So unless you’ve been living under a rock for this past couple of weeks, I guess you already know about the Oscars situation. If you are one of the people living under that rock I’ll tell you what happened: There were no black actors or actresses nominated for an award at the Oscars this year and Jada Pinkett-Smith made a video about it. In the video she talked about how the Oscars are a white-washed award show and that others from the black community shouldn’t be supporting it either. To end the video she said how she and her husband Will Smith wouldn’t be attending the Oscars this year and encouraged other actors of color to boycott the Oscars in the process. Ever since she made that video people have been going back and forth with each other by saying, “She’s right, we should be boycotting the Oscars” while other people say, “No the Oscars are just being fair." You want my honest opinion? I don’t really don’t care that much about it.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Pinkett-Smith and I like watching the Oscars. But truth be told, the reason why I’m not as angry as everyone else about this whole Oscars thing is because I don’t see it coming out in a good way when it’s all said and done. I mean do I think the Oscars have snubbed a lot of black actors and actresses out of awards that they deserved? Hell yeah. I’ve seen this happen for years. But let’s say people do boycott the Oscars until they start nominating more actors of color in their categories. Then what? People are not going to be like "Yeah he got that award because he is a great actor," they’re going to be like “He got the award because he was black."
Now as much as I hate to say this, but I never liked affirmative action. I mean yeah, affirmative action helps people of color get jobs, but I always felt like it was another way for people to rub it in their face and say, “Well you only got this job because you’re black, or Hispanic, or Asian." That’s how I feel the Oscars are going to end up being. I don’t know about anyone else, but I want people to give me something because they felt they deserved it, not because of skin color.
On a serious note, I think another reason why I don’t really care that much about this whole Oscars thing is because we have too much other stuff going on in the black community that is affecting us. While there are some rich actors being angry at the Oscars about not receiving an award, I’m more worried about other stuff, like not getting shot by a racist cop for a being a young black male. Do you see where I’m going with this? Yes, it is sad that some actors of color weren’t nominated this year, we should be focusing on other stuff that is affecting our community. If they want to use their fame and power to boycott something, try doing it to stop police brutality against unarmed blacks, then I’ll be more dedicated to the matter at hand. But for now, that’s all I have to say about this subject. Peace.
