The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences created one doozy of a headache for itself when it recently announced an all-white cadre of Oscar nominees. And adding insult to injury, in two of the year's biggest films about African-American characters -- "Creed" and "Straight Outta Compton" -- nominations for those movies also went to whites.
The lack of inclusion of African-American actors resulted in calls for boycotts by industry leaders Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith. In response to this power of protest, Academy of Motion Pictures President Cheryl Boone Isaacs issued a statement promising more diversity. Only time will tell if this quick reaction results in greater inclusion.
The irony of the Oscar incident, and its swift remedial promise is that similar, if not worse, forms of exclusion surround us every day. Yet these exclusions result in neither powerful calls for redress nor do such exclusions lead to any commitments for change. One need not go far to see the force and power of exclusion, despite our classical American rhetoric of equality, and the good ole American Dream that every child can one day become president.
As the Securities and Exchange Commissioner Luis Aguilar observed, "there is a persistent lack of diversity in corporate boardrooms across this country -- women and minorities remain woefully underrepresented.... the Alliance for Board Diversity compiled statistics about the composition of the boards of directors of Fortune 100 companies and found the majority of board members, 71.5%, were white men, and only 28.5% of the board seats were held by women and minorities." In all likelihood, even these facts would not have likely come to light had not a Latino not raised them.
In politics, the presidency has been 98 % white and 100% male. The 2013 Congress for its part was 82% white and 81 % male, despite Blacks, Latinos, and Asians alone representing 30% of the overall population. Likewise, only 10% of governors are people of color, and roughly 10% of governors are women despite women representing roughly 52% of our overall population. Evidently, not all of us have come a long way, baby?
Even in the hallowed halls of academia, which is supposed to represent the most enlightened of our collective thinking, the statistics are essentially the same, if not worse. In the legal academy, for instance, which is often accused the most liberal of all academic disciplines; the diversity figures are flat out embarrassing. Despite Latinos and Latinas, for instance, representing roughly 17% of the U.S. population and representing often-comparable percentages in student bodies, more than half of law schools do not have a single Latina or Latino on their tenure track faculty."
Indeed, all but a handful of the country's over 200 law schools have a Latino or Latina dean; this is so despite preeminent diversity scholar Michael Olivas noting many law schools are located in urban areas, and the qualifications of the Latino/a professoriate are as good and in many instances superior to that of their white counterparts.
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If all of the above is true, where then are the protests and the swift promises for change? Much like with the Oscars issue, perhaps Scott Feinberg's observations apply with equal strength to the rest of society: "the root of the problem has less to do with the Academy than with the film industry as a whole. Very few people of color direct or star in major American movies because of decisions made by the studios for reasons of commerce and/or bigotry."
The question then remains, how long should we wait for the commitments for redress in our boardrooms, political chambers, and Ivory towers? People of good will and awareness need to insist on change--we must continue to write, speak, and if need be scream until someone listens and then acts. In the meantime, stubborn Cassandra's for diversity like yours truly will continue to warn of the diversity Trojan horse?