Don Lemon, host of CNN Tonight, went on an emotional rant Thursday about how being a black man in the U.S. compels him to be unnecessarily polite to police officers he comes in contact with because he wants to “stay alive.”
“I shouldn’t have to do that. I shouldn’t have to be “yes, sir”-ing anybody. I’m a grown you-know-what man in America,” he said.
Lemon added, “I do it because I want to stay alive; that’s why I do it. My white counterparts, they don’t do that. They speak to police officers in a way that I would never in a million years do, and that is the reality of it. I have to do that because I want to stay alive.”
Lemon’s comments came during live coverage of the recent police-involved shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.
As Breitbart News reported, Baton Rouge police shot and killed Alton Sterling on Tuesday in an incident caught on camera, while on Wednesday, a Minnesota police officer fatally shot Philando Castile. The latter incident was live-streamed in a widely shared Facebook video.
Lemon said that despite his being an easily recognizable TV personality, and despite all of his successes, he has to be exceedingly cordial with cops or he will be “shot” or “killed.”
“As accomplished as I am, and a man of color on television who is recognizable to many people, I have to do that because I don’t want to be shot, and I don’t want to be killed,” Lemon said. “And I am someone who is never in trouble.”
Being polite to police is “what the guy in Minnesota…they said his mother said,” Lemon explained. “She taught him the same thing, and he is dead today.”
Live coverage of the coordinated ambush on police in Dallas, Texas, and the breaking news surrounding it are available at Breitbart News.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson.