Does Don Lemon’s punishment fit the crime?
WASHINGTON » Don Lemon is young enough to know better. Except he didn’t, and that raises the more interesting question about Lemon’s tiresome sexism: What should happen next?
The CNN morning show cohost is 56, which makes his strange insistence about when a woman is “considered to be in her prime” all the more unacceptable. Lemon didn’t grow up in an era when women on morning television were relegated to fluff and cooking segments — or were considered oddities if they ran for president. But there he was, seated between two women, and seemingly compelled to assert — and keep asserting — that former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley was on shaky ground when, in announcing her presidential bid, she snarked about certain unnamed politicians being past their prime.
At 51, Haley “isn’t in her prime,” Lemon insisted. According to Lemon, everyone with access to a search engine knows, “A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s, and maybe 40s.”
When co-host Poppy Harlow, 40, interjected, disbelieving, “Wait, prime for what?” Lemon persisted: “Look it up.”
The look on the faces of Harlow and co-host Kaitlan Collins, 30, was priceless. You could see them thinking, “Really, must we sit here and listen to this guy?”
Off air, Lemon followed up by non-apologizing, tweeting that his reference was “inartful and irrelevant.” Inartful? That’s all he could manage to choke out?
Lemon stayed off the air Thursday and Friday, and
CNN chairman Chris Licht announced Monday night that Lemon “has agreed to participate in formal training.” He is expected to be back on “CNN This Morning” on Wednesday.
I’m struggling a bit with what to make of this. When it comes to inappropriate and offensive behavior, we are still trying to figure out what constitutes reasonable consequences and what is meaningless wrist-slapping.
If you spend enough time talking on television, you are going to end up saying something stupid, ill-considered or offensive. That shouldn’t automatically mean you lose your show or get yanked from the air, although it is certainly possible that some comments so cross the line as to deserve the career equivalent of the death penalty.
At the same time, a “punishment” that consists of taking two extra days off doesn’t exactly seem right either. A week would send a stronger message that there is, at least, some price for those who double down on dumb.
It helps to remember Lemon’s behavior seems to be part of a pattern of resolute bone-headedness, if not outright sexism. He tangled with Harlow and Collins in December over unequal payments to the men’s and women’s U.S. national soccer teams.
“I know everyone’s going to hate me,” Lemon said, and then plunged in: “The men’s team makes more money because people are more interested in the men,” he asserted. Go to any sports bar, he said, and people will ask to change the channel from women’s basketball. “You cannot make people become interested in something they are not interested in,” he insisted.
Collins pushed back: “But I don’t think you’re looking at the root of the issue, which is why are people more interested in the men’s sports.”
“Because it’s more interesting to watch,” Lemon retorted, before he backpedaled. “I’m kidding. That was a joke, I didn’t mean that,” he said. Well, he didn’t mean to get in trouble.
And that gets us to the question of his impending “formal training” and what purpose it would serve.
“It is important to me that CNN balances accountability with fostering a culture in which people can own, learn and grow from their mistakes,” Licht said, and I think this is the correct sentiment.
What I wonder is what such training can accomplish. To steer clear of ethnic, gender and racial minefields — sure, although we have to find a way to discuss these issues that avoids offending without descending into anodyne mush.
But can training change hearts and minds? Will Lemon actually “learn and grow”? Let’s hope, but call me skeptical. Grown men who think the useful shelf life of a woman ends in her 40s? These men aren’t changing. They are simply learning to keep quiet. That’s blessing enough, but let’s not mistake it for a cure.