Maybe the Oscars Planned to Be Racist

I watched the 2016 Oscars in a crowded theater on my university campus. Since university students don’t like to watch in silence, we cheered, cried, and laughed right along with the onscreen Oscars seat-fillers. And along with most people, we fell silent at Chris Rock’s slightly awkward jokes about race.

I know I’m only adding to the enormous Oscars controversy, so I’ll keep it short. Sure, I wasn’t happy about some of the jokes Chris Rock kept making about “blacks protesting” against the “white people awards.” Where were the other minorities in the discussion? You know, those Middle Eastern, South Asian, Hispanic actors and actresses acting right alongside the “blacks” and “whites”? The awards didn’t even mention that Hispanics were missing from Hollywood screens, even though the statistics say otherwise. While we’re at it, let’s also mention Chris Rock’s joke with the three Asian kids and child labor in Asia: “if you’re upset about this joke, you can tweet about it on your phones that these kids probably made!”

Right when the commercial break started, people erupted into conversation. “Chris Rock’s racist!” someone whispered. “How could they let him go on stage with that joke?”

So it occurred to me: there’s very little chance that this annual event, this worldwide spectacle, had little oversight. There’s no way Chris Rock rehearsed his monologue for the six hundredth time and no worker realized that he forgot to include other races in his strictly “black and white” speech.

So isn’t it possible the Oscars meant to leave out other minorities? Maybe the drastic exclusion was on purpose. What better way to push for change than to piss the masses off? Public outrage has fueled so many recent movements and brought so much attention: gay marriage, police brutality, and cybersecurity.

Regardless if it’s true, it’s a big deal when it’s extreme. Just like how the media painted Trump as a corporate buffoon, or Hilary as a shady sellout, people talk about it. And just like how the media affects politics, maybe the Oscars using their nominations and speeches to project a “white people only clique” was a well-crafted, highly publicized, under handed attempt at accentuating the racial divide in Hollywood.

Or maybe they’re just elitist. What does a university student like me know anyway? But I’d like to believe that the Hollywood Gods are aware of these issues too, and that they’re trying to turn the tide for better representation.