SNL’s cold open this week hosted a fictional morning news program in Minnesota in which awkward differences of opinion between anchors highlight the differences in how white and black Americans view the trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, and the state of racial progress.
After an initial series of similarities between the White Anchors, played by Kate McKinnon and Alex Moffat, and the Black Anchors, played by Ego Nwodim and Kenan Thompson, over how damning the evidence against Chauvin is, they run into trouble.
“It sounds like we all agree that Derek Chauvin can not walk away from this,” McKinnon said optimistically.
“Weeellllll,” Thompson responds with a crooked face.
When Thompson explains that the defense emphasizes Floyd’s drug use as a tactic to ‘create doubt where there is none’, McKinnon replies, ‘exactly and there is no way the jury is going to fall for it.’
‘I do not say that,” Thompson says as he tries to lower expectations.
“Let’s say we’ve seen this movie before,” reads Nwodim.
As Vox’s German Lopez recently explained, police are prosecuted in less than 2 percent of the fatal shootings, and a significantly smaller amount is found guilty of a crime.
Moffat later pleaded: “You can at least admit that this country has made a lot of progress recently, yes?”
“For whom?” Ask Thompson skeptically.
“When?” says Nwodim.
The news anchors are desperate to find a common ground and ask the weatherman, played by Chris Redd, to weigh in.
Asked about the outcome of the trial, Redd said: “It is clear that this is an open and decided case.”
“Thank you, yes!” Moffat says.
“That being said, he’s a white police officer in Minnesota, so I would recommend a subject with salaries,” says Redd.
As the panel goes to possible solutions, they abstractly agree on the need for concrete solutions, but if it becomes specific, there is friction again.
“And we’re starting with compensation,” says Nwodim.
“Just wait a minute!” Answer Moffat.
“It was a good trap,” says Thompson.
“I thought I had him,” Nwodim declared.
As the panel tries to move on to another piece of news, McKinnon announces: ‘We lost royals yesterday’, referring to the death of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
“Yes, the rapper DMX is dead,” Nwodim says as he nods in agreement.