Donald Trump to host Saturday Night Live
Dylan Petit-Jacques
Staff Writer
Former “Apprentice” host and current frontrunner for the republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump, will return to NBC to host Saturday Night Live on Nov. 7.
This comes as a surprise to many people around the country due to the fact that Trump was “fired” from “The Apprentice” two months ago, following his inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants.
For those who do not remember, during a news conference to announce that he would run for President, Trump said this about Mexican immigrants, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems.
They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting.”
Trump’s statement caused a stir amongst the Latino community, and those around the country. In a response to Trump’s comments and the backlash, NBC decided to let go of Trump, who was the host of one of the most popular shows in the history of the network.
In a letter sent to NBC, the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA), composed of 40 of the leading national and regional Hispanic civil rights and public policy organizations, other elected officials and prominent Hispanic Americans, made it very clear that there were “flabbergasted that Saturday Night Live (SNL) has invited Donald Trump to host the November 7, 2015 show.”
In the letter, the NHLA stated, “Donald Trump has yet to apologize for his bigoted comments about Mexican immigrants. Allowing Trump to host SNL will legitimize and validate his anti-Latino comments . . . We are appalled that you would enable Trump’s hateful speech for nothing less than a ratings ploy and ask that you rescind the SNL invitation.”
They continued, saying, “How can SNL justify casting zero Latinas over 41 seasons and only two Latinos over the same period, while promoting Trump’s divisive speech toward Latinos? . . . On one hand, Comcast is reaching out to Latino viewers on its English language platforms… while it uses the other hand to face slap us with this unconscionable invitation to Trump. It is unconscionable that a major U.S. corporation – who needs Latino viewers – is acting so clueless.”
The NHLA is not incorrect by saying that NBC is only inviting the GOP frontrunner to host the live sketch show as a “ratings ploy.” One could also make the argument that Trump was “fired” from “The Apprentice” as a “ratings ploy.”
The sad reality of NBC’s decision to allow Donald Trump to host SNL is that NBC and SNL is clearly apathetic about the Hispanic community in this country. As the NHLA mentioned in its letter to the network, only two Hispanic men and zero Hispanic women have been casted in the 41-year history of SNL.
This is appalling due to the fact that the Latino community represents 56 percent of the net population growth from 2000-2010 according to NHLA.
It is more than likely that SNL will respect the request of the NHLA and disinvite Trump from hosting the show.
Allowing Trump to host the show not only promotes his anti-immigration agenda which is clearly unfavorable amongst the Latino community, but gives the network bad publicity in spite of the high ratings it will receive if Trump continues to be the schedule host on Nov. 7.
