Black actors have been nominated in every acting category of the Oscars for the first time ever. While many people seem to be thrilled with the progression, I’m not. It’s ridiculous that it took 89 years for this to happen, not to mention that these historic nominations of Black actors are following two years of no Black actors being nominated by the Academy Awards at all.
Despite the fact that the nominated films are all great films, I can’t help but be suspicious that this year’s nominations are just the Academy’s response to last year’s #OscarsSoWhite. Furthermore, we need to be honest about the fact that white people don’t really care about Black films unless they show us struggling for emancipation or civil rights as if those were the only times when Black stories mattered. These are the issues we’ve been dealing with for years which is why we created our own.
However, people don’t value BET awards, NAACP awards and Soul Train awards like they do Oscars, Golden Globes and Grammys. Artists of every race dream of being awarded by the Academy, and while I have no doubt that they still appreciate their awards from Black awards shows, they’re definitely not held to the same esteem. Instead of constantly aspiring for white approval, we should start aspiring for the awards created for us by us.
We’ve been shown time and time again that our talent doesn’t excite or interest anyone but us, and I think we need to be okay with that. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be happy for Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and any other Black actor who gets the recognition they deserve, but that can’t be the only time we acknowledge their awards as significant.
There are many Black actors, musicians, filmmakers and writers are amazing at what they do, but we shouldn’t have to wait for the Academy to tell us that in order to truly believe it. It took 89 years for them to nominate a Black actor in every category, and that doesn’t even guarantee that the Black actors will win, so I’m honestly more annoyed than overjoyed. So please don’t fall for this, keep your side eye at the Oscars strong and tune into (and praise) the Black awards shows this year.
