CNN’s Don Lemon: America doesn’t see black people as 'fully human'

In an interview published on Sunday in Washington Post Magazine, CNN’s Don Lemon said he doesn’t think America sees its black citizens as "fully human" while discussing his career as a gay black news anchor.

While discussing Lemon’s new book This Is The Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism, Eric Easter asked the CNN anchor more personal questions in which Lemon suggested without evidence that Americans don’t think black people are "deserving of the American dream."

"I feel like I’ve had to do that because I don’t think America has seen enough people like me," Lemon answered. "I don’t think America intimately knows enough people like me. I would love America to see Black people, especially Black gay men as, and I hate this word, normal, and as human beings and as part of the culture. That we have our vulnerabilities and our struggles, but we also have our successes. We love, we hurt, and we go through trials and tribulations just like anyone else. I don’t know if America sees Black people and especially Black gay men as fully human, and as deserving of the American Dream."

Lemon expressed that "We’re living in two different realities as Black and White people," and said Donald Trump’s presidency was the "wake-up call" to racism in America.

"But there’s also this false reality that we’re living in a post-racial world after the election of Barack Obama. That was all bulls---. It was a wake-up call to White people who thought we were living in a nonracist world" Lemon claimed. "We’re living in two different realities as Black and White people. We knew, as Black people, what was lurking beneath the surface. I still believe that [Trump] was the necessary wake-up for America to realize just how racist it is."

Ironically, in a recent episode of Don Lemon Tonight, the host pleaded to fellow members of the media to quit discussing former President Trump before contradicting his own advice in this interview.