‘SNL’ highlights parents’ response to college protests in the open

“Saturday Night Live” mocked parents’ conflicting responses to their students’ participation in outdoor college protests this weekend.

The sketch focused on three parents in a NY1 radio interview, in which they expressed concern about their students’ participation.

“Well, for me, it was hard,” one parent said on the sketch talk show. “Now I support freedom of expression, but I don’t understand what they think they are achieving. This puts a real strain on my relationship and my relationship with my daughter.”

“I want to let my son make his own choices. But to be honest, it’s a bit scary. These protests are becoming more aggressive,” the second parent said.

The third parent, played by Kenan Thompson, expressed his support for the protest — until he learned that his daughter, shown in the drawing, a student at Columbia University, may be participating.

“Well, I think it’s great, you know, it’s great. Nothing makes me prouder than young people using their voices to fight for what they believe in,” Thompson’s character said.

“Your daughter should feel very supported when you’re there,” the interviewer responded.

“What’s this now? When his daughter’s there? ‘No, no, no, man,’ he said, adding. ‘You’re eavesdropping. Alexis Vanessa Roberts better have an ass in class.’

He continued: “Let me know that she is in one of the damned tents, instead of the bedroom that I paid for,” referring to the camps set up by student demonstrators on campus, where many of them sleep in their tents instead of their university dorm rooms, in protest against the war in Gaza. .

The interview said he believed the father was supportive of the student protests.

“I support all of your children protesting. Not my children. My kids know better, shoot. Alexis Vanessa is not crazy.

Thompson’s character then pointed out the high price Columbia University paid in response to the protesters’ demands for a “free Palestine.”

“My job is Alexis Vanessa Roberts. Perfect. She’s not talking about ‘liberating this’ or ‘liberating that’ because I’ll tell you what’s not free: Colombia,” he said to applause from the audience. “Shoot, did you all know they had the nerve to want 68 grand?” Dollars a year?

Thompson’s character also portrayed his daughter’s chosen major, African American Studies.

“I’m out here doing my best to pay all that tuition,” he said, adding, when asked what he does for a living, “I do it all. Uber all day. Uber eats all night. Cutting grass on the weekend. Selling wallets.” Gucci from my trunk Life Coaching on IG I hunt for treats whenever possible.

“All so she can say she got a degree in African American studies. It’s like, ‘Look, girl, you’ve been black your whole life.’ ‘You know what that is,'” he said.

This drawing comes at a time when university protests over the war in Gaza have escalated across campus in recent weeks. At some schools, including Columbia University in New York, police were called to help control protests after officials struggled to control demonstrators.