This Is the Fire
What I Say to My Friends About Racism
-
-
3.8 • 82 Ratings
-
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
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 question: 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 nephew: We must resist racism every single day. We must resist it with love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
CNN host Lemon (Transparent) ruminates in this lyrical yet diffuse account on the legacy of white supremacy in America. Emulating James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me, Lemon opens with a letter to his 13-year-old nephew, recounting how his own grandmother, who had a fifth-grade education, had to submit to a literacy test in order to vote in Louisiana. From there, Lemon reflects on the founding of an African American enclave in Sag Harbor in 1947, describes how the election of Donald Trump ("a blatant White supremacist") made the problem of racism "impossible to ignore," and recounts his family's grief in the wake of his sister's accidental death in 2018. He also traces the roots of modern policing to pre–Civil War slave patrols and shares insights from historians and political analysts about the Lost Cause mythology and Jim Crow–era racial segregation. Lemon folds in noteworthy interviews from his TV show and startling statistics about Black mortality and incarceration rates into his personal reflections, but he meanders across well-trod ground, losing some of the thrust of his arguments. Readers will savor the well-honed language, but wish for stronger substance.
Customer Reviews
This is the fire
Quick read, interesting stories with thought provoking and honest content. Stay away from trampolines
5 stars
Very insightful and thought provoking! I can’t recommend enough.
Thinly veiled reverse racism and distain for historical truths. Sorry
Do not waste your time or money much better work to read out there.