Kal Penn Turns Racist Tweet Into Massive Fundraiser

Kal Penn has just turned lemons into lemonade—some pretty darn valuable lemonade. On Saturday the actor tweeted what looked to be an Instagram comment that read in part "you don't belong in this country you f---ing joke." Penn wrote, "To the dude who said I don't belong in America, I started a fundraising page for Syrian Refugees in your name." And the page—which states "We will turn their bigotry, along with the President's, into love"—has gone wild. As of early Monday, more than $500,000 has been raised on the CrowdRise site; the money will go to the International Rescue Committee, Mashable reports.

That's way more than the original goal, as Penn, the New Jersey-born son of immigrants from India, pointed out on Twitter. He observed Sunday morning that "If we hit $250k, that's 100x more than our original goal! How's that for showing the world who we are?" (More Syrian refugees stories.)