Leave Kenan Thompson Alone!

We live in a society that is very clearly dominated by while culture. I think that this much is very evident and to dispute this would be insane. Despite having a (half) black president, our society still sees institutionalized racism on a daily basis. In particular, pop culture is often in the limelight for its frequent lack of black representation. Take SNL, for example. In a 38 year run, the show has only had four black female cast members. Which makes it a double politically incorrect whammy for the popular comedy show. And yet, even with all of this in mind, Kenan Thompson does not deserve the recent flak he has been receiving. 

Several different websites (including the one linked above) have bemoaned Thompson for a statement he made on the lack of black women on the SNL cast. Headlines have been reading things like, "Kenan Thompson Doesn't Think Black Women Are Funny Enough For SNL" and "Kenan Thompson Says There Are No Black Women On Saturday Night Live Because There Aren't Enough Funny Black Women." This sort of misleading, purposefully scandalous "journalism" is sickening to observe. If you're interested in seeing the exact quote by Mr. Thompson, allow me to deliver:

"I don't know. We just haven't done them. That's what I'm saying. Maybe [Jay Pharaoh] will do it or something, but even he doesn't really want to do it... It's just a tough part of the business," Thompson says. "Like in auditions, they just never find ones that are ready."

This is in reference to Thompson's recent announcement that he will no longer be portraying black women on the show. A noble cause that has been misconstrued as sexist, racist, and other "-ists" that the overly sensitive media can make up in order to make this non-story as controversial as possible.

The original interview was done by TV Guide. You know, the show you watch when you're looking for other shows to watch. If you have never had the displeasure of wandering into the realm of TVGuide.com, its like People Magazine for people with even fewer brain cells. But, for reasons of marketing desperation and profiteering, multiple large websites picked up on the story and started spewing hateful rhetoric about Thompson via their respective internet rags. All because of the above statement which, at no point, implies that there are no good black comediennes worthy of SNL casting.

The point is, Thompson said that there are never black women in auditions that are appealing to Lorne Michaels or the production team of SNL. This doesn't mean that black comediennes as a whole are lacking in quality. However, construing it as such is convenient when you're trying to rile up the attention deficit members of the Internet into a fake-racism/sexism fueled frenzy. There is clearly a problem of racism that persists in this country and there is clearly a lack of black women in the SNL cast. But attacking one member of the cast for vague comments slightly hinting at a lack of qualified black comediennes demeans the issue by associating it with crazy accusations. Stop doing that. You're ruining the fight for feminine and black equality in this country by making it look shallow and sensitive. Let's stop worrying about the words spoken by celebrities and start taking a closer look at the inner workings of our system and how it often pits itself against black culture. (See: Stop and Frisk....again)

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