UPDATED 6:30 PM EST, 5/4/14:
Leslie Jones responds to criticism of her slave “jokes” via Twitter:
Ok I wasn't gonna say any thing because I know that dumb people know how to use the computer too, but now this is so ridiculous.—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
Where is the rape idiots. I said nothing about rape you fucking morons. I was talking about being match to another strong brother.—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
Not being rape by white man. What part of this joke that wasn't true? I would have been used for breeding straight up. That's my reality.—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
And it saddens me that BLACK PEOPLE bitch and moan about the most stupid shit. I'm a comic it is my job to take things and make them funny—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
to make you think. Especially the painful things. Why are y'all so mad. This joke was written from the pain that one night I realized that—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
black men don't really fuck with me and why am I single. And that in slave days I would have always had a man cause of breeding. If anybody—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
If anybody should be offended is white folks cause it's what they did. Y'all so busy trying to be self righteous you miss what the joke—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
really is. Very sad I have to defend myself to black people. Now I'm betting if Chris Rock or Dave Chappelje did that joke or—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
or jay z or Kanye put in a rap they would be called brilliant. Cause they all do this type of material. Just cause it came from a strong—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
black woman who ain't afraid to be real y'all mad. So here is my announcement black folks, you won't stop me and Im gonna go even harder—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
and deeper now. Cause it's a shame that we kill each other instead of support each other. This exactly why black people are where we are now—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
cause we too fucking sensitive and instead of make lemonade out of lemons we just suck the sour juice from the lemons. Wake up.—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
I wouldn't be able to do a joke like that if I didn't know my history or proud of where I came from and who I am. My dad is the biggest—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
militant in the world and he would have loved that joke. My grandmother went to jail for whooping two white men asses for attacking her she—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
she also was 6'2 and strong. And she laughed her ass off. Get over yourself and you might as well get use to it cause I'm good at what I do—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
and I ain't going NOWHERE!!! #bouttowakemfsup—
Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) May 04, 2014
*******
So, yes, a couple of things here:
1.) Rape is the absence of consent, not the absence of melanin.
2.) Being purchased from an auction block and matched with a “Mandingo” to breed babies who will also be enslaved shows the systematic nature of slave rape.
But we’ll just let Jones be great.
*******
After such a huge outcry was raised over Russell Simmons green-lighting the disgusting “Harriet Tubman Sex Tape,” one would think comedians got the message that jokes about the rape culture that flourished during slavery were unacceptable.
Saturday Night Live didn’t get the memo.
During last night’s Weekend Update, comedian Leslie Jones joined host Colin Jost to discuss Academy Award winning actress Lupita Nyong’o being named People Magazine’s Most Beautiful Woman of the Year.
Jones joked that usefulness should be the new standard of beauty, setting up for the painfully embarrassing monologue that followed:
“The way we value Black beauty has changed. I’m single now, 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,” she said.
When Jones was asked by Jost, whom she called a “delectable Caucasian,” did she want to be a slave, she replied:
“I do not want to be a slave. I don’t like working for all you White people now and you pay me. But back in the slave days, my love life would have been better. Master would have hooked me up with the best brotha on the plantation and every nine months I’d be in the corner popping out super babies. I’d just keep popping them out. Shaq. Kobe, LeBron, Kimbo Slice, Sinbad. I would be the number one slave draft pick. All of the plantations would want me” she said. “Now, I can’t get a brotha to take me out for a cheap dinner. Can a bitch get a beef bowl?!!”
Watch it below:
We guess SNL said the trade-off of having Black women join the cast was that they had to joke about slave rape and being forced into motherhood by giving birth to enslaved babies. It’s the American Way, right?
Let’s be clear: Slavery was a holocaust for Black Americans. There has never been one time that the collective trauma of White Americans has been used for laughs. Only marginalized groups are expected to laugh at their pain.
And the fact that a Black woman sat up there shucking and jiving with a White man about the dehumanization of Black women that took place on auction blocks around the country is pathetic.
This is just another example of why cosmetic diversity does not equal true progress.
*****
Follow Kirsten West Savali on Twitter at @KWestSavali.
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SNL Weekend Update: Leslie Jones Is ‘Number One Slave Draft Pick’ [VIDEO] was originally published on newsone.com