It’s been a great year thus far for black women in comedy, and it looks like it’s about to get even better.
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Amber Ruffin, an alumna of Second City in Chicago, will be joining Late Night With Jimmy Fallon as a staff writer—and with that will win the title of the first black woman, and the first woman of color, to write on staff for a late-night network talk show, the New York Observer reports.
While it may be shocking to think that no late-night talk show has ever had an on-staff writer who happens to be a woman of color before, Ruffin’s new gig is a step toward correcting this oversight.
Apparently Ruffin was chosen from the same group that auditioned to become a Saturday Night Live cast member—a role that Sasheer Zamata ultimately snatched. However, SNL did not stop there, also bringing on two other applicants from that pool—LaKendra Tookes and Leslie Jones—as staff writers. The moves have helped transform the public view of the late-night comedy sketch show, which had faced harsh criticism for its lack of diversity.
It will be interesting to see if this trend continues throughout the year.
Read more at the New York Observer.
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