\u201cThe Oscars have been all white for two years,\u201d Malcom Harris of Al Jazeera writes, denouncing the whiteness of this year\u2019s Oscar nominees. Everyone knows the limit to being white is one year, how could this have been allowed to happen?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Academy has no one else to blame for all-white nominees,\u201d Harris said. Apparently, no one else is involved in the process of the Oscars. The producers, directors, talent, all of the above and beyond are abdicated from any and all responsibility. Hollywood\u2019s racist, homophobic business model is scapegoated because the Academy judges the results of those profitable, yet costly decisions.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not convinced we\u2019re thinking things through, I think we\u2019re thinking to get through. Life is incredibly complex and busy at that\u2014we all do a lot of responding and often times that obscures reality.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s specifically because of this that I have a good portion of sympathy for those that are outraged. Not because I agree whatsoever with their response or contentions, but because understanding massive issues like diversity is a headache.<\/p>\n
The odds are deliberately stacked against your average person anymore when it comes to the media. Objective reporting is a thing of the past for the majority of networks, which means essentially that turning on the television to your news center is less likely to give you information to process and more likely to give you a perception to respond to.<\/p>\n
This deliberate and fine agitation from this kind of exposure creates the tendency of susceptibility to polarization. The news is not created for the viewer to learn or to think critically of, instead, the news is a business driven by ratings and profit.<\/p>\n
For these reasons, I can understand how people are so conditioned to respond to certain subjects with animosity and irrationality. When animosity and irrationality creates ratings and translates to profit, tackling an issue with a level head is almost daunting. Let\u2019s think through the #OscarsSoWhite controversy.<\/p>\n
Harris\u2019 article pairs the negative connotation for fault with the idea of \u201cwhiteness.\u201d Right there is a good moment for some perception checking.<\/p>\n
If we continue to market the idea that if something contains many white people or majority people, it is bad, we\u2019re going to keep throwing away all hopes we have to better ourselves and country through ameliorating issues of race.<\/p>\n
Is something that appears to be composed of all black people some establishment that must be diversified? Or are the only things expected to be changed something labeled \u201cwhite?\u201d If we can replace one racial identity with another, and the concept suddenly applies outside the realm of logic, there is an oppressive element inherent to the deduction.<\/p>\n
Harris and many others are outraged at the supposed whiteness of the Oscars, boycotting and otherwise expressing their concern at the alleged lack of diversity of actors.<\/p>\n
However, Harris later goes on to disqualify his statements by adding \u201cwith the exception of last year\u2019s Best Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inratiu, the nominees were all white.\u201d Surely, a category is exclusive when you specifically revoke facts that conflict with your agenda. Just like this article is anonymous other than the fact I authored it publicly. Also, the Oscars this year are all men, except for the women, and so on.<\/p>\n
This is of particular interest because a majority of the movement is upset that no minorities are nominated this year. This is of course, in exception to the minorities that are nominated this year, and the minorities that continue to be nominated over the history of the modern Oscars.<\/p>\n
However, these minorities are excluded because they\u2019re not useful to perpetuating this idea that the Academy is racist, and that they are racist because they are white.<\/p>\n
Also, this same Academy must suddenly now have become racist, as their history of award winners shows the population of blacks in America to be equal or under the amount of award winners, by percentage to the whole.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s either that or this whole controversy is some made up distraction, but what are the odds of that?<\/p>\n
However, the perspective of diversity that concerns Harris and like-minded people is a diversity that simply means black. Sexual minorities, transgender or even simply women are left out of these diversities. Conveniently ignored are the Hispanic and Latino nominees. They\u2019re white enough for the critics, and deserve no celebration.<\/p>\n
The best nonblack, nonwhite actors can hope for from left-leaning press is to be placed after a \u201cbut,\u201d as an exclusion.<\/p>\n
Here we arrive at the fallacy of diversity: by the very nature of diversity, there is no beginning, end, or measuring capacity. The very concept excludes a state of success. Right now, many are striving for a destination that\u2019s entirely impossible. Nothing is \u201cdiverse\u201d to the point of it being successful. This is due to a large number of reasons, the closest being proximity.<\/p>\n
Proximity will control at least 95 percent of your entire experience in life, as it\u2019s all you ever deal with. The proximity of a space is composed of people, in this case the number of films considered by the Academy. Within this space exists an array of individuals, whom we like to sensationalize by categorizing by perceived race. That\u2019s what\u2019s selling now.<\/p>\n
The demographics of America are changing, with the Hispanic population growing at the largest rate. As Harris writes, around 60 percent of America is non-Hispanic white, the black population\u2019s around 13 percent, and somewhere the supposed total nonwhite population sits around 40 percent.<\/p>\n
Some bad math was done, leading researchers to suppose that the Oscars being \u201call white\u201d and being so twice in a row is a probability of 1 in 100,000 times, clearly suggesting that something other than a mathematical model that ignores proximity, individuality and societal forces entirely, is responsible for this injustice.<\/p>\n
The study suggests that if 20 people were pulled randomly from America, those are simply the odds that all 20 would be white. Let\u2019s briefly deconstruct why this analysis belongs in the nearest available garbage can if it\u2019s just going to be pilfered through by some biased journalist.<\/p>\n
Math is a wonderful thing, but it is only as useful as the logic it is conducted and synthesized with. Math does not ignore proximity or conditionality, so I\u2019m perplexed as to why the formula should ignore it. If we were to modify the formula, we would get a huge number of vastly different groups of 20. The likelihood of a drawing being entirely white, or entirely black, Hispanic or Asian is so astronomically higher than that of a random sample.<\/p>\n
This is because society did not happen at random, and our choices and structures within a society are not drawn through random sampling. If we evaluate diversity through random sampling, our conclusions are entirely meaningless. This goes beyond discussions outside race relations and representation on the big screen.<\/p>\n
The idea that random sampling is an appropriate lens to tackle social issues through should be done away with. Math is wonderful, until it conflicts with logic. A \u201crandom\u201d draw, categorically, is an order, for example.<\/p>\n
You know why you get marked off points for not showing your work in math classes? That\u2019s because you may have arrived at the correct answer, but that answer is one side of the equals sign. A question is asking for both parts of the scale. You can get a \u201ccorrect\u201d answer without it being valid.<\/p>\n
If \u201call white\u201d even were the answer in this equation, that\u2019s one portion. We\u2019re evaluating the equation as a whole, not the result. Race-baiting detracts from that evaluation for the sake of polarization.<\/p>\n
If people want to think critically about why no black person received an Oscar nomination or award this year or last year, they should compare the random sampling data of a population to the structures populations have developed, exist within and further.<\/p>\n
Put simply, it just doesn\u2019t tell us enough to be satisfied with it or to use it as some grand measuring stick. That is of course, unless it generates money and involves the classic \u201ccheck and a checkmark\u201d of Hollywood.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve taken a laughably huge topic and chopped away at it until the fascination is removed and all that\u2019s left is vitriol and Jada Smith.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re rewarding celebrities by giving them useless drivel to incoherently stir the pot with. These people are more than happy to say anything so long as they get on a talk show, podcast or nab a headline somewhere. It translates to money one-way or the other.<\/p>\n
It is pertinent to remind ourselves that although these individuals chime in here and there, we should think for ourselves and do so critically. Hearing someone\u2019s perspective on an issue isn\u2019t some guaranteed good or bad, but conflating their success in acting to their deep knowledge of say race relations, institutional bodies, film critique and philosophy would most often be a misstep.<\/p>\n
Being a celebrity means you have a degree of influence, however it does not mean that your ideas, thoughts and ideology exist outside of critical thought and the realm of logic. Just because you have the capacity to speak doesn\u2019t mean you should. You may find your foot in your mouth for a reason.<\/p>\n
The Academy has since released statements that they plan to diversify the board of electors, who come up with these nominations. They will be adding an additional two to three seats, as well as doubling the representation of women on the board by 2020.<\/p>\n
The Academy\u2019s response is an interesting and clever admission of guilt. To solve the problem that businesses want to make money and thus cater to what makes them money, i.e. making movies with many white or white appearing actors to appeal to the marketing base of the many white and white appearing population of the U.S., but this is inherently wrong because white people exist, they will add people devoid of \u201cracism\u201d read \u201cwhiteness\u201d to their board.<\/p>\n
What they mean are non-white people, because the current board is racist for being white. The solution was nonwhite people; the solution was not being white.<\/p>\n
The people are finally catching on.<\/p>\n
To fix Hollywood\u2019s money making, racist, homophobic entertainment industry, the first step is to do away with white people and their inherent racism.<\/p>\n
If we\u2019re going to have some racial d\u00e9tente at any point in our country\u2019s future, we have to respect these concerns by using the critical thought they deserve. Issues like racism institutional bodies, oppressive establishments, and general power dynamics on a systemic level should be evaluated as critically and logically as our capacity for thought allows.<\/p>\n
We shouldn\u2019t leave this to special interest groups, sensational media companies, and celebrities of the month, we deserve to think for ourselves and our society deserves a population that respects critical thought.<\/p>\n
Barton Kleen<\/strong> \u201cThe Oscars have been all white for two years,\u201d Malcom Harris of Al Jazeera writes, denouncing the whiteness of this year\u2019s Oscar nominees. Everyone knows the limit to being white is one year, how could this have been allowed to happen? \u201cThe Academy has no one else to blame for all-white nominees,\u201d Harris said. Apparently, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1999],"class_list":["post-13180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-barton-kleen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-3qA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13181,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13180\/revisions\/13181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nManaging Editor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"