(ThyBlackMan.com) Take this as a sho-nuff sign of the Apocalypse: I may have to join the ranks of those African-Americans who smell a rat in how Hollywood hands out Oscars to black actors.
Okay, so we all know that Mo’Nique deserved the best supporting actress Oscar she won this past Sunday. Her performance in “Precious” was brilliant, and there’s no way I’m going to diss my homegirl. But I’m beginning to discern a pattern among black Oscar winners lately, and the pattern is disturbing.
When Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won, respectively, the best actress and best actor Academy Awards in 2002, there were hordes of black folks who complained about the roles they played. Berry played the 
dysfunctional mother in “Monster’s Ball” who, shortly after burying her only child, has a drunken party with some guy she barely knows during which she bares her breast and begs him to “make me feel good.”
Yeah, I said back then, that kind of thing happens to me all the time.
Washington won for his portrayal of Alonzo Harris, the corrupt but brilliantly Machiavellian Los Angeles cop who spent much of the movie manipulating and abusing a young white cop played by Ethan Hawke. That film was “Training Day,” and for my money, it’s one of the most bad-ass cop movies ever made.
I dismissed those black folks who complained that Washington won only because he portrayed a corrupt cop. (“Are you saying that there are no corrupt black cops?” I asked them.) Berry’s performance, I contended, was more offensive to women as a group, not African-Americans. Really, a mother who’s just lost her child bearing her breasts to a complete stranger and asking him to make her feel good? Who wrote this stuff?
Then Forrest Whitaker won in 2006 for playing Idi Amin in “Last King of Scotland;” now Mo’Nique has won for playing the abusive, dysfunctional mother in “Precious.” Of the six black Oscar winners since 2002, only Morgan Freeman and Jamie Foxx played African-Americans who were even close to normal.
So the score is, in terms of characters portrayed, dysfunctional black folks 4, normal ones 2.
Berry, Washington, Whitaker and Mo’Nique deserved their Oscars. This isn’t a criticism of them; it’s a criticism of Hollywood. Do they have a problem with black people who aren’t dysfunctional? My guess is they do. When it came to handing out awards, they completely forgot about the other “Precious.”
That would be Precious Ramotswe, the character actress-singer Jill Scott played – and brilliantly – on the HBO series “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.” The gorgeous Anika Noni Rose, who plays Grace Makutsi, is even better than Scott. Either or both should have won an Emmy or a Golden Globe; neither did.
The show is set in Botswana. Ramotswe owns a private investigation business. Makutsi is her intelligent and capable (if somewhat uptight) secretary. They’re not on drugs, aren’t involved in crime and steer clear of abusive relationships.
In short, they aren’t dysfunctional. That’s why those characters in Hollywood had no use for the show when awards time came around. They see dysfunctional black characters in movies and television shows. Black characters with something on the ball? Well, not so much.
And considering what happened late last year, I’m now beginning to understand this.
Remember when brilliant director but pathetic child rapist and pedophile Roman Polanski got picked up by Swiss authorities to be held for extradition back to the United States? Do you remember how these “we-love-them-dysfunctional-Negroes” people in Hollywood reacted?
Nearly all of them supported Polanski. Whoopi Goldberg even felt compelled to claim on “The View” that Polanski wasn’t charged with “rape-rape” for what he did back in 1977.
Here’s what he did: He drugged a 13-year-old girl, plied her with champagne and then forced her to have sex with him.
Contrary to what Goldberg would have us believe, he was charged with “rape-rape” and some other offenses. He pleaded guilty to having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.
When it came time for Polanski to be sentenced, he bolted for France, which has no extradition treaty with the United States and is a country where, apparently, pedophilia is all the rage. That Hollywood crowd was all too willing to forgive Polanski for his pedophilia and his raping of a 13-year-old.
No wonder these people love dysfunctional black characters so much. Robert Mitchum had them pegged right after he served a jail term for marijuana possession back in the late 1940s.
“What did you think of jail?” a reporter is said to have asked Mitchum when he was released.
“Same as Hollywood,” Mitch replied, “only with a better class of people.”
Written By Gregory P. Kane
