I

s racism the explanation for why all of the 20 acting Oscar award nominees are white? Some are suggesting the failure of a single non-white actor to be nominated is proof the system is discriminatory or otherwise biased towards white actors.

A number of black actors and others have announced they will boycott this year’s Oscars award program to protest the lack of diversity in the nominations in particular, and among the Hollywood movie industry in general.

White Oscar nominee Charlotte Rampling, one of the 20 actors nominated for an Oscar this year, says the protest over the lack of diversity is in fact “racist to whites.”  She made this comment in an interview with a French radio network in Europe. USA Today published a story on it last week.

Rampling suggests perhaps this year there just didn’t happen to be a black actor who deserved a nomination. And, she says, she doesn’t think there should be quotas. “Why classify people?” But she also said there should be an effort to see “lots of minorities everywhere.”

It’s an interesting dilemma. If there is some sort of a racial quota suggested, then a minority actor who gets nominated will have to contend with suggestions he or she wasn’t really on the same level as the others, and perhaps was picked to fill a minority slot.

There are news reports how more than 300 movies qualified for consideration for an Oscar for 2015. There were five actors nominated as “best” in each of four categories, so each group of five would represent just 1.7 percent of those eligible.

That 98 percent of the male actors in lead or supporting roles, and female actors in lead or supporting roles, are not nominated shows the chances of a nomination are pretty slim no matter an actor’s race.

The president of the Motion Picture Academy that sponsors the Oscars is a black woman. Since the controversy over this year’s nominees, she’s said there needs to be a review of the Academy’s membership recruitment efforts to try to bring more diversity to it in future years.

That a minority heads the Academy and that there will be efforts to help the Academy develop more diversity among its members seem positive steps.

Rampling raises an interesting point, that it is white racism to suggest racism against minorities is the only explanation for why there are no minority actors among the 20 nominated for an Oscar this year.

Hopefully the nominations for the best actor categories were based on true merit and not unintentional, much less purposeful bias.

Our nation just celebrated the birthday of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., well known for his famous speech that told, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Hopefully we’ll all see just that one day soon, about actors and everyone else.

WILL CHAPMAN

PUBLISHER