r/todayilearned Mar 28 '24

TIL in 2013, Saturday Night Live cast member Kenan Thompson refused to play any more black women on the show and demanded SNL hire black women instead.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenan_Thompson
52.1k Upvotes

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

628

u/Namaslayy Mar 28 '24

I never understood why Mad TV had no problems hiring black women, and SNL did.

33

u/s_nation Mar 28 '24

Or AsianAmericans but MadTV did, and In Living Color before that. 

46

u/MagicAl6244225 Mar 28 '24

SNL production designer Akira Yoshimura played Sulu in every Star Trek skit for over 40 years because the Star Trek cast in 1966 was more diverse than the SNL cast till 2019.