Censored.
As I've mentioned before in this blog, African-Americans do not represent people of color. If an African-American wins an Oscar, that does not mean an Hispanic-American, Asian-American, Native American, Arab-American has won an Oscar.
To say that people of color won half the Oscars in the major categories is misleading, and I'll explain why now:
[The following was removed as a review from Yelp.com because it was judged "not primarily relevant to a consumer experience." The real reason, though, was that the review touched a "sensitive nerve" for the Yelp staff in talking about the inequality unacknowledged by so many Americans. So much for tolerance and freedom of expression: Political correctness always wins with these people]
On Sunday night, African-Americans swept the Oscars with the Best Picture going to a film directed by a black person, while the Best Documentary went to a film made by an African-American woman. The Adapted Screenplay went to another black man, while the Supporting Actress went to a Kenyan-born black woman. This was almost half the number of the eight principal categories.
What about, instead, five Asian-Americans or five Hispanic Americans winning in those same categories? What about even just ONE Asian-American winning?
As it turned out, a Mexican-born man won the Best Director Oscar. No Asian-American, Native American, or Arab-American won.
"You can be behind the camera but not in front of it..." for Hispanics or Asian-Americans. (Ang Lee won Best Director last year for "The Life of Pi").
The night was reminiscent of a decade ago when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry won a sweep of both the top acting prizes.
As I've also pointed out, African-Americans make up just 12% of the U.S. population. Hollywood obviously finds African-Americans and their "cause" irresistible to the exclusion of other minorities.
No Asian-American has EVER been nominated in the lead acting categories (by contrast, a couple dozen African-Americans have been, mostly in the past two decades). The last time an Asian-American was nominated for an acting award was about a decade ago.
Sunday night was a bit like watching the Democratic presidential nominating convention. A third African-American with a real "minority" of other racial/ethnic minorities--a sprinkling here and there, so to speak.
What is even more bizarre is that in California, the home of the film industry (Hollywood), blacks constitute only 6% of the population, while Asian-Americans are double that number at 13%, and Hispanics (of any race) 38% while whites are 74% of the population.*
We want to see faces on our small (televisions) AND large (movie theater) screens representative of our nation, don't we?
The top loading of African-Americans, as in the world of professional sports, does not advance equality.
It only advances African-Americans. It does nothing for other minorities and may in fact hinder them.
Wake up, Hollywood!
Wake up, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Native-Americans, gays, Europeans, Asians, Latin Americans.....you're still largely invisible to most of America, including Hollywood, for whom you're relegated to third-balcony status.
Boycott the Oscars...which year after year have become the Black Oscars to showcase African-Americans.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_California
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