Do the Oscars have a diversity problem?

Have you heard? Several celebrities in the movie industry are boycotting the Oscars because no black actors were nominated in this year’s show. Spike Lee, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Snoop D-O-Double Gizzle, are the three I’ve read about, but there could be more.

I found the interactive infographic above in a Time.com article. In the last 20 years (excluding this year’s awards), 13 non-white actors have won one of the four acting categories. In total, 53 non-white actors have been nominated out of 400 nominations. In total there have been 80 winners, four per year for the acting categories.

Let’s look at these numbers in terms of percentages. Non-white actors have won 16.25% of the acting awards and white actors have won 83.75% of them in the past 20 years. As far as nominations is concerned, non-white actors have gotten 13.25% of the nods while white actors have gotten nominated 86.75% of the time.

Here’s the thing, though. These numbers aren’t too far off the racial make-up of the United States. According to statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, white Americans make up 77.4% of the population, while the rest of us represent the other 22.6%. If 23% of us win 16% of the time, is that a problem?

I honestly don’t see what all the fuss is about. However, I’m sure it’ll be fun watching host Chris Rock cracking joke after joke on the matter.