Did my eyes deceive me? Did that actually happen? Because I'm pretty sure it did, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to. I mean, we don't do stuff like that anymore, right?

The second installment of "SNL Thursday" was OK - arguably better than the first - and had some funny stuff. The debate spoof was great, thanks to the hilarious recasting of Joe the Plumber as an imaginary friend, and the Weekend Update segment had Kristen Wiig's Crazy McCain Rally Woman and a ghost apparently walking right through Seth Meyers sometime during the initial set. (Seriously, having a little trouble getting those lines out last night, Meyers?)

But then things got very uncomfortable when they brought out "The Rev. Jesse Jackson" to comment on how race might impact Obama's election chances. And playing Jackson was Darrell Hammond. A white man. So white, in fact, that he also plays John McCain. And white guys don't come much whiter than John McCain.

Isn't that offensive? To have a white man playing a black civil rights leader? Isn't it at the very least a bad idea that somebody probably should have put a stop to before it even started? Am I alone in this?

To "SNL"'s credit, at least they didn't put Hammond in blackface. As far as I can tell they didn't put any makeup on him at all. (The same is true of Fred Armisen's portrayal of Barack Obama, although this feels different to me because Armisen is at least racially diverse-Japanese/Venezuelan-and also, his Obama impression is awful regardless of his ethnicity.) And nothing even remotely racist was said. If anything, the jokes took potshots at white folks, which I fully support.

But I just think back to the flap Mickey Rooney got for playing a Japanese man in "Breakfast at Tiffany's," or Elizabeth Taylor got for playing an African queen in "Cleopatra." (I realize these references are pretty musty, but I'm having a hard time of thinking up any modern counterparts.) The question remains: Isn't it offensive that a white man is portraying an important black political figure? Is "SNL" saying that there are no black actors qualified to take on the role? The show currently has only one black actor in the repertory cast, Kenan Thompson. So I guess the thinking is that a white guy who can do impressions is a better fit for Jesse Jackson than an obese black man?

I recognize that impressions are what Hammond does. It's ALL he does, really. So it's understandable that he'd be your go-to guy. And maybe I'm looking at this wrong. Maybe it's actually good that the show isn't concerned about race, and instead picked the best actor for the job, no matter if he was white, black, red, purple, or, like Joe the Plumber's invisible friend Simon, a unicorn.

Except race IS still an issue in this country. That was even the point of the skit. And I don't think "SNL" was going for something metatextual here by having a white man play a black man talking about how white people don't vote for black people. I just don't give the show that much credit, because it really hasn't earned it lately. So I'm left wondering, what was "SNL" thinking when they put that skit on? That there are no black actors funny enough to play prominent black figures? Because that's the message I took away from it.