Oscar nominees are all white for the second year in a row. Does this mean Hollywood is racist?

The situation is a bit more complicated than that.

The lack of black nominees in this year’s and last year’s Academy Awards is a symptom of a bigger problem: the film industry is predominantly white. This is common knowledge, but no one complains unless it becomes painfully obvious like it has this year.

One cause of the problem is certainly the Oscar voters. The New York Times found that 94% of all members of the Academy are white, while only 2% are black and less than 2% are Latino. In addition, 72% are male, and the median age of members is 62.

This concentration of older white males involved in the Academy’s voting process may explain why certain movies are nominated over others. They likely hold onto older movie ideals, which explains why a romantic anti-slavery film like 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture but movies about modern black lives like Creed and Straight Outta Compton barely receive recognition.

With Hollywood so dominated by white actors and filmmakers, it is inevitable that some years the Academy Awards nominees will lack racial variety. If America wants to reward more black film directors and actors during the Academy Awards, it needs to complain about the demographics of the Academy’s voters and Hollywood in general. The best way to do this is to choose carefully which new films to see and support.

Only by speaking out continuously, and not just every year at the awards, will the film industry be forced to change its decades-old habit of hiring and featuring white filmmakers and actors.