Why I think boycotting the Oscars is a very bad idea.

So, as you all know the current hoopla right now is the lack of diversity in the Oscar nominations. Actors like Jada Pinkett Smith, Tyrese Gibson and Will Smith have decided not to show up as a sign of solidarity to their new cause. On the surface, this appears like a brilliant new civil rights movement.
The need for diversity has never been something you would normally contest unless you think Jim Crow was a well-intentioned brilliant law (It isn’t).

[caption id=”attachment_186" align=”alignnone” width=”1600"]

I am so glad I wasn’t alive to experience this god awful social experiment.[/caption]

But there is something particularly silly about this new movement. Black actors are boycotting the Oscars because we rarely see them nominated. This definitely sounds like a problem. But consider what these black actors are asking for. They want “diversity” in the Oscar voting process to ensure that black actors get nominated. Let me repeat, I think diversity is the best possible state for any community. Heck ideally, the voters should naturally (Naturally/Organically) be diverse. Diversity in the voting process would be fantastic, but it has to occur naturally. In an ideal world, we shouldn’t even care if we have all white voters or all black voters. In an ideal world, we should trust these voters will vote within the context of performance and not nepotism or racial prejudice.

There is something everyone seems to be ignoring. We all tend to lose our collective minds when it appears something racist has occurred. We suspend our ability to reason objectively and jump on the bandwagon of victimhood.
I wonder if anyone has bothered to crunch the numbers. Has anyone bothered to find out what’s the distribution of the number of actors that are white, black, Asian and Latino? Do you think the alarming disparity has something to do with the significantly larger number of white actors in prominent movie roles?

As you can see from the stats above, purely as a matter of statistics, it is incredibly likely to go for years without a black nominee. This does not necessarily rule out the possibility of racial prejudice but it definitely makes a strong case for cruel probability doing what it does best. If anything, what we should be more concerned about is the low number of minority actors in major film roles. Mechanizing for the selection of more minority actors in major film roles would make a lot more sense than brute forcing diversity in a voting process just to satisfy our own racially motivated needs.

This need for superficial “diversity” is actually not a solution but a modification to the perceived problem. Black actors are asking for diversity so that they may see black actors be nominated. The purpose of this diversity is simply just to force some black quota in the nominations. That is not a solution. Have we also considered how this artificial diversity is going to affect black Oscar winners who have to wonder if they won because they were truly good, or just because they were black? Are we satisfied with having token black nominees just to meet some sort of racial quota? Again, diversity in every aspect of society is a good thing. But it has to be for the right reasons. And it has to be achieved organically without questionable motives.

I believe my greatest disappointment is the rash of sheepish mentality that feeds on illogical hysteria. We tend to act like a hive mind powered by a simple emotional algorithm that’s quite easy to hack. The black community needs to guard against its own implicit biases. The only way we can accomplish this is to maintain an objective perspective on everything we encounter, especially the unpleasant things. Today we’ve naively attacked the Oscars like a gang of grumpy babies. And for all I know we may get our way because of how loud we scream and moan on social media. But never equate this victory to a step towards equality. Always remember that each one of these facile victories exposes our simple-minded nature and leaves us open for manipulation.

Our black community has a tendency to ask for the wrong things for the right reasons.

Again, I don’t deny the existence of racial inequality in Hollywood. But you don’t naively fight fire with fire. If these actors want diversity and equal representation in the Oscars, they are attacking this apparent prejudice the wrong way. If you want my 2 cents on this, I think we need to focus on increasing the quota of black actors in more prominent roles. Gaming the voting system is not a solution.