CNN Slurs Kanye (Screenshot) CNN panelists repeatedly slurred rapper Kanye West over his support for President Donald Trump, and host Don Lemon did nothing but laugh when they did. A former South Carolina state representative, Democrat Bakari Sellers, now a CNN contributor, warned that Kanye’s opinions show “what happens when Negroes don’t read”: "Kanye West is what happens when Negroes don’t read. And we have this now and now Donald Trump is going to use it and pervert and he’s going to have someone who can stand with him and take pictures." Another CNN contributor, Tara Setmeyer, called West the White House’s “token Negro”: "He’s an attention whore, like the president. He’s all of a sudden now the model spokesperson. He’s the token Negro of the Trump administration." She went on to suggest that West’s support of Trump is a sign of mental illness:<doc-sep>CNN is under fire for a segment on “CNN Tonight with Don Lemon” in which rapper Kanye West was referred to as “the token negro of the Trump administration.” West is scheduled to meet with President Trump at the White House on Thursday to discuss a variety of topics including prison reform and how to prevent gang violence. A CNN segment on Tuesday night began with Lemon asking if Trump is simply “using Kanye as a prop to win over black voters before the midterms.” CNN political commentator Bakari Sellers responded that his issue with the rapper is “quite simple.” “Anti-intellectualism simply isn’t cool,” Sellers said. “Kanye West is what happens when Negros don’t read.” Sellers’ remark prompted laughter from fellow panelist Tara Setmayer – also a CNN political commentator – who informed viewers that the derogatory remark is apparently a decades-old Chris Rock reference. CNN political commentator Scott Jennings – the only white panelist – appeared absolutely stunned at the comment and Lemon made a point to poke fun at the expression on his face. “Black folks are about to trade Kanye West in the racial draft, OK. They’ve had it with him,” Setmayer said as the panel burst out laughing at West’s expense, again. “This is not the Kanye West of 2004,” Setmayer said. “Now all of the sudden because he’s put on a MAGA hat and he’s an attention whore like the president, he’s all of the sudden the model spokesperson. He’s the token negro of the Trump administration.” Setmayer went on to call the situation “ridiculous” and declare that “no one should be taking Kanye West seriously” because he “clearly has issues.” CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Fox News contributor Deroy Murdock said “these reprehensible, racist comments on CNN are typical of the Trump-hating Left” that exists in the mainstream media. “Black Americans who think for ourselves are mocked and degraded with words we last saw under Jim Crow. If President Trump had no black supporters, they would call his circle 'lily white,'” Murdock said. "Now, one of America's most prominent black entertainers praises and visits the president, and he is trivialized as a 'token' who 'doesn't read. '” Murdock added that the “only silver lining in this vile cloud is that the supposedly bigoted Trump presidency has delivered the lowest black unemployment in American history.” CNN tweeted out a clip of the segment and it was immediately slammed as “cringe worthy” and “racist.” One user responded, “This is appalling on so many levels even for your standards CNN.” Donald Trump Jr. slammed CNN for the segment, calling West a “wildly successful businessman” and asking, “why is free thought & expression so dangerous & scary to liberals?” Turning Point USA’s Candace Owens told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Wednesday the segment was “not only racist, it was absolutely despicable.” “I cannot believe it would be allowed on any network, least of all having a host that’s laughing as if it’s funny,” Owens said. “Careful, CNN. Your blatant racism is showing,” Media Research Center TV managing editor Brittany Hughes wrote. Journalist Glenn Greenwald also took exception to a comment made when Setmayer said West “clearly has issues” and “has already been hospitalized” as a result of his mental health. “Exploiting and mocking the fact that someone has previously sought medical treatment for mental health issues in order to disqualify them from participating in public debates and being taken seriously is reprehensible & CNN should be ashamed of itself for airing that,” Greenwald wrote. "What makes CNN's weaponizing of mental health treatment against Kanye West extra repulsive: a mere 4 months ago, the suicide of their own colleague, Anthony Bourdain, followed by Kate Spade's, sparked a national discussion about the dangers of this stigma"<doc-sep>A recent CNN segment about rap artist Kanye West was slammed as “racist” by critics, but several mainstream media watchdogs ignored the controversy. During Tuesday’s installment of “CNN Tonight,” host Don Lemon asked if President Trump, who hosted West at the White House, was simply using him "as a prop to win over black voters before the midterms.” CNN political commentator Bakari Sellers responded by saying, “Kanye West is what happens when Negros don’t read.” Sellers’ remark prompted laughter from Lemon and fellow panelist Tara Setmayer, who followed up by saying that West was “the token Negro of the Trump administration.” While several critics have condemned the segment as “racist," football legend-turned-activist Herschel Walker went so far as to openly ponder why Lemon, Sellers and Setmayer remained on the air at all. CNN did not immediately respond when asked for comment. Fox News contributor Deroy Murdock called the CNN-aired comments “reprehensible” and “racist,” while podcaster Tony Katz wrote that Lemon “clearly supports this kind of racial attack against someone he disagrees with.” BET.com, The Intercept, The Daily Mail, The Washington Times, Mediaite, The Daily Caller and TheWrap all covered the explosive cable news moment. Headlines included: "CNN panel sparks outrage by calling Kanye West the 'token Negro of the Trump administration' as they 'mock' his mental health,” and “Don Lemon cracks up as CNN panelists use offensive racial term to mock Kanye West.” But the segment got a different reception, if any at all, from mainstream media. Conservative author and talk radio host Larry Elder told Fox News that there is a clear double standard at work. “Apart from white Republicans, the remaining group in America that it is still OK to insult, ridicule and stigmatize is black Republicans,” Elder said. There was no mention of the segment featuring the “token Negro” line at major news organizations including The Associated Press, The New York Times, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair and The Washington Post, according to Fox News research. MSNBC, ABC News, CBS News and NBC News all appeared to pass as well. One so-called watchdog that ignored the racially charged discussion was the tax-exempt Media Matters, an organization dedicated to combating cable news coverage that doesn’t coincide with its mission. A quick search of the word “racist” on the Media Matters website produces 4,434 results – but it did not cover the remarks made about West despite the strong responses directed at CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker’s network. Media Matters has covered CNN issues in the past; earlier this week it published a story headlined, “CNN's conservative pundits are helping the GOP fearmonger over ‘scary’ liberal protesters.” Fox News reached out to Media Matters for comment about why it didn’t cover the controversial CNN segment. “No entity is more fair and balanced than Media Matters. I'm damn proud of the work we have done holding media accountable and our ability to focus on the big fights that need fighting and avoiding the shiny objects,” Media Matters president Angelo Carusone said in a statement. Daily Wire reporter Ryan Saavedra called Media Matters a “far-left organization” whose “goal is to smear and delegitimize right-wing media.” "If a conservative outlet’s employees would have said many of the disgusting things that CNN has about Kanye West over the last several days, Media Matters… would have been tweeting about it nonstop, trying to drive [it] out of business," Saavedra told Fox News. "It's not surprising that Media Matters wouldn't cover it. They stayed away from Joy Reid's hacker controversy and her old blog entries that many called homophobic,” The Hill media reporter Joe Concha told Fox News. Concha said it’s simply “not in their business model” to call out liberal news organizations, especially when considering that the targets of the controversial rhetoric were West and Trump. “To criticize CNN would mean, at least tacitly, siding with what 99.9 percent of their readers see as the bad guys,” Concha said. CNN’s “Reliable Sources” newsletter – many regard it as required reading for the coastal media elite – didn’t mention it, either. Elder noted that “about 95 percent of blacks have in recent years voted Democrat” at the presidential level. “Why? Democrats have convinced them that racism remains the major problem facing black America - not the welfare state-induced lack of fathers in homes, not failing urban schools, not job-killing left-wing economic policies, not the unfair competition for jobs and the downward pressure on wages because of illegal immigration,” he said. “No, it's racism.” The "Larry Elder Show” host continued, “If that mask gets ripped off and blacks stop thinking of themselves as 'Victicrat,' Democrats are in serious trouble. So [the] ‘defector’ must be harshly dealt with.” Elder said that as a result, the media is torn when “left-wing blacks display bigotry toward conservative blacks,” and Lemon and CNN being ignored are the most recent example.<doc-sep>
*A CNN panel hosted by Don Lemon ripped into Kanye West on Wednesday, with one guest referring to the rapper as a “negro” and “an attention whore.” “He’s like an attention whore, like the president. He’s all of a sudden now the model spokesperson,” said CNN contributor Tara Setmeyer. She added that Kanye was “the token negro of the Trump administration.” Many are outraged that Lemon laughed hysterically at the comments. “This is ridiculous and no one should be taking Kanye West seriously,” Setmeyer continued. “He clearly has issues. He’s already been hospitalized,” she said. “Not to trivialize mental health issues, [but] obviously Kanye has taken a turn in a very strange way.” Congressman Bakari Sellers used similar language to describe Kanye’s support of 45. “Kanye West is what happens when negroes don’t read. And we have this now and now Donald Trump is going to use it and pervert and he’s going to have someone who can stand with him and take pictures.” Lemon laughed throughout the panel but he was even more amused by CNN contributor Scott Jenkins, who is Caucasian, and looked visibly uncomfortable. “I’m just looking at Scott’s face,” said Lemon. Watch the moment go down in the clip above. In related news, singer Monica has also put Kanye on blast for his political views. The Grammy award-winning singer told a TMZ videographer that Kanye should “join other Blacks so that we are all speaking together on Black issues.” She added: “He has to reassess this entire relationship. I think that is going to continually hurt us if we aren’t speaking together in the right places, making the right decisions, doing it the right way.” Watch her share her opinion on the matter via the clip above.