Black female comedian defends Leslie Jones' 'SNL' slave jokes
theGRIO VIDEO - Comedian Jackie Fabulous, comes to the defense of her fellow comic Leslie Jones, after the writer backlash for her appearance on 'Saturday Night Live'...
The backlash over Leslie Jones’ appearance this weekend on Saturday Night Live won’t seem to die down.
The stand-up comic-turned-SNL-writer performed a monologue commenting on People naming Academy Award winning actress Lupita Nyong’o their most beautiful person and began to make jokes about slavery.
Jones contended that because of her six foot stature, “back in the slave days, my love life would’ve been way better. I would be the number one slave draft pick,” said Jones.
The comedian’s comments set social media ablaze, and today on MSNBC’s The Reid Report, fellow comic Jackie Fabulous came to Jones’ defense.
“I know Leslie, I’ve seen her perform hundreds of time, and she’s aggressively funny… That’s her job.” Jackie said. “They’ve said way worse things on Weekend Update throughout the years. She was amazing, she was hilarious.”
theGrio’s Chris Witherspoon disagreed.
“I think what a lot of people are outraged about is it just wasn’t smart,” Witherspoon said. “It wasn’t smart humor. She just came on and started talking about slavery. Comparing Lupita Nyong’o, who’s really having her Cinderella moment, to being at a slave auction or being on a plantation.”
Witherspoon added the joke would have been a “hit” if Jones had worked in a reference to LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling or Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy. “SNL probably should have known better, but it’s SNL,” he concluded. “It’s a comedy show.”
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with Jackie Fabulous or Chris Witherspoon?
