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Home • News

SNL's 'Slave Draft' Skit: Funny or Flat?

"Back in the slave days, my love life would have been way better," joked SNL's Leslie Jones.
SNL's 'Slave Draft' Skit: Funny or Flat?
SNL Skit 125
By Yolanda Sangweni · Updated October 27, 2020
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…

Umm… what just happened was the general reaction to last night’s Saturday Night Live skit on, wait for it, a slave draft.

In the sometimes cringeworthy skit, SNL’s newest writer, comedienne Leslie Jones, congratulated Lupita Nyong’o on being named PEOPLE’s “Most Beautiful” before going into a rant about how she would have topped an imagined “Most Useful” list had it existed in pre-Civil War America. “I’m single right now,” said Jones. “But back in the slave days,” I would have never been single. I’m six feet tall and I’m strong. Look at me, I’m a Mandingo.

“Back in the slave days, my love life would have been way better. Master would have hooked me up with the best brother on the plantation,” she added. *Gulp*

Well, Twitter sure wasn’t laughing along. “You just glorified the practice of slave masters making slaves mate w/ each other to potentially produce stronger slaves WTF #SNL,” tweeted Mary Pryor.

Whoever wrote #SNL “Black woman better as a slave so I can breed strong boys for my master” bit should be fired for being racist AND unfunny,” tweeted Stefanie Brown, a former Vote Director for the 2012 Obama for America Campaign.

What did you think of the skit? Let us know in the comments below.