Category: Conversations Of A Sistah

I woke up this morning to conflicting reports on Chris Rock’s hosting last night of the controversial Oscars, aside from what I heard on the news this morning.

I never watched the Oscars however, most of my friends and thousands of black families across the country opted to not even do that much and boycotted the event altogether. Simply because not a single African American was nominated for one category this year.

With a voting pool that is overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male, and overwhelming old, 2016 turned out to be one of the whitest years in recent history for the Academy Awards.

I saw that before Chris even said a word, he walked out to Public Enemy’s song “Fight The Power” so the audience knew then he was going to tackle racism. But some people in the media and on Facebook thought Chris was a bit much on the topic stating:

“Much of what Rock said was distasteful, uncomfortable, and just plain wrong.”

But continuing down the road that the Oscars have been snubbing black folk for years, Rock said that the only reason they didn’t protest in 1962 or 1963 was because “we had real things to protest at the time.”

One writer said Chris mentioned something about “when your grandmother is hanging from a tree” and the audience laughed, when that was the deepest, darkest pain of any other group of people being used as a prime-time punch line.

All in all, my friends and most of the online critics who watched Rock’s opening monologue agreed that Rock missed the opportunity to school his white audience on the fact of the matter which is; more African Americans were killed by police in 2015 than in ANY of the previous 88 years of the Oscars. Instead of Rock downplayed the size and scope on the injustices we face today.

So again my question to you is:: Was Chris Rock a “Hit or Miss” as host of the Oscars last night? What’s your opinion? I’d like to know.