Don Lemon's Misguided Sign Has Become A Meme

The CNN host has always been known to be a little cuckoo, but this time Don Lemon has really gone off the deep end. On his program of CNN Tonight Monday, Don Lemon held up a sign reading "N****R" and asked, "Does this offend you?" Earlier in the day, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley had called for the Confederate flag to be removed from the state's Capitol grounds and President Obama had used "n****r" when discussing racism on Marc Maron's podcast. Perhaps feeling emboldened, and definitely hoping to start a debate, Lemon used the derogatory word to start his own debate on race. However, instead of a healthy discussion, what followed was a Twitter storm and a new meme mocking Lemon's somewhat misguided discussion tactics.

Lemon opened his segment by holding up a Confederate flag and saying, "This is what America is talking about right now." He then asks viewers, "Does this offend you?" And, being ever-so didactic, he added, "It's a Confederate flag!" And then, he raises a black sign with the word "N****R" written in white and says, "What about this? Does this offend you?"

He then informs viewers that President Obama said it out loud in an interview, as if that provides some sort of cushion for hitting viewers with the shocking sign.

He then segues into the two stories of the night, one on the word and the other on the Confederate flag in South Carolina that Governor Nikki Haley has proposed taking down.

Both of these stories are important conversations in the ongoing discourse on race, conversations that should be had. However, when Lemon attempted to open the talks, he inadvertently turned the discussion into a joke on himself. Nice try, Lemon, but you were way off the mark.

However, that's not to say nothing important came out of his segment. Many took to Twitter following his broadcast to tweet photos of Lemon holding up signs of other upsetting, offensive images, signs that mock his boneheaded move, as well as some hilarious pop culture references.

Image: Live Leak/YouTube