Ken Berwitz
There are reports that some “A-list” movie personalities – Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith among them – will be boycotting the Oscars because there are no Black nominees this year.
If the nominations were determined by a committee – especially one with a history of exclusionary decisions – I would be supporting them.
But this is not done by committee. The nominees are chosen by vote – and every member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is given a ballot. You can click here to read the specific procedures which are employed.
So if no Black actors or actresses were selected as Oscar nominees this year, it is because the members – currently numbering over 7,000 – collectively did not feel any Black actors or actresses deserved a nomination this year.
That is not racism, it is popular vote.
Would Mr. Lee and Ms. Smith feel better if an Affirmative Action plan were put in place which guaranteed some number of Black actors and actresses were nominated regardless of how the Academy members evaluated their performances? Would a Black actor or actress feel especially good about winning one of those Oscars?
This a case of what I have called Unreal Racism – i.e. racism which is invented, and doesn\’t exist at all.
Time to accept things at they are, Spike. You too, Jada.
