#OscarsSoWhite Explained In 4 Minutes

The
87th Annual Academy Awards has already set a record, albeit not one they should be particularly proud of: It will literally be the whitest Oscars since 1998. And because the Twittersphere loves hashtag outrage, users have been using #OscarsSoWhite to call attention to this issue since the nominations were announced.

They have a point: Of the 2,947 awards given out over the years, only 31 have
gone to black winners. Plus, Halle Barry is still the first — and only — black
woman to have won a Best Actress Oscar. This
is 2015, right?

There's a much bigger conversation here, beyond the Academy Awards, around casting choices and how stories are developed and told in Hollywood. When a film in 2014 about Moses and the Jews' escape from slavery in Egypt leads are all white actors, and some (deeply misguided) people can't wrap their heads around a person of color playing a Stormtrooper (in a fictional movie about a pretend world) the problem goes beyond awards nominations.  If you're having a hard time explaining this to anyone, you should show them the amazing, eye-opening Huffington Post video. It's only four minutes of your time.