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

This is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism is a 2021 nonfiction book by journalist Don Lemon. Using the historic tumult of 2020 as a backdrop, he examines racism in America and the question of how we can end it during our lifetimes.

Lemon is the host of the primetime news show Don Lemon Tonight (formerly CNN Tonight). In addition, he is an Edward R. Murrow Award recipient and has earned recognition from Ebony and Advocate magazines for his work as a LGBTQ person of color.

This guide obscures the author’s use of the n-word.

Summary

Journalist Don Lemon writes to his nephew on the day of George Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2020 after a police officer pinned him by the neck for more than nine minutes. Viral footage of his arrest generated massive protests in cities around the US, leading to shocking crackdowns that amplified the demand for police reform. While Lemon has seen many situations in which outrage over the deaths of Black men subside into complacency, he promises that he will not be silent about the issue.

The book recounts how these protests coincided with other major events in 2020, the last year of Donald Trump’s presidency. The COVID-19 pandemic had (at that time) claimed more than 200,000 American lives—the largest death toll among developed countries—due to inconsistent federal guidance and Trump’s open defiance of experts. People of color suffered a disproportionate number of deaths. While Trump condemned the protestors and reform efforts, he spread lies about election fraud during the 2020 election campaign and after his defeat to former Vice President Joe Biden. While some consider Trump the worst president at the worst time, Lemon sees him as a “malignant node” reflecting America’s unaddressed White supremacy (22). Citing author James Baldwin as a major inspiration, Lemon seeks to understand how the country can come together in a time of racial division.

Since the first slave ships, Lemon notes, America struggled between its egalitarian ideals and a deliberate class structure that required Black people for free or cheap labor. The police have roots in the slave patrols of the South and the anti-immigrant groups of the North—and therefore, efforts to professionalize and reform the police face resistance from entrenched powers that interpret law and order as maintaining the status quo. Lemon covers several cases in which police killed Black civilians with little provocation or consequences, including the shooting death of paramedic Breonna Taylor during a no-knock raid and a grand jury’s decision to charge the officers with only property damage.

Lemon points out how society indirectly enforces White supremacy. Confederate statues and the Lost Cause narrative ignore the realities of the antebellum South, such as the vicious suppression of the German Coast Uprising, while reinforcing subservient roles for Black people. Classic movies like Gone with the Wind propagate these narratives while forcing great performers into minstrel roles. Attacks on rising neighborhoods like Tulsa’s Black Wall Street prevent Black families from acquiring wealth and social structures. Lemon describes an encounter in which a store employee scolded him—but not a White person—about COVID protocols and how his White friends’ efforts to dismiss his sensitivity about that encounter felt like “gaslighting” (128). He reflects on the frequency of such interactions and how they keep him on edge.

In addition, Lemon details how he explored the culture of racism with his family. He took his mother with him to Ghana, where his ancestors were enslaved, and to a plantation where he learned about a White overseer in his family tree who provided for his grandmother. The sudden death of his older sister compelled him to evaluate Black America’s close relationship with death and led to a tense exchange with the brother of a Black man who died in a police-related shooting. Nevertheless, the acceptance of Lemon’s close relationship with his partner, Tim, by both of their families gives him hope for the future.

Lemon is skeptical of some progressive reform efforts: He sees defunding the police as an overly simple and easily distorted solution, and he argues that now-problematic media should receive proper historical context rather than complete removal. He prefers incremental changes, such as community accountability boards that reduced police complaints in Newark, New Jersey. However, Lemon advocates for a realistic plan for reparations and asks America to reevaluate a mythology that condones White supremacy. Ultimately, people of all races must leave their entrenched positions and create a dialog that can lead to an ideal America that benefits everyone. Otherwise, he warns, the events of 2020 will just lead to an even bigger crisis.