Blacks Upset about Blackout at Oscars
Blacks Upset about Blackout at Oscars ~ Well, the nominations for this year’s Academy Awards are out, and black people are once again upset, because for the second year in a row, no blacks were nominated for any of the major categories.
Before I address this situation, allow me to say that I have not been invested in the Oscars in quite some time. Honestly, me being indifferent with this particular award was not simply based on its obvious prejudice, although the prejudice played a significant role. I have always been a non-conformist by nature, and to me, even as a child, the Oscars represented conformity at the highest level.
My divorce from the Oscars began in 1992 when Denzel Washington gave the performance of his career in Malcolm X, and was snubbed by the Academy. Ironically, the divorce was finalized in 2001 when Denzel won the Oscar for best actor in Training Day. To me, it screamed that the only way that a black man will qualify for an academy award was to play a role that defiles the image of the black man. Playing the role of a strong black man with conviction, who stood against the darkness of racism and oppression, disqualified one of the greatest performances in the history of film. Yet, Training Day, a role that had significantly less depth than the personality of Malcolm X was awarded an Oscar.
It was if the Academy was saying, that the black man should know his place in the order of things.
Now, blacks are once again upset at the fact that a year that submitted movies, such as Concussion, starring Will Smith, Beasts of No Nation, starring Idris Elba and Creed, starring Michael B. Jordon, did not produce one black actor or actress nomination for any of the major roles. The fact that blacks are even caught off guard by this is shocking to me. It amazes me that blacks are so easily misled by the false narrative of colorblindness in this country.
Blacks Upset about Blackout at Oscars
With the exception of Sidney Poitier being nominated for the Defiant Ones and winning Best Actor for Lilies of the Field, black actors and actresses of the 20th century were mostly overlooked, with a few names being sprinkled in for supporting roles, such as Hattie McDaniel in Gone with the Wind — the farewell salute to the Antebellum South — Louis Gossett, Whoopi Goldberg and Cuba Gooding Jr.
The fact that Cicely Tyson has never won an Academy award is all I need to question the validity and veracity of the Academy Awards. My issue is not with the Academy, it is simply a mechanism of a prejudiced system, a microcosm of a much larger problem. My issue is with the fact that blacks are still looking to white institutions to validate them. They told us that the Academy awards was the ultimate validation of an actor and actress, and we believed them.
We should have a mindset that is focused on building our own, embracing our own, lifting our own, and let them have theirs. It is time out for blacks demanding that white people share their things with us. We need our own things!
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As the actress, Monique, said, we should embrace the Image awards — an award in which we are acknowledged by our own. We devalue awards, like the image awards, that celebrate blacks when we give so much validity to white institutions, such as the Academy Awards. It is time for blacks to stop looking to the white establishment to validate and confirm who we are. Furthermore, it is time that we begin to build our own media systems and mechanisms of engagement.
We continue to show weakness every time that we whine and complain because a white organization or institution has not recognized our accomplishments.
Honestly, Will Smith took on the role of a black doctor who nearly single-handedly brought one of the nation’s most powerful corporations to its knees — pissing off some rather powerful people in the process. Did you actually think that they would celebrate that by awarding him an Oscar for it? As stated in the movie, this doctor took on a corporation so powerful and popular that it has its own day, which has successfully been wrestled away from another powerful corporation — the church!
Idris Elba has been growing in popularity to the point of being considered as a popular replacement to the white image of the James Bond institution — maybe one of the whitest of all representations of white superiority ideology in film. They don’t want to give Michael B. Jordan any type of traction in the industry, because he might do what Monique did and decide to stand on his own and be his own person.
Until blacks turn away from the white establish and determine within ourselves that we are capable of doing extraordinary things without the approbation of non-blacks, we will forever exist within the complex dynamic of an inferiority syndrome that breeds dysfunctionality and weakness. We have all that it takes to build whatever we need, if we simply turn inward. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace, Ph.D.