I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... – Martin Luther King
It’s Martin Luther King Day, and all across the land people are once again expressing outrage over the lack of diversity in this year’s Oscar nominees. It’s like 2015, the first time Hollywood people of color protested #OscarsSoWhite.
2015: Obama joined David Oyelowo, who portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in the movie "Selma," and Oprah, who produced the film, in protest against the Academy’s racism.
This year USA Today was compelled to ask “Is this progress?”
Monday morning's Oscar nominations delivered more frustrating certainties than happy surprises.
Black British actress Cynthia Erivo was the lone person of color nominated across 20 acting categories…The rest of the acting nominations were white…And out of five directing nominations, all nominees were male.
But the snubs. They span Jennifer Lopez ("Hustlers"), Eddie Murphy ("Dolemite Is My Name"), Awkwafina ("The Farewell"), Lupita Nyong'o ("Us"), Song Kang-ho ("Parasite"), Alfre Woodard ("Clemency"), Jamie Foxx ("Just Mercy") and Zhao Shuzhen ("The Farewell").
To put the shock in perspective, 28 out of 32 industry experts on awards prognosticating site Gold Derby predicted Lopez would receive a nod, and 20 out of 32 predicted Awkwafina's name would be among nominees.
Just to keep things in perspective I would point out that 99 out of 100 political experts on polling prognostication sites also predicted that Hillary would win in 2016, but she didn’t, did she?
I don’t know what’s more pathetic about this odd entitlement attitude: the fact that the Race Hustlers have imposed a de facto racial quota system on every aspect of our society despite the Supreme Court having ruled such quotas unconstitutional, or the irony that 50 years after Martin Luther King’s death those same (Black) Race Hustlers – some of them close friends and colleagues of Dr. King – refuse to let us judge people by the content of their character and the quality of their work rather than the color of their skin. For their part they seem quite satisfied “staring into the starless midnight of racism.”
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