This weekend, Scandal‘s Kerry Washington hosted Saturday Night Live, and the long-running sketch comedy used her presence as the occasion to comment on the very notable absence of African-American women on the cast.

Since Maya Rudolph’s departure from the show, SNL has not hired an African-American woman to the cast, despite ample opportunities to do so. Its writing staff, like its cast, is mostly white and male.

The show, to its credit, seems to be aware of the issue. In the cold open on Saturday, Washington played Michelle Obama opposite Jay Pharaoh’s Barack. Then, a staffer came into the room to say that Oprah was just outside, requiring an exasperated Washington to rush off stage for a quick costume change. As the on-stage actors waited for her to return, the joke became explicit via an on-screen crawl in which the writers apologized to Kerry Washinton for the number of black women she’d be required to play during the show, citing her considerable range as an actress—and the cast’s complete lack of African American women.

It was a clever, fourth-wall-breaking move. In a nice grace-note, the writers even acknowledged another aspect to the show’s diversity issue: the resulting requirement that the cast’s black men play female characters. Kenan Thompson, who in the past has played characters like Whoopi Goldberg, has recently said that he’ll no longer play female characters, no doubt aware of the entertainment industry’s shameful history of denigrating black men by requiring them to play in drag.

And at one point in the sketch, six Matthew McConaugheys came on stage, a nod to the cast’s overabundance of white men.

It was a smart and relevant sketch—but is it enough? Slate’s Willa Paskin says no, and I’m inclined to agree. The show seemed to acknowledge this by ultimately bringing Al Sharpton—the real Al Sharpton—on stage to conclude, acidly, that nothing had been learned.

It’s a shame that SNL hasn’t been more out front on this issue. Lorne Michaels’ efforts to recruit more female comics has given us such luminaries as Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, and Kristen Wiig. The comedy landscape is richer for their presence. SNL alums go on to succeed in primetime TV and movies. Just imagine how rich and vibrant the comedy scene might be five or ten years from now if SNL decided to take the initiative in fixing its diversity issue. Hopefully Saturday’s opening sketch is a signal that the show’s about to do just that.