A British royal watcher stunned CNN’s Don Lemon Monday night when she gave an unexpected answer to his question about whether the Royal family should pay reparations for slavery.
Lemon, who recently lost his prime time slot at CNN, was probably expecting to elicit a woke, virtue signaling response from global business consultant Hilary Fordwich when he complained about about how Queen Elizabeth II’s death was coming as “England is facing rising costs of living, a living crisis, austerity budget cuts, and so on.”
“And then you have those who are asking for reparations for colonialism, and they’re wondering, you know, $100 billion, $24 billion here and there, $500 million there,” Lemon said. “Some people want to be paid back and, and members of the public are wondering, ‘Why are we suffering when you are, you know, you have all of this vast wealth?’ Those are legitimate concerns.”
Fordwich said she agreed with Lemon that there should be reparations—but not necessarily for the people he had in mind.
“Well, I think you’re right about reparations in terms of if people want it, though, what they need to do is you always need to go back to the beginning of a supply chain,” Fordwich began. “Where was the beginning of the supply chain? That was in Africa, and when it crossed the entire world, when slavery was taking place, which was the first nation in the world that abolished slavery? The first nation world to abolish it, it was started by William Wilberforce, was the British. In Great Britain, they abolished slavery.”
Britain passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, outlawing British Atlantic slave trade, in 1807, and the Abolition of Slavery Act, ordering gradual abolition of slavery in all British colonies, in 1833, the first European country to do so.
Haiti was the first country to abolish slavery, in a declaration on Jan. 1, 1804, after it gained independence from France, and in its first Constitution a year later.
“Two thousand naval men died on the high seas trying to stop slavery. Why? Because the African kings were rounding up their own people, they had them on cages waiting in the beaches. No one was running into Africa to get them,” Fordwich continued, adding again that she agreed with Lemon on reparations.
“And I think you’re totally right. 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. And maybe, I don’t know, 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,” Fordwich declared.
“It’s an interesting discussion,” Lemon responded after a brief pause. “We’ll continue to discuss this in the future.”
CNN’s @DonLemon tells royal commentator Hilary Fordwich the royal family should pay reparations — immediately regrets it pic.twitter.com/LotCfBoAym
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 20, 2022
CNN announced last week that the network is canceling Lemon’s show, Don Lemon Tonight. He is reportedly slated to host a morning show instead.
Former President Donald Trump mocked him on Truth Social Monday night, calling him the “dumbest man on TV.”
Trump wrote:
A small step for television, a giant step for mankind. Don Lemon, often called ‘the dumbest man on television’ having made even Lebron James look smart during their interview two years ago, has been FIRED from his prime time evening spot on CNN.
Extremely low ratings and will be thrown into their ‘Death Valley’ morning show.
I assume this means a BIG salary cut prior to his Complete & total future firing from ratings challenge (to put it mildly!) CNN. Good Luck Don, you’ll need it. MAGA!
Lemon however reportedly considers the move to be a promotion, not a demotion.
“All of that is fodder for Twitter, which is not real, so stop it. I was not demoted, none of that,” he told CNN reporter Lauren Coates. “This is an opportunity, this is a promotion, this is an opportunity for me.”