I have watched the Oscars since as far back as I can remember. When I was a young girl, I thought I would become an actor; my dream, of course, was to win an Oscar and wear a beautiful gown and give an emotional speech and thank everyone for helping me to get to this place of honor and dignity and grace, shining in the bright, bold appreciation for my talent and hard work.
Over the years, I watched actor after actor walk to the stage, charmingly unsteady in their spectacular disbelief, shock and gratitude – but I almost never saw anyone who looked like me. And while the pageantry of the Oscars continued to appeal long after I decided not to become an actor, I do often wonder if having never seen any black actors win the award had anything to do with my decision to abandon the dream.
Even if the lack of black Oscar winners wasn’t the determining factor in my decision, it did have something to do with the way I felt about myself as first a black girl and then woman, growing into a world where whiteness continues to equate all that is sought after and valuable in America.
So I’m not surprised that every last nominee in all of the acting categories for the 2016 Oscar are white. It’s hard to think of new ways to express disappointment; it’s just not enough to say that the Academy is mostly white (they are), or that the system takes time to change (it does), or that there weren’t any worthy films or performances (there were).
But the Academy voters in 2016 – however white – are 6,000 motion picture professionals, arbiters of brilliance in a specifically visual genre that encompasses art and language and wisdom and emotion. They are, most assuredly, educated adults who live every day in a country alongside black and brown people in increasing numbers. They see us, and they see their black and brown peers in front of and behind the cameras; they’d almost have to actively ignore the contributions and existence of non-white people in films and in their voting process.
And while I can be mad at the Academy voters, time and again, there’s one group of people in Hollywood who particularly frustrate me this year: the white Hollywood parents of black children.
When I see a magazine cover story about Sandra Bullock’s new addition to the family (a black adopted daughter, and sister to her black adopted son) but don’t see her speaking out in those same pages – immediately, angrily, consistently – about the racial inequality and injustice in Hollywood, it calls up every instinct I have as an adopted person.
A white actor in Hollywood seemingly has a responsibility to speak out in support of their colleagues: take Bradley Cooper standing up for Jennifer Lawrence’s right to equal pay, for instance. But a white actor in Hollywood with black children has a moral obligation to speak out publicly against an industry in which their kids do not see reflections of themselves. They are duty-bound on behalf of their children to work for change in an industry that overlooks, justifies and perpetuates the notion that whiteness and white talent, however extraordinary or mediocre, is more worthy of celebration.
The adoption of black children by white parents has become increasingly common and, with it, have come plenty of actions to criticize – from Angelina Jolie’s ineptness in managing her daughter Zahara’s hair, to the inappropriateness of Madonna showing up on the red carpet wearing a grill with her son David.
But beyond their occasional missteps, we can still embrace the assumption that, like any parent, white actors and celebrities who parent black children want the best for their kids. And, as such, I find it fairly indefensible that none have spoken out about the continued and egregious whitewashing of the Oscars.
Although white actors such as Bullock have addressed the importance of teaching their black children about African-American history (indeed, every parent of every child white or nonwhite should), not acknowledging the injustice or its impact on their children is a true disservice to the people they may be dreaming to become.
White Hollywood stars with black children have an important role to play in speaking up against racial discrimination in Hollywood. Being a parent means you want more for your children than you had; being the parent of a child who is of another race has to begin to mean that you want more for them than white supremacy has allowed.
View all comments >