This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism

This Is the Fire takes inspiration from the work of author and civil rights activist James Baldwin, who is a major influence for Don Lemon. The title is a play on Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, a two-essay collection influential to the 1960s Civil Rights movement. The first essay in that collection is a letter to Baldwin’s nephew on the centennial of emancipation. Likewise, Lemon begins This Is the Fire with a letter to his nephew and calls the book “an open letter to my nieces and grand-nephews” (30).

The Prologue, written on the day of George Floyd’s death, has a different tone from the rest of the book. Lemon normally bounces between subjects as he examines news stories with a journalistic and sober tone. The letter is more personal and affectionate as Lemon writes directly to his nephew, Trushaad. He compares their skin tones, expressing hope that Trushaad will “embrace” his blackness as Lemon never could (4), as well as their educations, given that only a few generations ago Lemon’s grandmother had a minimal education that wouldn’t allow her to pass the literacy tests that Louisiana used to prevent African Americans from voting. Lemon tells Trushaad that he will one day understand the difference between “those who preach, those who march, and those who maintain a deferential silence” to racist tropes (8). In addition, Lemon promises that he will not be silent about injustice.

Chapter 1 discusses the history of Sag Harbor and Azurest to explain the extent of racism in American history. Azurest is a triumph of Black entrepreneurialism over racist real estate policies. He notes that Amaza Lee Meredith had a lesbian partner and teases his own fiancé, Tim, about the then-cheap land. However, he also recounts that in the same location, before that time, Whites destroyed the Indigenous peoples and forced their complicity with the Atlantic slave trade. Lemon tells how Thomas Jefferson condemned slavery in early drafts of the Declaration of Independence, which led to the inclusion of the phrase “a more perfect union” to imply that the country needed further refinement (11). Lemon’s telling, however, omits Jefferson’s slave ownership. Whether America can fully atone for these original sins is a question to which Lemon returns throughout the book.

Baldwin’s book ends with a warning that without action on civil rights, the country will fulfill the Negro spiritual “God gave Noah the rainbow sign/ No more water, the fire next time” (21). Lemon sees 2020 and the related storylines of pandemic, social unrest, and election as this fire after the social progress of the John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama eras. Many felt that Trump was the worst president to have at the worst time, but Lemon notes that having an unrepentant White supremist as president forces citizens to acknowledge the country’s realities. Recognizing that systemic racism exists raises Amy Cooper’s false report from obnoxious to menacing. At the same time, George Floyd’s death leaves Lemon frustrated over the circular nature of these cases: sadness that gives way to rage and finger-pointing, promises from politicians to change things, and a complacency that allows the process to repeat itself. While the fact that all races participated in protests over Floyd’s death is heartening, Lemon feels that action must go beyond token signs of support to practical solutions that lead to real unity.