Comedian Dave Chappelle hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live since the election — and gave a profound speech on the black community, racism, and the history of the U.S. presidency.
The last couple minutes of Dave Chappelle's #ChappelleOnSNL monologue. pic.twitter.com/PHyc2bbtay
— Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) November 13, 2016
“A few weeks ago, I went to the White House for a party,” Chappelle said. “It was the first time I had been there in many years, and it was very exciting. And BET [Black Entertainment Television] had sponsored the party, so everyone there was black, and it was beautiful.
He continued on, about what the party meant to him, given the history of the U.S. presidency:
I walked through the gates, you know I’m from Washington, so I saw the bus stop — well the corner where the bus stop used to be, where I used to catch the bus to school and dream about nights like tonight. It was a really really beautiful night. At the end of the night, everyone went into the West Wing of the White House, and there was a huge party, and everybody in there was black, except for Bradley Cooper for some reason. And on the walls were pictures of all the presidents of the past.
Now, I’m not sure if this is true, but to my knowledge the first black person that was officially invited to the White House was Frederick Douglass. They stopped him at the gates. Abraham Lincoln had to walk out himself and escort Frederick Douglass into the White House. And it didn’t happen again, as far as I know, until Roosevelt was president. When Roosevelt was president, he had a black guy over, and got so much flak from the media, that he literally said “I will never have a nigger in this house again.”
I thought about that, and I looked at that room and I saw all those black faces and Bradley. And I saw how happy everybody was, these people who had been historically disenfranchised. And it made me feel hopeful, and it made me feel proud to be an American, and it made me very happy about the prospects of our country. So in that spirit, I’m wishing Donald Trump luck, and I’m going to give him a chance, and we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one too.
Saturday’s episode came after the election of Donald Trump as president — an election that has led to both “victory” parties by the Klu Klux Klan and protests around the country. Expected to offer comedic relief, SNL instead took a more somber tone.
The episode began with Kate McKinnon, as Hillary Clinton, playing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” on piano. At the end of the song, McKinnon looked at the audience and said, “I’m not giving up, and neither should you.”
https://twitter.com/nbcsnl/status/797673802805018625/video/1
The episode also included comedian Chris Rock, who was in a skit about a Democratic viewing party on election night, and musical guests Busta Rhymes and A Tribe Called Quest, who performed the song “We The People” in honor of Phife Dawg, one of the group’s founding members who passed away earlier this year.