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One decade after “Saturday Night Live” began in 1975, it added the first black woman to its primary cast. Danitra Vance, a gifted downtown actress and Second City veteran, lasted just one season.

“Saturday Night Live” later cast Ellen Cleghorne (1991-95) and Maya Rudolph, a biracial star who left in 2007. And that’s it. In this context, it’s no wonder that the cast member Kenan Thompson set off a debate this month when he explained the show’s dearth of black women this way: “It’s just a tough part of the business,” he told TV Guide. “Like in auditions, they just never find ones that are ready.”

Let me state the obvious: That “Saturday Night Live,” once home of the Not Ready for Prime Time players, has hired only three black women for its main cast— in addition to Yvonne Hudson, a featured player in 1980 — in four decades says more about the show than about the talent pool. That doesn’t mean that the show’s executive producer, Lorne Michaels, discriminates so much as he doesn’t put a premium on this kind of diversity.

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– http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/arts/television/for-snl-cast-being-diverse-may-be-better-than-being-ready.html?ref=todayspaper