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Don Lemon: CNN Anchor’s ‘N—-R’ Placard Sparks Twitter Memes

By Val Powell
Published on: 19:58 PST, Jun 23, 2015

On CNN Tonight, which aired last night, Don Lemon, one of its anchors, sparked up controversy when he held up a black poster with the word N- – – – R written on it in white.

Lemon then asked the TV viewers whether they were offended by the word or not.

The anchor wanted to spark a conversation regarding President Obama’s use of the n-word in a podcast called WTF with Marc Maron.

Obama had wanted to make a statement regarding racism in the country, especially after a number of African-Americans were killed last week, and said the offensive word to make his point.

Nevertheless, the President’s choice to speak out the n-word in a public interview, as well as Lemon’s unwise stunt on television, has met several criticisms.

CNN‘s legal analyst Sunny Hostin has stated that President Obama has undone CNN‘s prohibition of using the offensive word on the airwaves.

In Wolf Blitzer’s Situation Room on CNN, Hostin further expressed her opinion that the president only gave an unwritten permission to the people to use the n-word by saying it.

On the other hand, journalist Marc Lamont Hill pointed out that President Obama only used the offensive word once to draw attention to the problem of racism but he himself was called the n-word since he was elected into office.

On the other hand, Lemon used the n-word to draw attention to himself, as one Twitter fan posted a meme of Lemon, with words on the black poster changed to: My constant ploy for attention.

In an exchange with Hostin, Lemon said he believed that journalists can use the word to aid them in their work, Erik Wemble reported for Washington Post.

Other Twitter fans have also put their own images and phrases in Lemon’s black placard for more Lemon memes. In one meme, a netizen called Lemon an “a—–e” as Lemon was holding a photo of half-eaten fried chicken wings.

In another meme, Lemon was holding a photo of a black guy wearing a white and then a red jersey. In The Frisky, a meme of Lemon holding a small billboard saying “Please Fire Me” was shown.

More memes have sprouted up online, with some of them containing sensitive images, but most of the Twitter fans call for “poetic social justice,” as one meme got a lot of retweets, with the placard showing Lemon’s portrait.

With the negative criticisms by analysts, experts and memes by netizens, they have conveyed that indeed, they were offended with the n-word.

[Image credit: CNN]

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