Racism is alive and well within much of mainstream media culture today. What may be sadder still is how this racism is actively promoted and promulgated as intelligent thinking. The latest example was served up by CNN anchor Don Lemon, who, speaking to a straight-faced Chris Cuomo about the recent Tree of Life synagogue attack, said, “[N]ot to demonize any one group or any one ethnicity — the biggest terror threat in this country is white men. There is no travel ban on them. … There is no white-guy ban. So what do we do about that?”

Beyond the blatant and almost laughable contradiction Lemon makes in not wanting to “demonize any one group” before he demonizes white men as terror threats, what stands out is his outright racism. In fact, Lemon provided a textbook example of what actual racism looks like — judging an entire group based purely upon the immutable skin color they share in common. (Well, that and their sex assigned at birth.) It doesn’t get any more racist than that.

And yet after being called out for his blatantly racist comments, Lemon doubled down, insisting, “Earlier this week … I said that the biggest terror threat in this country comes from radicals on the far right, primarily white men. That angered some people. But let’s put emotions aside and look at the cold, hard facts. The evidence is overwhelming.” Well, the evidence of Lemon’s racist sentiment is indeed overwhelming, as is his leftist instinct to conflate biology with ideology.

As The Federalist’s David Harsanyi astutely observes, “A terrorist is a person who uses illegal violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. [Whiteness] is not a movement. These white men [criminals] have no palpable ideological or philosophical connection. They are not part of a concerted effort. They do not idolize the same people or subscribe to the same set of ideas. They do not share a worldview. Most of them do not kill in the name of ‘whiteness.’ Few of them have a coherent message. I have as much to do with the Pittsburgh shooter as Lemon does.”

Meanwhile, Megyn Kelly was recently fired from NBC for having a discussion about children dressing up for Halloween and the history of blackface. Never mind the fact that she was not seeking to promote racism — she was seeking to understand why the motive of an individual doesn’t seem to matter. That was actually a legitimate point, but since Kelly is the wrong skin color she was put down. But don’t hold your breath waiting for Lemon to be fired.