In the past couple of months, there's been an immense amount of controversy about the correlation between race and Oscar nominations. Actors like Will Smith, Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Snoop Dogg have publicly expressed their negative feelings about there not being any African-American nominees in the running to win an Oscar for any category. As a black woman, I can understand the frustration that this could cause. I could especially understand because racial tension has been at an extreme high because of the police brutality that has been in the limelight now more than ever! There have been numerous movies this year that black actors and actresses have starred in or had supporting roles in. So, many are wondering: Why are there no black people nominated? After considering a couple different factors, I can say that this is one issue that shouldn't involve race.

To build a little credibility for myself here, I researched all of the movies made in 2015, and narrowed them down to a list of 15 movies that included primary and secondary actors that are African-American. I have seen 11 of the 15 movies. Here it is:

1. Hot Tub Time Machine 2
2. Focus
3. Bad Asses on the Bayou
4. The Gunman
5. Get Hard
6. Home
7. Furious 7
8. Brotherly Love
9. Mad Max: Fury Road
10. Ted 2
11. Concussion
12. Dope
13. Blackbird
14. Creed
15. Straight Outta Compton

Now honestly, disregarding race, which of these movies is actually worthy of an Oscar? Personally, the only performance that I think could be worthy of an Oscar is that of Will Smith's in "Concussion" and MAYBE "Focus."

In my opinion, it should be a bigger issue that there's a lack of black actors and actresses in movies. In reality, the odds for a white actor to win an Oscar is higher than that of a black actor because there are more white actors in Hollywood.

As I said before, I can completely understand why someone would think this is a race issue; but I also think that person would be considering the factors at face value. To actually decide whether it's an issue of race, one would have to evaluate the different factors, such as how many movies were made in 2015 that contained black actors in comparison to how many were made total and also, were the performances in those movies up to the standards of what it means to be "Oscar-worthy." So before you jump on the racism bandwagon, just be sure to consider the facts then decide.

Thanks for listening, lemme know what you think. Peace.