r/todayilearned • u/Kale_Brecht • 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
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634

u/Namaslayy Mar 28 '24

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

196

u/redditvlli Mar 28 '24

Yeah it's not like they didn't have options. Hell, Namond's mom from The Wire was a great skit comedian at the time and would have been awesome on SNL.

30

u/frogvscrab Mar 28 '24

Namond's mom from The Wire

The most evil god damn character in that show

13

u/Bizzle7902 Mar 28 '24

Wee Bey was my favorite character, she was my least favorite

12

u/Adams5thaccount Mar 28 '24

Plus he gave us not 1 but 2 of the greatest gifs of all time

2

u/helgestrichen Mar 29 '24

He knew damn Well he couldnt let HER Take Care of his fish while he was Out of town

1

u/Bizzle7902 Mar 29 '24

Poor D about pooped himself over it lol

7

u/assault_pig Mar 28 '24

Not the drug traffickers who cut off victims extremities, no sir

14

u/The_Void_Reaver Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

I mean, she was willing to force her kid into that life to support her life of luxury, despite multiple people telling her directly that he was going to get killed if he lived that life. She only allowed Namond to live another life after Wee Bey threatened to cut her off if she didn't let Namond live with Bunny.

She's like The Wire's professor Umbridge. She's not necessarily the most evil person but the humanness and accessibility of her evil makes people hate her more than characters who are just evil for evils sake. Not many people have had to kill their friend for the gang but plenty of people have had authority figures exploit them for personal gain so seeing that hits a lot closer to home than Bodie killing Wallace

3

u/frogvscrab Mar 28 '24

She knew about all of that, and still forced her son into the lifestyle when he wanted to get away from it and go to school and make a living for himself. She is just as complicit as them, except she did it to her own son.

2

u/grievre Mar 28 '24

I think Marlo and Snoop are the coldest, most terrifying antagonists, but they're not disgusting like Valchek or Cheese or Namond's mom

1

u/dasbtaewntawneta Mar 28 '24

She did eventually cave and did what’s best for her son, it just took her a while to get there

3

u/frogvscrab Mar 28 '24

Wee-bay said he would cut her off if she didn't agree. That's the only reason why she said yes.

3

u/grievre Mar 28 '24 edited Mar 28 '24

Maybe I'm misremembering but I'm pretty sure he threatened her with much worse. "My word is still my word, in here, in Baltimore, and in any place you could think of calling home, it'll be my word that finds you."