So let me get this straight, both of the top comments are using mathematics to point out that blacks dont deserve to be represented in the oscars?

The greatest and most egregious assumptions in your examples is that the oscars are a meritocracy in some form or the other.

Let us assume that your statistics are correct and that only 1 black person is supposed to be proportionally represented in the nomination slot, what is the breakdown for other races?

Asians? Hispanics? Natives? Any breakdown? Or are we to assume that having 40/40 oscar nominations for the past two years being white, that's 100 percent white, is based on some statistic or is this where your statistical analysis breaksdown?

I do not support Jada pinkett smith and Spike Lee in the boycott. I believe it's bullshit. But that does not invalidate the underlying complaint. The oscars acting nominations have been 40/40 white two years in a row. The last time this happened was in 1987. Is anyone willing to go to bat and say that no racial minority put up a performance that would deserve to be on that podium for two years in a row?

One can argue about demographics and pull out statistics saying "blacks should only get x noms" but then what about other races? Blacks and whites are not the only two races in America and hollywood by extension.

I do agree that Will Smith did not deserve the norm. I'm Nigerian and his Nigerian accent was so goddamn atrocious. But that does not cancel out that there are legitimate problems in representation in hollywood. The oscar voters themselves are 97 percent white. Lets not get carried away with this faux intellectual statistical bollocks. Oscars are a political event and as such the politics are fair game to be talked about, whether it be through racial,gender or class lenses.

Nobody has called for quotas. I certainly haven't. Nowhere in all I wrote did I say we should have quotas. But I find it suspect, that two years in a row, we have acting noms be 40/40 white actors/actresses and people are now saying that the oscars is a meritocracy? Oscars have been known to be political. It isn't until now that the political gripes deals with racial representation that people are cranking out statistics to justify why "blacks are over represented in the past 10 tears" like what? If we are going down the path of over representation whites most certainly take the cake.