It certainly seems like the right year. If anything, the fact that there's been an increase in nominations/wins since the beginning of the 21st century only makes the fact that there have now been two consecutive years without any acting nominees of colour even more egregious.
Really? It's
more egregious than if it hadn't started happening at all?
Trying to reference just how many black people have won or been nominated in the past isn't enough to off-set matters
Does this mean you believe there should always be X number of minority nominees, and that if there aren't in a given year, that needs to be "off-set" in subsequent years?
It becomes an issue if it looks like there's a pattern emerging, which is the case when there just so happens to be two consecutive lots of all-white nominees. That's why this year's criticism of the nominees has escalated into a more significant boycott - one time could be an anomaly, but twice in a row is a little harder to accept. Things aren't helped by the Academy trying to shrug this off through their host's jokes (such as NPH's "best and whitest" crack at last year's ceremony).
You're kind of talking past me here: the statement I made isn't about this specific instance. It's an explanation as to why people dismiss criticisms like the one you're making right now: because it starts with racism as its null hypothesis. Disparities are taken as
prima facie evidence of systemic racism. That's where a lot of people who
do think racism is real and serious, like myself, get off the train.
I'm not sure how such a field could be randomised anyway, let alone what effect it would have on the probability of all the nominees being white. Without a definite amount of nominees from which to create a representative sample size, there's no telling how often you'd end up with an all-white array of nominees. For all we know, "occasionally" could end up being a gross underestimation, but without concrete data to build off, examining probabilities like this feels fundamentally pointless.
Pretty sure this is missing the point, but nevermind. Here's some concrete data: African-Americans are a little over 12% of the population and have made up about 10% of the Oscar nominations since 2000. For Oscar
winners, it's actually higher than their share of the population.
Why not? What if it's the systemic racism itself that is preventing people of colour from making sufficient headway in that industry in the first place?
Because if being a racial minority is a fundamentally different experience (and it seems reasonable to believe that it is), you can't cordon off the implications of that fact when they're inconvenient. Different life experiences inevitably means different choices, which mean more different life experiences, and so on. Case in point: what do you think the racial demographics of country music and hip-hop are? Do you think those are evidence of racism, of differences in choice, or both? And how do you know?
Go another level down: let's say the
initial choices about how many people enter what industry are subtly influenced by racial issues, but that each industry is largely a meritocracy for those already inside it. What then?
If that's what needs to be dismantled in order for people of colour to provide even an approximate reflection of their overall numbers within the general population then people probably shouldn't be so quick to disregard or even defend allegations of misrepresentation.
Nor should they be so quick to make or even defend allegations of racism.
I'd love a version of this discussion where the seriousness of racism was directly reflected in how careful we were about leveling accusations of it. Instead, it gets diluted by the cognitive dissonance of people who think it's very serious indeed, but not in a way that requires they exhibit much caution about who to brand with it.
Yeah, correlation does not equate to causation and all that. If nothing else, the decision to start inducting new members from a wider variety of backgrounds can at least be seen as an experiment to either prove or disprove any inherent biases on the part of the Academy's current members.
It wouldn't really do that. But I'm all for it: it should be overhauled, and it should be more diverse. And I can simultaneously agree with this, while still thinking that assuming racism based on fluctuations in tiny nominee sample sizes is a major leap of logic that's working backwards from a conclusion.
Besides, fixing things from the top-down is arguably the most pragmatic way to resolve such a perpetually steep uphill struggle
I'm not sure how to argue with someone who's just saying something is "arguable." We'll find out if it's arguable by arguing about it. Here, I'll start: no, trying to change culture-wide problems by enforcing quasi-quotas at the highest levels of specific industries is not a good or pragmatic idea.
and who's to say the Academy isn't responsible for doing cultural policing of its own?
Uh...nobody? But then, that isn't mutually exclusive with anything I'm saying.
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