Saturday Night Live Dragged for Racist AAVE Skit

Photo courtesy of SNL/ Instagram.

The Saturday Night Live cast performed a racist skit on Saturday while trying to mock Generation Z speech. The SNL cast ended up mocking African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) instead and was quickly dragged on social media.

The skit, called “Gen Z Hospital,” included SNL host and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, as well as cast members Heidi Gardner, Mikey Day, Kate McKinnon, Ego Nwodim, Melissa Villaseñor and Bowen Yang. Musk played a doctor talking to a group of Gen Z friends whose “bestie” was in the hospital.

SNL’s skit was criticized for whitewashing AAVE and calling it Gen Z. Terms used in the unfortunate sketch included “Bro,” “Bruh,” “Dead a**,” “He’s gonna catch hands,” and “Gang gang.”

These terms originated as African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) or African Ebonics and basically means Black speech. The foundations of the language are believed to originate from enslaved Africans brought to British colonies.

After one Twitter user wrote that the sketch was “embarrassing,” another Twitter user wrote, “Gen Z hospital isn’t embarrassing. It’s racist as f**k.”

One Twitter user shared a post that said the sketch was “cringe,” and also noted the skit’s cultural appropriation.

“1. this is horrible. SNL is tanking. 2. the majority of terminology used in this sorry excuse for a skit is AAVE. Black people can’t have s**t, its weird to see our language referred to as gen z/stan slang & see white screenwriters try to create pieces using it boo,” she wrote.

Another user noted how the skit used Caucasian actors to appropriate Black vernacular.

Aditya Mukerjee wrote “the appropriation of AAVE by white people is gross, the mislabeling of AAVE as a “Gen Z phenomenon” is also gross, but on top of that, the SNL skit reads like they just pulled a list of terms from UrbanDictionary and sprinkled them in, not caring that AAVE has a defined grammar!”

Superdave Houdini wrote, “Problem with the GenZ skit is that its all Aave and low-key #Snl … pic.twitter.com/KPwiKDdtte

Another user said that SNL “showed their racist A**es.”

Yves Ain’t Sorry wrote that the SNL sketch was whitewashed.

Saeed Jones had few but apt words for the SNL skit. “Honestly, f*ck y’all.”

You can see the skit below and decide for yourself.