#Oscarssowhite. Image courtesy of mashable.com.
With MLK Day just behind us and Black History Month right around the corner, it’s imperative to remember why the shortest month of the year is one of the most important, even if Stacey Dash doesn’t think so.
Recently, The #OscarsSoWhite controversy resurfaced after social media noticed that once again, none of the nominees this year were of color. Actress Jada Pinkett Smith put out a stating her decision to boycott the Oscars this year and calling for other actors and actresses of color to do the same.
Video courtesy of YouTube.
Pinkett Smith stated in her video, “ … I can’t help but ask the question: Is it time that people of color recognize how much power, influence, that we have amassed, that we no longer need to ask to be invited anywhere? Begging for acknowledgement, or even asking, diminishes dignity and diminishes power. And we are a dignified people, and we are powerful,” she said. “So let’s let the Academy do them, with all grace and love. And let’s do us, differently.”
Celebrity Stacey Dash, a known “Uncle Tom” in the black community, recently responded to Smith’s call to action claiming, “I think it’s ludicrous. We have to make up our minds. Either we want to have segregation or integration. If we don’t want segregation, then we need to get rid of channels like BET and the BET Awards and the [NAACP] Image Awards, where you’re only awarded if you’re black … If it were the other way around, we would be up in arms, it’s a double standard,” she added before saying, “there shouldn’t be a black history month. We’re Americans. Period.”
Sentiments like that worry me as a black woman in this country. Dash’s comments about no longer needing a Black History month were not only ignorant but full of fallacy. Black History Month started off in 1926 as Negro History Week and later turned into the annual historic time that we now know as Black History Month. This creation was enacted to celebrate us because no one else was and apparently still isn’t. So demanding things like equal representation in media is not something trivial like she makes it seem. If ongoing police brutality, unequal representation in the media, unequal salaries to our white counterparts and rampant cultural appropriation stopped, we wouldn’t need things like BET and the NAACP to fill the void if we were truly treated as just “Americans” like Stacey Dash says.
Smith’s boycott due to their lack of diversity is just as pressing an issue to people of color as police brutality. Both problems are affecting the community and should be handled with solutions instead of saying one is less important than the other. Dash needs to realize that representation is important in getting black Americans seen as regular people and not just as stereotypes. If the mass media stops seeing us all as thugs and welfare checks then maybe there would be less snap judgements by police ending in death. Equal representation also helps to lessen the feeling of being an “other” in a society where we are all supposed to be equal.
There are other celebrities that feel that Jada Pinkett Smith’s call for a boycott of the Oscar’s is superficial, such as rapper Young Jeezy’s statement on Twitter, “Why we worried about the Oscars? We need to be worried about what’s going on in Flint and Chicago. MLK didn’t die for shows and trophies.” Some celebrities agree with Smith such as Snoop Dogg saying, “They steal all our culture, steal all our slang, steal all our everything, and they make it cool, and then we can’t get no acknowledgement for what we do as far as being originators and creators.”
Black History Month is not just a time of remembrance. It should be a time to learn something new and celebrate the accomplishments of people old and new who didn’t ask to be here but tried to make a place for themselves to have a better America, whether it’s through technology, social policies or the arts. So to Stacey Dash, not all Americans are treated fairly. Don’t worry, we’ll be fixing that with or without your help.