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

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 1

Chapters 2-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-7

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Chapters 2-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 2 Summary: “We Didn’t Get Here by Accident”

To begin this chapter, Lemon describes his early years growing up in Port Allen, Louisiana, a suburb near Baton Rouge. The Muskogean originally developed the area, and the name Baton Rouge refers to a 30-foot red stick that a French expedition came across. The US bought the land from the French without the consent of the Indigenous peoples, and plantations brought in enslaved Africans. In 1811, biracial overseer Charles Deslondes led the German Coast Uprising, the largest slave revolt in American history. White militias crushed the rebellion and brutally murdered Deslondes. Early accounts praised the lopsided victory as an example of White supremacy, and the idealization of the antebellum South cannot hide the vicious deeds necessary to maintain it.

Lemon describes his parents as a “Black Perry Mason” and a “Black Della Street” (40). Lemon’s father, Wilmon, passed away when Lemon was nine after an infection triggered a blood clot that eventually reached his heart. His mother, Katherine, eventually remarried. Other events that affected Lemon during childhood were sexual abuse by a neighbor and a “Black box” in which White teachers and parents derided his achievements and downplayed his potential (44). However, Katherine wholeheartedly accepted his coming out as gay.

As part of a CNN special, Lemon and his mother traveled to Ghana to trace the origins of an enslaved ancestor. Lemon questioned what his life would be like had his family not suffered that fate and he grew up free from US racial microaggressions. At Cape Coast Castle, a slave-trading center, the two compared the luxurious accommodations and church of the slave traders and the rancid catacombs that held the enslaved. They lit a candle for their forefather, and Lemon told his weeping mother, “We’re survivors” (46). Katherine spoke of her conflict between the family’s unjust removal and now-fortunate circumstances.

Later, Lemon and his mother visited Cinclare Plantation, the sugarcane mill where Lemon’s great-grandmother, Catherine Jackson, was a slave. She had Lemon’s grandmother in secret with the plant’s White overseer, Harry Rivault. He seemed to genuinely care for Catherine and bought the child, Mame, a house before he committed suicide. Lemon stresses that the darkness of slavery and racism is not accidental but carefully planned and that society needs equally thought-out solutions to reconcile with its past.

Chapter 3 Summary: “My Lord, What a Mourning When the Stars Begin to Fall”

This chapter opens in January 2018, when Lemon learned that his sister, Leisa, died in an accidental drowning. Leisa was a powerful force in his life: She helped raise him as a child, and Lemon took care of her son while attending university. He consoled Katherine, who felt responsible for Leisa’s death because she suggested that Leisa go fishing. His team members, CNN president Jeff Zucker, and even conservative pundits consoled Lemon on his loss. Viewers on social media offered sympathy, but far-right zealots called him a Satan worshiper.

Lemon struggled with the randomness of Leisa’s death and a news cycle that offers only injustice and banality. In March 2018, Black Lives Matter activists marched against another killing of an unarmed Black man, 22-year-old Stephon Clark, when Sacramento police shot him 20 times after mistaking his cellphone for a gun. Stephon’s brother, Stevante, drew ire by provoking the city’s mayor and upstaging his sister’s and the Reverend Al Sharpton’s speeches, though Sharpton condemned those who criticized a grieving person’s behavior. After the mayor agreed to building a new library and recreation center, Lemon hosted Stevante on his show, but the interview went “off the rails” as Stevante argued with someone off-screen, complained about CNN’s accommodations, and cajoled Lemon for not saying his brother’s name (66). Recognizing that Stevante was still processing his grief, Lemon tried to redirect the interview and spontaneously mentioned his sister’s death. Eventually Lemon ended the interview early. Stevante was arrested a few weeks later after filming himself threatening a neighbor with a knife.

Lemon states that Black Americans have an “intimate” understanding of death that comes out in powerful funerals and hymns (69). A popular White Protestant choir song about the Rapture comes from a slave spiritual that warns of reckoning. In 2020, Black people comprised 32% of people who die in police encounters and 42% of prisoners on death row despite only representing 13.4% of the US population. They faced higher death rates to cancers, and Trump downplayed the death rate of the COVID-19 pandemic even as NPR reported that African Americans deaths nationwide were two times greater than expected.

Meanwhile, America became obsessed with displaying Black bodies. In addition to pikes like those used in the German Coast Uprising, White people dragged Black corpses through the streets and sold postcards of lynchings. Even Black Lives Matter activists contributed to this obsession by turning victims into martyrs and resharing numbing footage of death. Lemon feels that these images desensitize people and that for Black lives to truly matter, society must recognize their value in life and become willing to accept their flaws.

Chapters 2-3 Analysis

Chapters 2 and 3 examine the struggles of the Black experience through the lens of Lemon’s own family. Lemon’s heritage includes a White plantation owner who cared enough for Catherine Jackson to support her family after emancipation. This was a complicated situation because a relationship between a slave owner and an enslaved person is inherently unequal, and Lemon compares the brutal White treatment of Indigenous peoples and the German Coast Uprising to the barbaric violence in the fantasy series Game of Thrones. However, he sees the potential for reconciliation.

As Lemon and his mother traveled through Ghana, the anchor wondered what would have happened had Whites not forced his family from their homeland into slavery. Ghana is a poor country but also a beautiful land with people who are “free and fearless” and who live without the systemic racism that engulfs Black life in America (43). As an example of the prevalence of racism in culture, he notes how the iconic ice-cream truck music originated from a minstrel song. Katherine counters his perspective both in practical terms—America has air conditioning—and their family’s achievements despite the worst conditions possible. Lemon notes that Barack Obama also took his family to Cape Coast Castle to remind them of history’s cruelties and the importance of fighting injustice.

Chapter 3’s title derives from a spiritual in the 1867 collection Slave Songs of the United States. Many gospel singers change “mourning” to “morning,” but the song’s original intent is to prophesize a reckoning on the mortal plane. Leisa’s death left Lemon in grief and numb to an assembly line of news stories in which things never get better. He notes the ongoing deaths of Black men in police incidents as well as their greater risk of death to disease even before COVID-19. Even though Leisa’s death did not fall into this category, it still felt random and was a reminder of how familiar Black families are with death. Lemon’s journalistic instincts compelled him to find a factual explanation for her death, and his position as a high-profile anchor left him vulnerable to internet trolls who celebrated his misfortune.

Lemon’s contentious interview with Stevante Clark demonstrates the struggles of dealing with loss, especially for the families of victims. Stevante’s behavior was the opposite of the discipline that reform activists try to portray on TV, and he was suspicious of Lemon and the media in general. Lemon sympathized with him as someone in grief who was cast into a hostile spotlight. As an interviewer, however, he knew that the media would create a narrative whether Stevante participated or not—and that others would use his antics to discredit his cause. In a 2020 interview, Stevante stated that he was still in grief during that period but would rather be authentic than perfect. He continued to deal with legal issues but also received credit for discouraging activists from late-night confrontations with the Sacramento police during the Floyd protests (Chabria, Anita. “Before George Floyd, there was Stephon Clark. Here’s what his brother has learned about pain, protests.” Los Angeles Times, 4 June 2020, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-04/stephon-clark-death-brother-stevante-leads-george-floyd. Accessed 23 July 2021). However, Stevante resigned as CEO from his foundation in October 2020 due to stress (Sullivan, Molly. “‘I’m just tired.’ Stevante Clark resigns from I Am Sac Foundation.” The Sacramento Bee, Updated 2 October 2020, https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article246162125.html. Accessed 23 July 2021).

The Stephon Clark and George Floyd coverage demonstrates how the public uses Black death as a political tool. Conservative news focuses on the “what abouts” of a police-involved shooting (63), such as whether a Black person had a prior record or domestic violence issues that allow their viewers to shift the blame away from the police. These pundits made similar accusations about George Floyd’s health and prior record and about Breonna Taylor’s association with a criminal ex-boyfriend, as if shaming the victims could absolve the officers of fault. This sort of speculation also happened after Leisa’s death, when some social media users insinuated that she was intoxicated. At the same time, progressives’ denial of any wrongdoing is a form of objectification. Lemon notes that the focus on Stevante’s behavior obscured his sister’s genuine speech about Stephon—and adds that Black lives won’t matter until society accepts Blacks as complicated people.