May 16, 2011 at 9:49 am
..just because you don’t agree with someone yall label them a certain way. watch the news..not fox news..with an open mind…a mind that wants to be informed NOT entertained and NOT told to think a certain way
Yes, be open minded and be willing to listen to someone with a different view and don’t lable everyone……
….but don’t watch Fox News.
Neat trick: the commenter’s own post goes right over his head.
May 16, 2011 at 9:58 am
I just love the juxtaposition of a reasoned, intelligent presentation on a somewhat sensitive subject…and harry.
May 16, 2011 at 10:01 am
^Well, he does make the rest of us sound that much more smart and insightful.
Defining posting down, so to speak.
May 16, 2011 at 10:01 am
And Trump is out! I’m crushed like a grape.
May 16, 2011 at 10:04 am
Besides, isn’t ‘liberal’ pretty much assumed, at this point? 😉
May 16, 2011 at 11:22 am
Besides, isn’t ‘liberal’ pretty much assumed, at this point?
Oh hush.
May 16, 2011 at 11:49 am
The subject of revealing one’s sexuality seems a bit more of interest in the ‘entertainment’-realm. If one’s appeal is, in good part, sexual, then the decision must seem impossible.
I saw a Montgomery Clift-movie around ’90, and was sufficiently taken that I headed to the library and/or movie-rental-establishment. The fact that he’d been dead 25 years wasn’t particularly diverting, but the fact that he was g@y sorta killed it. I don’t care what political/social-argument you make…you can’t argue with that. You can’t argue with how one person sees or perceives another. So, if your livelihood is, in any way, based on that perception, then you’ve got some tough thinking to do.
If unspoken, it’s a lot easier for a gay person to assume that the ‘straight’ actor is hiding something, then for a straight person to ignore a stated preference. Not that it has much to do with Don Lemon, but there ya go.
I hate moderation.
May 16, 2011 at 11:50 am
The subject of revealing one’s sexuality seems a bit more of interest in the ‘entertainment’-realm. If one’s appeal is, in good part, sexual, then the decision must seem impossible.
I saw a Montgomery Clift-movie around ’90, and was sufficiently taken that I headed to the library and/or movie-rental-establishment. The fact that he’d been dead 25 years wasn’t particularly diverting, but the fact that he was g@y sorta killed it. I don’t care what political/social-argument you make…you can’t argue with that. You can’t argue with how one person sees or perceives another. So, if your livelihood is, in any way, based on that perception, then you’ve got some tough thinking to do.
If unspoken, it’s a lot easier for a g@y person to assume that the ‘straight’ actor is hiding something, then for a straight person to ignore a stated preference. Not that it has much to do with Don Lemon, but there ya go.
I hate moderation.
May 16, 2011 at 12:27 pm
I’m tired of it. I don’t think anyone owes me an explanation of their sexual preferences unless they’re in my room. That’s right, I said it.
May 16, 2011 at 12:31 pm
They would need to be fairly odd, at that point.
May 16, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Lemmon is worried about jumping out of the closet because he’s black AND gay and he says the black community is the harshest when it comes to acceptance of gays.
But, the reason the black community is less accepting is because they go to church and because white people don’t like black people. Idiot.
May 16, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Lemmon is worried about jumping out of the closet because he’s black AND g@y and he says the black community is the harshest when it comes to acceptance of g@ys.
But, he says the reason the black community is less accepting is because they go to church and because white people don’t like black people. Idiot.
May 16, 2011 at 9:55 pm
harry1420 Says: “watch the news..not fox news..with an open mind…a mind that wants to be informed NOT entertained and NOT told to think a certain way.”
So, which news would that be?
May 17, 2011 at 6:22 am
I have a prejudice against black women, being on their cell phones CONSTANTLY! There – I said it!
And this woman just puts a face on things: http://www.katu.com/news/local/121962009.html