During a radio commentary for the Black America Web site on Thursday, CNN Tonight host Don Lemon startled many of his listeners when he declared that the culture of “political correctness” in America has become “dangerous.”
He also claimed that after 25 years in the news business, he believes “liberals are the least tolerant people.”
The Cable News Network anchor began his monologue by asking: “Are you too politically correct for your own good? Do you allow room in your space for those who disagree with you?”
He continued:
Do you ever call your co-workers or someone you don't even know you overhear talking or even the person on the radio or the person on the TV, do you ever call them “stupid” because you disagree with them or because they don’t hold your same opinion about an issue?
If so, then you might be too politically correct for your own good and for society’s good.
“It is so much of a problem now, lately, that even comedians, the most outspoken people on the planet -- like Chris Rock -- they're complaining about it,” he noted.
“And just the other night" on NBC's Late Night With Seth Meyers, “comedian Jerry Seinfeld said: 'There’s a creepy PC thing out there now that really bothers me.'”
A few days earlier, Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic on the ESPN radio channel told Seinfeld they "talked to Chris Rock and Larry the Cable Guy. They don’t even want to do college campuses anymore.”
“I hear that all the time,” Seinfeld responded. “I don’t play colleges, but I hear a lot of people tell me, ‘Don’t go near colleges. They’re so PC.’”
“Here, I’ll give you an example,” the comedian stated: “My daughter’s 14. My wife says to her: ‘Well, you know, in the next couple years, I think maybe you’re going to want to be hanging around the city more on the weekends, so you can see boys.’”
“You know what my daughter says? She says: ‘That’s sexist.’”
“They just want to use these words: ‘That’s racist;' ‘That’s sexist;' ‘That’s prejudice.’ They don’t even know what they’re talking about.”
When comedian and author Colin Quinn was a guest on Lemon's CNN program, the host asked: “Do you think he’s right?”
Quinn responded: “Yeah, he’s right. It’s been like that since the '90s, and they just keep getting more and more rigid where now it’s become more of a thing where people are like: 'I felt personally violated.' And you can’t really tell somebody: 'No, you didn’t feel that way.'”
Referring to politically correct stories in the news, Quinn asserted: “It’s sort of like pandering in a weird way.”
“No, it’s not in a weird way,” the CNN anchor stated. “It is pandering because you don’t learn anything.”
“And you can’t talk about people like that,” the comedian added. “They can’t take it.”
“Here’s my take,” Lemon said as he returned to his commentary. “This is from me, that I've noticed for being in the business for a long time: Political correctness has become dangerous.”
He continued:
We have to stop looking for reasons to be offended. We have to allow people leeway to make mistakes in conversations without calling them racists, bigots, stupid, dumb, sell-outs or whatever your word choice may be.
Not everyone is going to -- nor should they have to -- agree with you. In fact, it’s better when people don’t agree with you. That’s how we learn. That's what conversation is really about.
“After almost 25 years in the news business, you know who is the most easily offended and the least tolerant?” Lemon asked. “Liberals and progressives -- because many of them don’t really want to hear anyone else’s opinions but their own.”
“Here’s a tip,” he noted. “If you only agree with people who hold your same political affiliation or who are of your particular race, gender or ethnicity, you are part of the political correctness run amok problem.”
“When you have ... the most outspoken people on the planet complaining that they don't have leeway for a conversation, you really need to think about it,” the anchor noted. “And I thought about it as a person who's out there all the time talking about stories and issues.”
Lemon added: “I think you can easily call anybody anything. The easiest thing to do, when you don't agree with somebody, is to say: 'Oh, they're stupid. They're this and they're that.' Instead, maybe you are the one who's stupid.”
It's definitely surprising that CNN's homosexual black anchor would come down hard on political correctness. What's next for Don Lemon? Will he “come out” and endorse black Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson?
