CNN's Kyra Phillips Jokes About Making "Reverse Oreo" With Black Cohost Don Lemon

This afternoon, CNN "Open House" host Gerri Willis came by CNN Newsroom to discuss the economy. Willis joked with anchor Kyra Phillips that if she could predict the stock market, she and Phillips could run off to an island, prompting Phillips' co-anchor, Don Lemon, to ask not to be left out of the girls' getaway. This resulted in the following exchange:

Gerri: Alright Don, you come too.
Kyra: We could bring him along with the girls.
Gerri: Come on!
Kyra: He's paying! Thanks, Gerri.
Don: A little sandwich!
Kyra: Ooh!
Gerri: Whoa, I have to go now!
Kyra: Yeah, good time. You don't want to talk about the reverse oreo!

Willis was visibly embarrassed by Phillips' joke, though Lemon seemed to enjoy it, laughing out loud and announcing, "Oh, she said it! I'm glad she said it."

Watch:

Kyra Phillips and Gerri Willis transformed a segment on the economy into a racially tinged, awkward moment by joking about making a "reverse oreo" with black co-host Don Lemon. Watch! http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1396519189http://www.brightcove.com/channel.jsp?channel=1178199204

From CNN, 1/30

Previously: Kyra Phillips' microphone remains on, streaming her bathroom conversation (about her brother and sister-in-law) over a Bush speech.

Comments

[gensdecouleur]

Yessss, sounds good to me - MAKE LOVE NOT (race) WAR! :)

[sleeperd]

What is most amazing to me is how these mainstream-media bastions of racial equality like CNN, ABC, CB, et al. - who are forever accusing conservatives and others of "raacism" -manage to find the lighest-skinned Afro-Americans to put on the air. Shades of Bryant Gumbel!

I fear the days of ol' hide-under­-your-desk Bernard Shaw are long gone.

[FirstBlowupDollLaura]

Sleazy and slutty, at best.

[AristophanesJones]

Can we please, PLEASE get these airheads off CNN? (start with Wolf Blitzer)

[dadumdee]

Wow, she managed to sexually harass her coworkers and the viewing public, and invoke the oversexualized negro brute stereotype all at once. Somehow, I doubt Lou Dobbs wouldn't have received the same joke. Also, if it were Tavis Smiley and Carlos Watson joking about gangbanging Katie Couric, I suspect the reaction would be different.
For anyone underestimating the power of the the negro brute stereotype and its use throughout American history, please check out this link: http://www.ferris.edu/news/jimcrow/brute/

[PaulRaymond]

Many years ago on the Flip Wilson Show, Flip made a similar joke when sandwiched between to white folks. I don't recall who the other folks were (Carol Channing may have been one of them), but I'm pretty sure that the world didn't come to an end because of it.

[buddyd]

Way to go Ms. Phillips..No problem here.

[LutherBrixton]

The news media spends 8 years treating the most corrupt, incompetent, and morally bankrupt president the United States has ever had like he's a religious figure never to be challenged or called a liar (like Romney, Clinton, et al.), even after his lies have cost tens of thousands of innocent lives, and THIS is offensive?

While manufacturing outrage is aparently fun for some people desperate to show how free their own thinking is from bias, this 'outrage' rates about a 0.2 on the offensive scale. The hands-off policy of the media of never calling the pathological liar and mass-murderer in the White House what is rates a 100.

[CountryBeforeParty]

How soon til we hear from Reverend Al?

[Glinda]

The reason this warrants disk space and pixels at HuffPo is ... ???

[wildstarchild]

Okay, I'll bite. Just let me say as an Obama supporter, he's really hot! I've never felt sexually attracted to my political candidate before. Now,maybe I know a little more about how Marilyn Monroe felt about JFK! And who's the other cute guy on TV???

But seriously folks,I fell in love with his issues first, honest!
Voting for barack because i think he's sexy is like voting for Hillary because she's a woman.

[StanTheManic]

Watch: CNN's Kyra Phillips Jokes About Making "Reverse Oreo" With Black Cohost Don Lemon

Unless "Kyra Phillips" is a plural, the headline should say

Watch: CNN's Kyra Phillips JOKE About Making "Reverse Oreo" With Black Cohost Don Lemon

nice headline

Don't worry, yesterday, CNN's new scrawl spelled Madonna's name wrong.

No one really has that high of expectations of our news reporting groups in the country, besides most people are too friggin stupid to notice.

Don Lemon is a wooden headed puppet who probably needed the scenario explained to him off-camera. Kyra Phillips will never be confused with a journalist either.

[bookwrm1]

Was it funny? Maybe. Was the humor offensive? In this setting, yes. I don't pay usurious cable rates to get news from CNN, only to get ribald opinions from an anchor apparently working for Sluts-R-Us. She is entitled to do or say what she wants on her own time. When she is at work in the professional setting, on the consumer dime, such humor is inappropriate and has no place. Do you as a consumer pay your doctor, your lawyer, even your plumber, to tell you their sexual fantasies? Why then is it O.K. for a supposedly professional news anchor with a supposedly professional team of reports on a supposedly professional network to make such jokes? Shame on Ms. Willis, and shame on CNN for tolerating and paying for such unprofessional behavior.

[Thad]

Mmmmm, reverse Oreo with Lemon...

[kyoput]

I watch CNN live everyday. They do shit like that all the time. What's the big deal?