My Take
When asked his thoughts on
being snubbed for an Oscar
in the Best Actor category
this year for his role as Dr.
Martin Luther King in the
movie, Selma, British actor
David Oyelowo said during
an interview in Santa
Barbara, in January, 2015:
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“Historically, and this is truly my
feeling generally speaking, we as
black people have been celebrated
more when we are subservient,
when we are not being leaders or
kings, or being in the center of our
own narrative driving it forward.
To me,” he went on too say,
“Denzel Washington should’ve won
(the Oscar) for playing Malcom
X. This bears out what I’m saying,
which is, we just got to come to
the point whereby there isn’t a
self fulfilling prophecy, a notion
of who black people are that feeds
into what we’re celebrated as.
Not just in the academy, but in
life generally. We have been slaves,”
Mr. Oyelowo continued, “we have
been domestic servants, we have
been criminals. We have been all
of these things, but we’ve been
leaders, we’ve been kings, we have
been those who have changed the
world. And those films, where that
is the case, are so hard to get made.”
His thoughtful answer hit the bullseye
for me and is exactly what I and many
other African-Americans have been
thinking for years. Blacks are not
celebrated by the powers that be in
the United States (and elsewhere in
the world either) for being strong,
accomplished leaders. On the contrary,
being subservient, toning down,
or diluting their personae, art, or
messaging, being “Uncle Toms” or
“Aunt Jemimas”, not only in most
movies, “but just in life” as Mr.
Oyelowo so clearly states, often earns
the highest praise, the greatest kudos
from the powers that be. Just look at
how harshly and unfairly many Whites
in the United States have treated
Presi