CNN’s Lemon: Racist Americans Who ‘Feel Completely Free to Speak Hate’ Are ‘Infecting Our Country’

CNN anchor Don Lemon said Wednesday on his show “Don Lemon Tonight” that racist Americans who felt free to speak hate were infecting the country.

Lemon said, “I’m not actually going to say the word. I usually like saying that word when it’s — not like saying the word, that’s the wrong way to put it. It’s important to say that word when you’re pointing out someone who’s using it in an offensive way. But I understand it offends some people to hear that word.”

He continued, “So we’re going to talk about racism rearing its ugly head, ugly, ugly head in a courtroom this Georgia. Disturbing evidence in the federal hate crime trial of three men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery. Text and social media messages from two of the men full of racist insults. Offensive language you might not expect to hear in a courtroom in 2022.”

He added. “Even armed with all the evidence, the prosecution still has to prove the murder of Ahmaud Arbery who was chased down and shot to death in broad daylight while he was jogging in a Georgia neighborhood, they have to prove that brutal crime was motivated by hate. But this is more than a legal story, though it is that. It is that. It is about justice for all, black, white, brown.”

Lemon concluded, “But it’s also about the America that we live in, the America where every day there are people who feel completely free to speak hate, to text it to each other. They don’t do it out in the open, sometimes they do, but usually, they don’t. To make jokes loaded with it, to laugh about it. It’s the kind of everyday hate that doesn’t always end up in court. But it’s there just the same, infecting our country.”

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