Don Lemon’s Arrest Is A Warning Shot At Black Journalists

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Don Lemon was arrested.

A Black journalist now working independently, Lemon was taken into custody by federal brokers in reference to a January protest at a church in St. Paul, Minn., the place he was livestreaming opposition to federal immigration enforcement. Lemon was arrested practically two weeks later, removed from the scene itself, in a transfer that feels much less like routine legislation enforcement and extra like state choreography.

The federal government alleges violations involving interference with a spot of worship. Lemon’s authorized staff says he was doing his job. Civil liberties teams are alarmed. The media is “asking questions.” However the true story isn’t procedural. It’s psychological. It’s symbolic. And it’s harmful.

Should you squinted on the headlines, you’d suppose this was simply one other “controversy” or one more muddled debate about whether or not journalism magically turns into activism the second a reporter’s sneakers contact actual pavement. You’d suppose this was about decorum. Or guidelines. Or some slender procedural line that the previous CNN anchor supposedly crossed.

It wasn’t.

Many of the early protection snapped into the identical drained reflex nearly instantly. Is that this about press freedom? Did Don Lemon cross a line? Was he a journalist or an activist? That’s the script. Secure questions. Small questions. Questions that maintain the dialog well mannered and contained.

The Related Press leaned into the procedural back-and-forth, foregrounding the federal government’s declare that Lemon interfered with a church service, whereas dutifully quoting his legal professional and civil liberties teams warning that this might endanger journalists masking protests. The Washington Submit did a lot the identical by treating the arrest as a constitutional debate with DOJ arguments on one facet and the First Modification on the opposite, by no means actually grappling with the facility transfer beneath it.

Folks framed it as an expert boundary dispute: a journalist versus federal prosecutors, press freedom versus enforcement. The Guardian amplified media watchdogs calling the arrest an assault on the press, slotting the story neatly into a well-known civil-liberties field.

The dialog has largely been boxed round one slender query: Does Don Lemon technically rely as press? And that’s the inform. So long as the controversy stays there, credentials, classifications, and authorized traces, then the deeper implications of Don Lemon’s concentrating on and arrest keep safely out of attain.

However the deeper story is what it means when the state decides it could possibly put fingers on a Black journalist whose public id has already been disciplined, downgraded, and pushed out of “respectable” media house. When the federal government snatches Don Lemon, it’s testing a boundary and asking a quiet, harmful query: What occurs if we cease pretending Black journalists are press in any respect?

Lemon is now not a CNN anchor. He doesn’t have a company brand wrapped round his physique like armor. He doesn’t have a community authorized staff hovering close by, quietly negotiating on his behalf. He’s impartial now, which on this second means uncovered. And that publicity is the purpose. As a result of when the state decides it could possibly arrest a Black journalist, particularly one now not wrapped within the protecting bubble of a significant community, it’s testing the perimeter of energy.

Don Lemon is just not some rookie freelancer who wandered into the flawed scenario. He’s a nationally recognizable journalist whose face as soon as beamed nightly from CNN screens into hundreds of thousands of American properties. He’s credentialed, skilled, and unmistakably legible as “press.” And but the second he stepped exterior the institutional fortress, exterior the company brand, the authorized division, and the quiet backchannel calls between executives and officers, he grew to become touchable.

That’s the true shift, y’all.

America has at all times maintained a two-tier system for journalists: these protected by establishments and people protected by nothing however the First Modification, which historical past reminds us turns into very fragile when energy turns into nervous. When journalists are connected to legacy retailers, the state negotiates. After they’re impartial, the state experiments. And after they’re Black and impartial? The state rehearses for what it could possibly get away with.

There’s a protracted American custom of granting Black journalists visibility till they step exterior sanctioned lanes. So long as you’re studying the teleprompter, moderating the panel, and asking the “authorised” questions, you’re tolerated. However the minute you place your physique in the identical bodily house because the folks being focused (Black of us, immigrants, protesters, the undesirable) the state collapses the excellence between masking energy and difficult energy. Abruptly, your press credentials don’t matter, your digital camera doesn’t shield you, and all of a sudden, you’re simply one other physique they’ll contact.

This arrest isn’t about what Don Lemon did at a church. It’s about what he represents now: a Black journalist who now not belongs to an establishment the federal government respects. He’s a Black man with a platform, a digital camera, and an viewers with out permission.

Right here’s the half of us don’t need to say: The state is signaling that Don Lemon was arrested as a result of a Black journalist’s independence is a prison offense.

As a result of when the state arrests an impartial journalist, it doesn’t must win a conviction to win the second. The spectacle does the work. The picture goes viral, and the message lands. We will attain you wherever. We will reclassify you at any time when we would like. Journalist, protester, agitator. It doesn’t matter. It’s all the identical if we determine it’s.

That’s why this could chill each reporter who thinks their press badge is a magic talisman. Badges are solely revered when energy feels safe. When energy feels threatened, the state stops explaining itself and begins snatching of us and letting the courts type it out later.

Their aim isn’t a conviction. It’s compliance and to make journalists hesitate earlier than displaying up. To make cameras really feel heavier. To make proximity really feel dangerous. And to make folks ask, “Is that this value it?” earlier than they ever press document. They don’t have to win in courtroom if they’ll win within the physique, if they’ll produce warning, retreat, and second-guessing. If they’ll flip witnessing into one thing that feels harmful and non-compulsory.

For Black journalists, there’s an added layer. Our historical past exhibits that we already understand how rapidly “truth-teller” turns into “troublemaker.” How simply “witness” turns into “participant.” How briskly the state reaches for power when narrative management begins slipping. Lemon’s prominence makes this arrest extra alarming, not much less. As a result of if he might be reclassified this simply, the message to lesser-known journalists is unmistakable: your press move is conditional. Your security is negotiable. Your independence is a legal responsibility.

That is all taking place at a second when impartial journalism is booming exactly as a result of belief in establishments has collapsed. Folks need reporters who’re embedded, clear, and current. They need livestreams, real-time witnessing, and unfiltered entry. And the state is aware of that sort of journalism is more durable to handle, more durable to spin, and more durable to comprise.

So it does what states at all times do when narratives begin slipping: it reasserts management over our bodies. And Black our bodies are at all times the testing floor.

What makes this second particularly chilling is how rapidly the dialog slid into respectability traps. Was he too shut? Was he impartial sufficient? Ought to he have stored extra distance? These questions are acquainted as a result of they’re designed to distract. They flip structural intimidation into particular person judgment. They ask the journalist to shrink as a substitute of asking the state to clarify itself.

However journalism has by no means been secure. It has solely ever been selectively protected. And when these protections erode, they don’t disappear evenly. They collapse first across the folks already deemed disposable, suspicious, or unruly.

So no, this isn’t nearly Don Lemon. It’s about whether or not the federal government is laying the groundwork to determine that some journalists, particularly Black, impartial ones, don’t rely as press in any respect. Whether or not witnessing energy from inside its discomfort zones will now be handled as interference. Whether or not the road between “journalist” and “goal” is being deliberately smeared.

As a result of as soon as the state begins deciding who counts as press primarily based on proximity, posture, or perceived sympathy, journalism doesn’t die suddenly. It fractures. It retreats. It turns into timid.

And that’s the true hazard right here. Not the arrest. The precedent. Not the fees. The message. Don Lemon was not simply detained. He received reclassified.

As soon as the state begins deciding who counts as press and who doesn’t, journalism doesn’t collapse suddenly. It contracts. It quiets. It learns to remain again. Which is the purpose. So of us shouldn’t be asking whether or not Don Lemon crossed a line. They need to be asking how simply the road moved.

And all people watching must be asking themselves. . .who’s subsequent?

Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist and creator of “Spare The Youngsters: Why Whupping Kids Gained’t Save Black America” and the forthcoming “Strung Up: The Lynching of Black Kids In Jim Crow America.” Learn her Substack right here.