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CNN Anchor Comes Out

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I always wondered why Anderson Cooper got more attention than Don Lemon.  The former always looks like he’s trying really, really, REALLY hard to be a serious news anchor, adopting his best Walter Cronkite/Edward R. Murrow pose while the latter just seems like a nice guy delivering the news.  He actually has the audacity to smile every now and again.

I had meant to blog earlier about the latter coming out, but spaced it.  It seems he also has an interesting story to tell:

In the two-plus weeks since Don Lemon announced he is gay in tandem with the release of his new memoir, ‘Transparent,’ the CNN anchor has received both kudos and criticism.

The praise is geared toward the courage it took to openly embrace his homosexuality as a public figure. The criticism lies mainly with the language Lemon used in his announcement. Lemon told the ‘New York Times’, where the news of his announcement first broke: “It’s quite different for an African-American male…It’s about the worst thing you can be in black culture. You’re taught you have to be a man; you have to be masculine. In the black community they think you can pray the gay away.” Lemon also mentioned black women specifically, expressing his concern “that black women will say the same things [about me being gay] as they do about how black men should be dating black women.

This is actually a book I might read.  Lemon seems the most telegenic of the CNN anchors and reporters; most seem out of place delivering and commenting on the news.

I hope for Lemon’s continued success — and not just because he comes across as such a nice guy, but also because it would signal that Americans recognize that one’s sexuality doesn’t compromise one’s objectivity in the newsroom.

Perhaps he’ll become for TV journalism what Ellen has become for day-time talk shows.  And we’ll see that one’s sexuality is increasingly incidental to one’s success.

Comments

  1. Okay. I’ll put the book on my list too. He knows that hell hath no fury like a black woman scorned – even if she isn’t Christian. Good for him but I bet he’s either a commie or a bleeding heart.

  2. From the interview: I am a black person! Let’s not forget that, and I know what it’s like to be a black person, I know what our issues are. I’m not throwing anyone under the bus. I know white people have issues with homosexuality as well, but when you’re looking at people who are out in the community and making a difference when it comes to gay issues, it’s usually white people and white men – wealthy white men – who are on the forefront of that.

  3. Now if he admits that he’s a conservative we could have the rare trifecta of a black gay republican. 🙂

    But in all seriousness, I had no idea who this guy is because the only time I see CNN is at the airport. But hey, glad he came out. Nothing changes with regards to his reporting skills.

  6. During an on-air interview with members of Bishop Eddie Long’s congregation on September 25, 2010, Lemon said that he was a victim of sex abuse as a child, and that it wasn’t until he was thirty that he told his mother about it.
    In his upcoming memoir, Transparent, due out in May 2011, Lemon acknowledges publicly that he is gay and discusses colorism in the black community, racism, homophobia, and the sexual abuse that he suffered as a child

  7. “The praise is geared toward the courage it took to openly embrace his homosexuality as a public figure. ” This comment is a crock of s**t. It is much easier coming out in the public sphere – you get praise and adulation and suddenly you are ‘special’. This is one of the reasons American think that the percentage of gays in American society is 25%.

    I’m not knocking Don Lemon, I understand he’s a very upstanding guy – it’s the media attitude that is too much for me.

  11. I used to work at a hedge fund founded by a guy who worked at Buddy Fletcher’s hedge fund for a few years. Buddy happens to be black. Buddy was well known both in the hedge fund community, and the NYC philanthopist community. Everybody who knew him knew he was openly gay and lived with his partner.

    I left the business and moved away from NYC in 2006, so I haven’t heard anything about Buddy in years. But Doom’s comment prompted me to see if I could find out if he’s still active in the hedge fund world, how well he managed through the Great Recession, or if he had retired and was now devoting his time exclusively to philanthrophy.

    So I Googled him. I started reading his wiki entry, and I was surprised to learn he married a woman in 2007 and he now has a child. The first super rich, highly successful gay black guy I “knew” turns out to be hetro.