Ken Berwitz
Let me start with a question: can you resolve racism by creating more racism? Personally, I don\’t think you can.
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Now another question: can you resolve perceived racism by self-segregation? Personally, I don\’t think that is even possible.
But, if you believe Tre\’vell Anderson\’s article in the Los Angeles Times, that is exactly what some Black people in the entertainment industry are considering.
Here are the first few paragraphs:
They gathered at the Beverly Wilshire, the men in tuxes, thewomen draped in evening gowns. The finest black talent in Hollywood was therethat night in 2002, Quincy Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman, JamesLassiter, Doug McHenry and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs among them.
It was an annual gathering held at one posh hotel or anotheron the eve of the Academy Awards. Officially, it was called the Tree of LifeAwards. But most people called it by its informal name: the Black Oscars.
“It was always a celebration of what accomplishmentsblack people had done in the film industry,” said actress and directorDebbie Allen, who was honored by the Black Oscars and its sister event, theBlack Emmys. “Sound, music, directors, actors, whatever your participationwas, you were honored.”
The annual event was launched in 1981 at a time when theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences rarely recognized blackachievements. By that time, only 27 African Americans had been nominated in the52-year history of the Oscars, with only three winning. The Tree of Life Awardsended in 2007.
But with the academy nominating an all-white slate of actorsfor the second year in a row, Gil Robertson, president of the African AmericanFilm Critics Assn., says the circumstances that prompted the Black Oscars areprevalent again.
I have another question for you: what would a reinstatement of the Tree of Life awards communicate to the public?
That Black performers, as a group, have decided that there has to be a certain number of nominees and wins for people who share their skin color, or they will create their own awards, where ONLY people of their skin color win?
Does that strike a blow for racial tolerance? Inclusion?
There was a time in Hollywood when Black performers could not get decent parts and could not win a thing. Until Sidney Portier\’s win for Lillies Of The Field in 1964, the one and only Oscar won by a Black performer was Hattie McDaniel\’s portrayal of “Mammy” – a slave – in Gone With The Wind.
Thankfully, those days are long gone. It is no longer uncommon for Black performers to be nominated and for Black performers to win.
And if, for the past two years, there have been no Black nominees for acting, it is not racism, it is not because a few White people sat around and excluded Black people based on their melanin level, it is because the over 7,000 members of the Academy, in total, did not think any Black performers deserved nominations.
That is why I hope, for the sake of Black actors and actresses, no such “Black only” award program is reinstated. All it will accomplish is to “prove” to racists all over the country that Black people can\’t compete with Whites – i.e. they are inferior – so they have to self-segregate. Which is ugly and untrue.
Is that really the message Black entertainment people want to send?
