This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism

This political movement exposes racial inequality in the US and pursues reforms, particularly in how the criminal justice system over-polices African Americans. The movement grew nationwide in response to the 2014 killing of teenager Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch member and the police-involved shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. While the movement struggled to reach beyond progressive circles at first, the deaths of George Floyd and others in 2020 galvanized citizens, policymakers, and businesses around the world to mount massive protests. Trump attempted to discredit protestors by linking them with looting; by contrast, mobilizing people of color played a key role in Biden’s election victory. Lemon recognizes the importance of its support among multiple races, but he is also aware of how outrage can taper off before reforms are implemented. He also notes that for Black lives to matter, people must celebrate them as flawed individuals in life and not as martyrs.

In This Is the Fire, cancel culture refers to situations in which a company removes a creative work from circulation because it, or the views of its creators, is no longer acceptable by today’s social standards. For example, HBO briefly removed Gone with the Wind from its streaming platform because it glamorizes the antebellum South and features stereotypes of happy Black slaves.