I’ve always been on the fence when it comes to the plethora of petitions that seem to surface daily on the Internet. And it’s not hard to see that some are just fluff attention grabbers, while others, although well-meaning, may have failed in their execution.
Then there are those that actually garner enough attention to effect change. Over the last couple of years, petitions have led to the cancellation of television shows, but have they ever succeeded in getting someone removed from his job?
On Tuesday, after the latest Don Lemon fiasco, in which he went toe to toe with former federal prosecutor Sunny Hostin over issues stemming from the South Carolina high school student assaulted by a police officer, a new petition was created on Change.org. The petition is calling for Lemon’s removal from CNN and states the following:
Since the tragic incident of Trayvon Martin, Mr. Don Lemon has consistently antagonized and defamed the characteristics of the African-American race on the national scale in mass communications. From the holding of the ‘N’ word sign before the national audience, to his most recent comments of the unfortunate incident where a student was removed from their chair like a rag-doll by an officer, Mr. Lemon has avoided the obvious to blatantly state that an attack on the African-American race is real and that real solutions need to take place.
We, the people want a journalist and an anchor that will not be afraid to accept the facts that are occurring within the African-American community and who will encourage our people the same way that person will encourage others across the board. We, the people, have no confidence in Mr. Lemon's ability to do that, therefore we are asking CNN to remove him from his position.
So far the petition has received over 15,000 signatures and is inching closer to its goal of 25,000. I’m sure the petition won’t find it hard to reach its signature goal, but I’m quite sure CNN doesn’t plan to get rid of Lemon.
CNN and Lemon are in cahoots together. CNN signs Lemon’s paychecks because he causes controversy. He says idiotic things, all under the guise of journalism. Lemon was never supposed to be the voice of the black community on CNN, or even the LGBTQ community. Lemon is the voice of whoever is controlling the teleprompter he’s reading from. And that’s CNN.
So maybe the petition shouldn’t be aimed at Lemon. Maybe there should be a petition aimed at CNN, urging the network to do better with its choices of anchors. Gone are the days of Soledad O’Brien and Roland Martin. Lemon will more than likely remain a thorn in the side of CNN’s viewers for some time to come.
Or better yet, maybe a petition should be created and aimed at the black stations, telling them to step up and start their own news shows. BET once dabbled in the late-night political talk show arena, but barely moved a finger to promote its own show. NewsOne Now, hosted by Roland Martin, is on so early nowadays, does anyone even watch it?
All of these black networks seem to be able to find the next “big” reality-television show or scripted drama, but fail to realize that there’s news being made every day and they should actually cover it.
Check back next week to catch up on the latest idiotic thing Lemon comes up with to say. Because it seems as though he has a weekly quota nowadays.