CNN presents Awkward Black History Moment

As bad as this country is at teaching its own citizenry about American history, can you really blame an Irish-born Aussie-bred transplant for suggesting that Ferguson police frustrated by ongoing clashes with protestors should put down the rubber bullets and tear gas canisters for water cannons?

Of course, you can’t. Unless she works for one of the biggest brands in news.

Rosemary Church is a CNN International anchor. Which means she spends most of her anchor desk time talking about international stuff. And since Ferguson is working its way up the shortlist of ongoing public health and human rights crises, alongside the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the fresh Ebola outbreak in Liberia, it somehow landed on her anchor desk. So she winged it.

Just watch the video:

Perhaps she didn’t know that water hoses were Jim Crow’s preferred weapon of choice against the likes of such pesky, peaceful civil rights icons as the Nobel Prize-winning Dr. Martin Luther King. Her co-anchor Errol Barnett certainly did. Buzzfeed has already nominated him for side-eye honors of the year.

• CNN/Vine

Somewhere, Don Lemon is wiping his brow like, “Whew, glad it wadn’t me!”

• Twitter: @MatthewACherry