Don Lemon

YouTube Screenshot

CNN's Don Lemon experienced live on-air Thursday evening what some people on Twitter have referred to as the "blackening."


Lemon's guests included David Katz, a former Drug Enforcement Administration senior special agent; Charles Coleman, a civil rights attorney and contributor to The Root; and New York City's Hot 97 radio host Peter Rosenberg.

During the segment, Lemon spoke about why black people should be calm when they encounter police.


“I’m an American; I shouldn’t have to do that,” Lemon said. “I shouldn’t have to be ‘Yes, sir’-ing anybody. I’m a grown you-know-what man.”

By "you-know-what man," we all know he wanted to say "grown-ass man."

“You don’t have to say ‘sir,’” Katz said.

“But I do it because I want to stay alive,” Lemon continued. “That’s why I do it. Now, my friends, my white counterparts, don’t do that. They speak to police officers in a way that I would never in a million years do, and that is the reality of it. I have to do that because I want to stay alive.”

Of course, Katz tried to rationalize why a black man in America has to make it a point to be polite. And he went all "me too" to Lemon's statement and said he tells his kids the same thing.


A lot of people on social media cheered Lemon on and said he was finally showing his "blackness."





Sometimes it's good to be on the right side of things. Way to go, Lemon!