On Monday's CNN Tonight, Don Lemon spotlighted the online "rant" of a grandmother who attacked the "Black Lives Matter" movement. In her video, Peggy Hubbard criticized the lack of outrage in her community over Jamyla Bolden, a nine year old child who was killed near Ferguson, Missouri: "Her life mattered; her dreams mattered; her vision mattered. She could have been the next secretary of state. She could have been the next attorney general. She never got a chance." Lemon interviewed Hubbard, who later later blasted the left-wing concept of "white privilege." [video below]
Minutes later, liberal CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill went after the grandmother for her anti-"Black Lives Matter" rant: "We don't have to attack one movement to support another. We don't have to destroy the fine work that activists have been doing for the last year." Hill asserted that "some of us get so caught up in our pain and the, sort of, narratives that get put out by mainstream media, that we start rejecting our own, instead of accepting our own and being ourselves. That's the problem for me with this woman." He later ripped Bolden's contention about white supremacy as not being "grounded in reality."
Lemon noted how "Black Lives Matter" decried the recent shooting of "Mansur Ball-Bey, a young black man who was killed by two white St. Louis police officers," and wondered, "Where is the outrage over another death – the death of...nine-year-old Jamyla Bolden – killed by a stray bullet in her home as she did her homework. At least one woman is very angry." He continued with two extended clips from Hubbard's online video.
The CNN anchor then turned to the grandmother, who first decried the lack of media coverage of Bolden's death, as well as the rioting in her home neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri over the police shooting of a suspect who shot at the law enforcement officers:
PEGGY HUBBARD, MADE VIDEO RANT ABOUT BLACK LIVES MATTER: Jamyla died the day before. I didn't hear anything on it on the news – and I'm an avid news watcher. Nothing was about – nothing was reported. It was just a blip. This guy dies – this bad guy dies – and all of a sudden, there's a full-blown riot in the neighborhood I grew up in. And there's nothing for her. And we're hollering, 'black lives matter.' He had his chance to matter. He chose his path. He chose his destiny. Jamyla never got her destiny. She never got her promises. Her life mattered; her dreams mattered; her vision mattered. She could have been the next secretary of state. She could have been the next attorney general. She never got a chance.
Lemon also pointed out how "critics [are] calling you everything but a child of God. They are calling you a white man's bed – and this a harsh language; I warn everyone – 'white men's bed wench' – even a house nigger." He asked, "What do you say to them?" Hubbard bluntly replied, "Bite me. I'm not afraid to speak my mind. If they want to say that, knock yourself out – freedom of speech. But the truth hurts, and they know – deep down inside, they know I am telling the truth."
The guest also revealed her own personal experience of having to turn in a stepson of hers who ended up on the wrong side of the law: "It's my responsibility to make sure my child, that I helped raise – if he's done wrong, I'm going to hold him to that accountability. And that's what we don't have today: we're not holding our children accountable for their actions."
Near the end of the segment, the anchor raised the issue of "white privilege." Lemon noted her service in the military and asked, "I want you to talk to me about privilege – because do you think that whites have a privilege, an advantage over blacks?" Hubbard again gave a blunt answer:
HUBBARD: Are you kidding? No, there is no such thing as white privilege. Let me – Don, let me tell you a story. I have a friend who is, right now – can't pay the house now; car got repo-ed; lights got shut off, water got shut off – okay? Can't buy food for their children – and they're white. So, if there's white privilege, and they're telling me I 'm no longer black; that I 'm white now; sign me up for low-interest loan and get me a credit card, because I'm ready to shop.
Lemon turned to Hill in the following segment, who targeted the grandmother for "rejecting our own, instead of accepting our own:"
DON LEMON: You heard Peggy Hubbard's rant about 'Black Lives Matter' – it was on the Internet. And then, you heard her interview. Joining me to talk about that is CNN political commentator Marc Lamont Hill. Go, Marc – what do you think?
MARC LAMONT HILL: Man, I love black people, Don. Let me start there. So when they stay stuff like that, I bring from a place of love. Even when they say something I think is bonkers, I still say, I love them; we are hurt; white supremacy is traumatic, and some of us are dealing with that trauma right now. So, I'm going to use that to inform her position – or inform my analysis of her position.
You know, just to attack the 'Black Lives Matter' movement because black people are dying at the hands of so-called black-on-black violence – to me, is to miss the point. No one denies that black people kill black people. That happens, just like white people kill white people. It's something we want to address; it's something we want – it's something we want to repair; it's something that's unacceptable. And that's why people, like me and others, are out there on the ground trying to fix that.
But we don't have to attack one movement to support another. We don't have to destroy the fine work that activists have been doing for the last year. It's the longest active resistance against police violence or state violence in American history. We don't have to disrespect that to acknowledge the fact that that little girl didn't need to die. But what happens, is some of us get so caught up in our pain and the, sort of, narratives that get put out by mainstream media, that we start rejecting our own, instead of accepting our own and being ourselves. That's the problem for me with this – this woman
(...)
HILL: And then, she said – then you asked about white – white privilege. She said there's no such thing as white privilege. At that moment, I lost all sort of understanding of her position, in terms of it being one grounded in reality-
LEMON: Okay. So listen – but can you understand – maybe, she did not articulate – which a lot of people, I think, are – maybe, not articulating it well enough – and people get upset by it, because you don't see as much outrage – you don't see a group that coalesced; that came together, like 'Black Lives Matter,' to protest the killings. And you and I have been on CNN; you've been on Fox and other networks talking about it for years – and only at 30 seconds left – sorry. Don't you understand that some people don't see – well, why hasn't this happened before when it's come to that?
HILL: Yeah. I mean, you make a compelling argument. It's just not true. You know, black people have been outraged about us killing each other forever. The difference is we don't organize and march against gangs. We don't organize and march against black people killing each other in the same way. We do violence interruption-
LEMON: That's what I'm just saying! That's what I just said-
HILL: No. No. No. No, no, no. We protest it. We just as – we don't do it in the same way. We do violence interruption; we do conflict resolution; we do gun buy-back programs; we try fix structural problems. I don't march against them the same way I march against the police, because I have an expectation: the police will behave differently than the Crips-
LEMON: All right. Mark, I got to go. I got to go. And, as you know, I'll have you back. I'm sorry. We were running long.
