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“Saturday Night Live” catches a backlash for a recent skit about vaccine reluctance in the black community.
This week’s episode tapped “Judas and the Black Messiah” actor Daniel Kaluuya as the host, who opened his monologue with a joke about racism in the British royal family. After that he took part in a sketch that now has doctors and members of the black community crying out scandal.
The sketch featured Kaluuya playing a doctor and the host of a game show called “Will You Take It?” In it, his family members, played by cast members Kenan Thompson, Chris Redd, Ego Nwodim and Punkie Johnson, were offered large sums of money just to agree to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
In the sketch, Kaluuya’s character begins by offering her four family members $ 500 just to take the vaccine. As the sketch progresses, the total eventually grows to $ 20,000, but that’s never enough to alleviate his family member’s reluctance to be vaccinated as nearly 100 million people in the United States received the dose.
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A family member notes that he will start doing this when white people start taking the picture. When he learns that many people have received the vaccine, he ironically notes “white people cannot be trusted.”
The character’s aunt refuses a dose because she says she read on Facebook that Christians cannot be vaccinated. Meanwhile, another parent reveals he would do several things not favorable to coronavirus, such as large gatherings if he won the cash prize, but still refused to take the vaccine despite his extremely high risk.
As Insider notes, it wasn’t long before some doctors scoffed at the sketch for painting a negative picture of the black community as well as for undermining the ongoing work to spread awareness and vaccine availability across the board. communities that the CDC says have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
“How was this skit broadcast?” Dr Uché Blackstock, the founder of Advancing Health Equity, tweeted in response to the sketch. “This is deeply problematic – making fun of black people who refuse the vaccine, especially without any context – past and ongoing racism inside and outside health facilities. You should all know better by now. ”
Emergency physician Benjamin Thomas noted that many members of the black community do not hesitate, but the vaccine is not available in their area.
“It’s no fun, @nbcsnl Playing on stereotypes and generalizations is a dangerous game, especially when 75,000 black lives have been lost to # COVID19,” he wrote. “Polls show more than 80% of black people want to be vaccinated. Access to vaccines >>> Reluctance to vaccines.”
“This skit is irresponsible because it further perpetuates vaccine disparities as being due to black Americans being laughingly ignorant and portraying black healthcare providers as manipulative,” doctor Krys Foster wrote on Twitter. “The more I think about it, the more my stomach turns.”
Medical experts weren’t the only ones upset with the “SNL” sketch, with many viewers taking to Twitter to express their displeasure with the show’s portrayal of the black community.
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Daniel Kaluuya starred in a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit about vaccine reluctance in the black community.
(Will Heath / NBC)
“Since my own governor pushed the narrative that people in my predominantly black county just don’t want the vaccine, this wasn’t the best skit to feature on a show like SNL,” a spectator wrote.
“There are LOTS of people, not JUST black people, who are skeptical of the vaccine, why was it necessary to only center black people? It could easily have included many other members of the SNL cast too, in doing this , the vibe, everything about it, was racist, ” added another person.
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“I was angry with AF about the SNL outline because I follow a number of black doctors who have worked tirelessly to get accurate vaccine information to black communities. It was a cheap shot, no pun intended ”. noted a third person.
“Rich whites come to black neighborhoods to get the limited amount of vaccine we have and SNL plays on racist stereotypes …” another wrote.
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As of Tuesday morning, the new coronavirus infected more than 131,843,435 people in 192 countries and territories, resulting in at least 2,861,677 deaths. In the United States, all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia have reported confirmed cases of COVID-19, totaling more than 30,785,415 illnesses and at least 555,615 deaths.
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