Family of Pearl Harbor hero Doris Miller calls out SNL for mocking him on "Weekend Update"

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Last week on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the U.S. Navy announced an aircraft carrier will be named after Doris Miller, an African-American sailor who moved wounded soldiers to safety and manned a machine gun to repel Japanese planes during the Pearl Harbor attack. Miller, who died in 1943 during World War II when his U.S. Navy ship was hit by a Japanese submarine, earned the Navy Cross for bravery for his actions during Pearl Harbor. On SNL's "Weekend Update," Michael Che brought up the honor, saying: "The U.S Navy has for the first time ever named an aircraft carrier in honor of an African American sailor. He must've been pretty brave joining the Navy not knowing how to swim...the ship will be called the U.S.S. guy from the Village People." Thomas Bledsoe, Miller's great nephew, said he and his family watched the segment "in horror and disbelief at the level of insensitivity and racist undertones, in addition, to have a black American doing the segment does not provide a pass to the inappropriateness of the segment. Sadly, the writers and producers are most likely not aware of the historical actions of a national hero, that could have been googled." Bledsoe added that SNL decided to "take a story that united many and make a mockery of a National War Hero that died for this country."