Spike Lee, Will Smith, and Jada Pinkett Smith made the decision to boycott this year's Academy Awards for a very superficial reason -- no black actors or actresses were nominated for an award.
Will Smith's movie "Concussion" was not nominated, and Smith himself was not nominated for an acting award. Instead of acknowledging that it was not as big and probably not as well known as other movies that did receive nominations, the Hollywood elites think it must be racism since Smith is black.
What about the movies featuring a predominantly white cast and all the white actors that didn't get nominated?
Ice Cube, the rapper who was played by O’Shea Jackson, Jr. in "Straight Outta Compton," opposed the Oscars boycott. He said choosing to boycott the Oscars for such a superficial reason was like "crying about not having enough icing on your cake. It's just ridiculous." He said he does not feel any reason to be angry over the lack of black people nominated because movies are made for the fans to enjoy, not the approval of the Academy. "Straight Outta Compton," which was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, was an extremely popular movie that a lot of people were talking about, which is something to be proud of in Ice Cube’s opinion
But apparently the Smiths need an Academy Award nomination in order to feel validated.
Stacey Dash of Fox News, who is also African American, criticized the boycotters as well. She said, "We have to make up our minds. Either we want to have segregation or integration, and if we don’t want segregation, then we have to get rid of channels like BET and the BET Awards and the Image Awards, where you’re only awarded if you’re black. If it were the other way around, we’d be up in arms. It’s a double standard."
The hashtag #OscarsSoWhite has appeared on Twitter, claiming snubbing of African Americans by the Academy and demonizing its lack of "diversity." It is funny how we never see the hashtag, #BETAwardsSoBlack. If blacks need to be nominated for Oscars, maybe the BET Awards should have a quota of white celebrities nominated.
It is hypocrisy at its finest.
Will Smith was not nominated because his movie was not as good as others. Not because he is black. Many black people have been nominated for Oscars and have won them because of their talent and good movies. Racism and segregation will always exist as long as there are people looking for discrimination anywhere, and creating it when there is none to be found.
Morgan Freeman's words from a "60 Minutes" interview years ago ring truer than ever -- there will always be segregation as long as people continue to talk about racism and look for it in everything, whether it is there or not. In the interview, he condemned the idea of Black History Month, calling it "ridiculous," saying "black history is American history" and the way to get rid of racism is to "stop talking about it. I'm going to stop calling you a white man, and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man."
Why don't we take the advice of people like Morgan Freeman (who has been nominated for and won several Oscars) and just call each other people and Americans, rather than "black" or "white?"
