CNN host Don Lemon suggested to a Royal commentator that the British should pay reparations for slavery. She quickly squeezed him into silence when she hit him with inconvenient historical facts.
Royal commentator shreds Lemon when he says British should pay slavery reparations
A Royal commentator totally demolished CNN’s Don Lemon’s insistence on British slavery reparations after she delivered a main course of history. The host ended the talk after inconvenient facts peeled away his argument.
On the day of the funeral for England’s Queen Elizabeth II, CNN anchor Don Lemon apparently thought it was a good time to hammer the British royals over the issue of slavery, the Daily Mail reported. He immediately regretted it.
Lemon got more than he bargained for when he took on Royal commentator Hilary Fordwich on Monday. He started off by pushing the Royal commentator on whether the Royal family needed to pay reparations for slavery.
“You have those who are asking for reparations for colonialism, and they’re wondering,” Lemon said, “you know, $100 billion, $24 billion here and there, $500 million there.”
“Some people want to be paid back and, and members of the public are wondering…” Lemon continued, “‘Why are we suffering when you are, you know, you have all of this vast wealth?’ Those are legitimate concerns.”
But Lemon was totally unprepared for the answer he was about to receive.
An inconvenient truth: African kings sold their own people into slavery.
“Well, I think you’re right about reparations in terms of if people want it,” Fordwich replied, “though, what they need to do is you always need to go back to the beginning of a supply chain.”
Lemon never saw the knockout punch coming.
“Where was the beginning of the supply chain?” Fordwich asked rhetorically. “That was in Africa.”
“Because the African kings were rounding up their own people,” she continued. “They had them in cages waiting on the beaches. No one was running into Africa to get them.”
“And I think you’re totally right,” Fordwich added. “If reparations needs to be paid, we need to go right back to the beginning of that supply chain and say, ‘Who was rounding up their own people and having them handcuffed in cages?’ Absolutely. That’s where they should start.”
Another inconvenient truth: The British were the first to abolish slavery in the world
“Which was the first nation in the world that abolished slavery?” Fordwich again asked Lemon rhetorically. “The first nation in the world to abolish it — it was started by William Wilberforce — was the British. In Great Britain, they abolished slavery.”
“Two thousand naval men died on the high seas trying to stop slavery,” Fordwich said.
Fordwich then suggested that perhaps the people who gave their lives to stop slavery were due reparations also.
“And maybe, I don’t know,” Fordwich continued, “the descendants of those families where they died at the, in the high seas trying to stop the slavery, that those families should receive something too, I think, at the same time.”
CNNs Lemon squeezed into silence, abruptly ends conversation
Once Lemon realized his narrative didn’t line up with the facts, he had nothing to counter the argument with. He was stunned into silence and immediately scrambled to end the interview.
“It’s an interesting discussion,” Lemon quickly declared. “Thank you so much. I appreciate it. We’ll continue to discuss in the future.”
But Lemon is unlikely to get any further in a future debate as the facts of the matter completely contradict the argument he attempted to establish.
