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Chris Rock

Source: Kevin Winter / Getty

The Academy Awards program has undertaken a massive overhaul in the last few years. The #OscarsSoWhite campaign that arose after the 2015 show—which included essentially no nominees of color—gave way to the Academy diversifying its voter populace. We saw the fruits of those changes in 2017 when Moonlight won for Best Picture.

But it seems the Oscars wasn’t done making adjustments, as leadership just decided to make a separate category for “popular” movies. The Achievement In Popular Film award will be for box office hits, like a participation trophy for billion-dollar movies, the equivalent of a MTV Movie award for people in tuxes.

This decision is incredibly short-sighted and pretty dumb. There may be a legitimate reason for the Oscars to award these movies (to boost low ratings or get casual fans invested, perhaps?), but it honestly feels like something directed at Black movies and Black audiences.

This colored water fountain a*s award feels like a reaction to Black Panther throwing its hat in for Best Picture consideration when there’s no chance in hell the movie will win Best Picture because the Academy is elitist and won’t even remotely consider the flick.

This naming the worst street in the city MLK Blvd. a*s award feels like the Academy knowing Black folks will be mad when Black Panther doesn’t win the awards it deserves, so it will instead give movies like Black Panther a pat on the back award as consolation for not winning the important one at the end of the night.

This “I would have voted for Obama for a third term” a*s award feels like a waste of time because it won’t be in effect until 2020, a full year after Black Panther gets snubbed at the Oscars, which means we’re going to be mad anyway when a Black Lives Matter movie starring Scarlett Johansson as Bree Newsome or whatever ultra-white movie is up this year wins instead. However, it’s pretty clear that just about every Ryan Coogler movie or Black Panther sequel we see in 2020 and beyond is destined for the outhouse award.

This “…and the winner is, Denzel Washington for Training Day” a*s award feels like a way to erase movies like Get Out that over-perform in the box office because the Academy knows that when Black people hear about great movies by Black people, we show the hell out at theaters and turn movies into “popular films.”

In truth, we shouldn’t even care about this Roseanne’s Black granddaughter a*s award, because movies like Black Panther and Get Out have transcended the need for awards from white folks. Black Panther was maybe the most culturally important film of the 21st century. It broke damn near every record and had Black people dressing up for weeks to go see it. Get Out, in my opinion, was a perfect movie and addressed race as creatively as any project we’ve ever seen. And we’ve always had movies like this, from Malcolm X to every role Angela Bassett has ever played. These are artistic endeavors that have resonated within the culture for their excellence without needing awards from white folks. Honestly, giving the Oscars to a movie like Black Panther would legitimize the Oscars, not the other way around. In short, we don’t need them. We never have. So they can keep their awards and tokens. Just sit down and watch our excellence from the sidelines.