After Alabama, Late Night's Amber Ruffin has one message for white America: "You're welcome"
After black voters in Alabama voted for Democrat Doug Jones and against bigot and accused child molester Republican Roy Moore to the tune of 98 per cent, Late Night With Seth Meyers’ writer, performer, future sitcom star, and general force of charm and delight in the world Amber Ruffin took to the stage for an Alabama election post mortem. As Meyers noted in his own analysis, some 70 per cent of white voters in the state went all-in for the guy who said that Muslims shouldn’t be able to serve in government, that being gay should be a crime, that things were better before women could vote and slavery was abolished, and, oh yeah, is credibly accused of being a sexual predator of underage girls. Meanwhile, said Ruffin, not only did black voters turn their backs and walk away from that bigoted mess almost unanimously (cue Waiting To Exhale clip of Angela Bassett striding away from burning car), black women turned out in massive numbers, and the nightmare scenario of having Roy Moore as a U.S. Senator was narrowly averted. “As a black woman, I just have two things I want to say about last night’s election,” exclaimed Ruffin, “You’re! Welcome!”
Ruffin graciously accepted the, as she noted, largely white audience’s grateful applause and explained how the unprecedented turnout was just another damned thing black women in Alabama have to put up with to make their lives liveable. Counting off everyday obstacles like “systemic racism, the gender pay gap, the school-to-prison pipeline, and humidity,” along with the fact that, to get to the polling place, they have to walk past “like 18 Confederate statues,” Ruffin embodied their weary dedication to “saving America” with a resignedly resolute, “All right.” Going on to describe her momentary panic at waking to #blackwomen trending on Twitter this morning (“Oh God, are we illegal now?”), Ruffin was relieved to see that there’s been an outpouring of thanks for averting this seemingly inevitable disaster of common sense, ideology, and morality. Still, as she reminded white Americans, “When you’re done thanking us, why don’t you try voting for us and putting a few of us in office so we can run this shit!” (Cue well-earned primal-but-still-adorable scream.)