On The Lead with Jake Tapper, CNN's Don Lemon spoke from the White House Thursday after the "My Brother's Keeper" outreach event for young black men saying:

As a journalist, you weigh how much you should criticize the president because he's black, but then you have to do it because ultimately, you're a journalist.

Lemon's full statement about critics of Obama:

He had probably more criticism than most presidents because when you are the first of anything, there is a bigger responsibility put on you. He's a spectacle in a way. Everyone is looking to hit him and everyone is looking to punch him and I understand that.

As journalists, you weigh whether you should -- how much you should criticize the president because he's black, or what have you, but then you have to do it because ultimately, you're a journalist. So he gets it from all ends. He gets it from everyone.