What's makes A Black Lady Sketch Show so groundbreaking is that the existence of white people is taken for granted

Slate

"A Black Lady Sketch Show is not a Black Panther simulacrum where the absence of whiteness is, at times, more keenly felt than a utopian vision of blackness," says Rachelle Hampton. "In the same way that it is assumed normal that nary a black person appears in the majority of Nancy Meyers’ extensive oeuvre or in any of the Lord of the Rings movies, the fact that there aren’t even white extras requires no explanation. Without white people on screen—and with men allowed only an inconsequential line or two every other skit—there is no one who these women have to make their experiences legible to but themselves. There is often a feeling when watching a show or a movie with a predominately black cast, that something is being explained or translated to a presumed white audience, and thus a sense of intimacy, of accuracy is lost. In not even attempting to translate, A Black Lady Sketch Show only gains."