Race for the Oscars: By dwelling on skin color, the Academy Awards do blacks a disservice.

Opinion Journal ^ | 03/26/2002 | TUNKU VARADARAJAN

[NMFXSTC]

To ensure that things be decided without regard to race, creed, color, sex, or national origin, we insist that nothing be decided except according to race, creed, color....(Fred Reed, 2002)

[spectre]

Halle doesn't LOOK black. She has white features and a beautiful dark complexion. She is the first African-White American to receive an Oscar...that we know of.

sw

[mafree]

Nonsense- Halle knows what she is. Ask her sometime.

[bvw]

Jesse Jacksonization. Extortion by exploiting race bias claims.

[spectre]

She is 50% white and 50% black, and she chooses to say she is black. Which is fine by me, but it doesn't change the facts.

sw

[mafree]

No one is disputing the fact that Halle has a Black father and a White mother but you also cannot dispute the fact that she looks Black. Therefore, it's consistent that she consider herself Black.

[spectre]

If she wants to be consistant and consider herself black, (and it is questionable how black she looks), she can be black.

By not calling herself bi-racial, it is a denial her own Mother's race...So sad.

sw

[wingnuts'nbolts]

It is all liberal democrat inspired. They must keep the drum beat up that there is a huge animosity between the races which if fact, is not there. Maybe in Hollywood it is they certainly are liberal democrats. In the real world however, we seem to be getting along ok. Only JJ and Al scream race all the time. There is another reason they just don't seem to understand for prople to detest them. They are both crooks, liars and thiefs.

[aristeides]

In a world with reverse discrimination, it pays for someone who is half black and half white to say that he (or she) is black.

On the extortion angle, I wonder how much of Hollywood's U.S. audience is now black (and thus how much of a threat a boycott would be.)

[Uncle George]

The Clinton stench will extend for years to come.

[spectre]

Halley can be as black or as white as she wants to be, depending on which door needs to be opened.

Anyone remember Eartha Kitt? A fabulous singer, beautful lady, who will say that she is a fantastic mixture of almost every race she can conjur up.

In the end, IMHO, it doesn't matter what color a person is, it's their talent, or looks, whatever...and I wish they hadn't made it an issue at the Oscar's. But it will always happen.

sw

[bvw]

On *extortion* what I meant was that Halle (foolishly), Denzel (utterly stupidly -- he has so much going for him), and even Whoopi Goldbrg (who has shown herself in many times to be of a race-less mind, from her Star Trek appearances to her dating) -- all of them are patterning this mode of professional behaviour after Jesse J's extortions.

Al Sharpton you can understand doing it. That is his nature it seems, like the Daley's of Chicago, or Hague -- he's a natural grifter of a politician, perhaps more natural than Jesse.

But the actors and actresses, Halle, Denzel, Whoopi -- they have fallen into a trap here. This is a foot-shooting in progress.

[mafree]

If she wants to be consistant and consider herself black, (and it is questionable how black she looks)

Not to me. Maybe you've never seen many Blacks.

[jimt]

I think the questions many people are asking are

What difference does it make what color her skin is? and

Why make race an issue at the Oscars?

My wife just recently passed an ESL test (written by Hispanics) that some of her black colleagues did not. The immediate hue and cry ? Racism !

Does EVERYTHING have to be racially based ?

Your comments, particularly, would be appreciated as you've often provided a thoughtful perspective.

[BikerNYC]

Why make race an issue at the Oscars?

I agree. The obvious answer to the question of why no black actress had previously won an Oscar for Best Actress is that none were deserving of it.

[TaRaRaBoomDeAyGoreLostToday!]

Halley whatever her name was acted like she was allowed to enter a bus and sit on it for the first time.Blacks are not discriminated against nowadays thank God, why did she act like she wasn't making a trillion dollars? Look at the show MY WIFE and KIDS, they don't freak because it is an all black family.It is of norm.

[jimt]

The obvious answer to the question of why no black actress had previously won an Oscar for Best Actress is that none were deserving of it.

I'd agree if you throw in the caveat "in the opinion of the academy."

The only movie I ever walked out of won best picture in its year.

[spectre]

Naah..just grew up as an Army brat....had many black kids as friends. We were never taught prejudice.

But If YOU say she looks "black", and that is consistant, I have to bow to your expertise :~)

sw

[L.N. Smithee]

The only movie I ever walked out of won best picture in its year.

Which one? I am guessing American Beauty.

[Ohioan]

I have no problem with giving awards to Denzel Washington or Halle Berry. I did not see the movies for which they won their awards, but have seen each of them in other movies, where they did a competent job. If some want to make this into a racial triumph sort of thing, I have no problem with that, either.

On the other hand, Whoopi Goldberg is an absurdity. She has been decent in some movies, ridiculous in others. But she is hardly the best MC they could find, and her vulgarity detracts from the event as family entertainment. As one who can remember all the years that Bob Hope lent real class to the affair, I found her unfortunate, to say the least.

But my real pique was with all of the mentioned hyperbole about Sidney Poitier. He was not in my opinion, the quality of actor that is Washington. The reason, to be very blunt, is that in every movie I ever saw him in, he projected a definite attitude. That attitude was still there, when he accepted the award. It is a racial chip on the shoulder attitude, and it does him no credit.

As for him being a pioneer? That just isn't so, unless you ignore some incredibly strong performances by Negro actors and actresses, long before Poitier. Didn't, for example, Hattie McDowell get an Oscar for her supporting role in Gone With The Wind? (Yes that was only a supporting role; but a very powerful supporting role in the 3 hour and forty minute classic, that is clearly one of the great movies of all time, is more than the equivalent of many a starring role in a much shorter, less powerful picture.) Of course, that Poitier attitude is too full of racial hostility to even realize that Mammie in Gone With The Wind was not a type cast domestic, but a sustaining force in the multi-generation history of an important family. Perhaps if he lost the attitude, he could have been an equally gifted performer. But with the attitude, Hattie projected ten times his power on the screen.

She understood how to create a real character. In Gone With The Wind, she projected more of a real sense of history, drama and human interaction, just by herself, than Poitier, O'Connor and the whole cast, together in In The Heat Of The Night. But then, Poitier was more into expressing his own pique. Sunday night was no exception.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site