Racism is still rife, despite the hoopla

Blacks won two top Oscars, but Hollywood still holds them in contempt, writes EKOW ESHUN.

Oscar success for Denzel Washington and Halle Berry may have been a landmark moment, but watching at home I resisted the urge to celebrate.

Both awards were richly deserved for highly nuanced performances, Washington's, in particular, playing a corrupt LA cop in Training Day with chilling Mephistophelian panache. Yet, amid the excitement that has greeted their achievement, it is important to separate history from hyperbole.

In the most garlanded Oscar night for African-American stars, Berry became the first black woman to win a best actress award and Washington the first black man to take the best actor statuette since Sidney Poitier 39 years ago. Even Poitier received an honorary award in recognition of a pioneering career that has spanned more than 50 years.

Their triumph has been hailed as a defining moment for black screen actors and is also being seen as an epochal event for black people across America and Europe, all of whom are, in their own ways, struggling for recognition from white employers or society.

Berry intimated as much in a tear-choked acceptance speech that paid credit to African-American predecessors Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandrige and then went on to declare that "every woman of colour now has a chance because the door tonight has been opened". It's not difficult to imagine a similar claim being made in 1963 when Poitier won his best actor award for Lilies of the Field.

Yet the truth behind such fine sentiments is shown by the chasm of years between his win and Washington's. Focus on deeds, not words, and a grimmer reality is apparent. Black people are still held in contempt by Hollywood - if they weren't, there would have been more best actor and actress winners than the three honoured this year.

Amid all the hoopla, it is easy to forget that it was Hollywood that erected the colour bar it is now taking such pride in tearing down. There wouldn't be the necessity for such belated celebration if it wasn't for studio executives' dogged refusal to imagine black people as anything other than criminals and clowns or, in the words of African-American film historian Donald Goine, as "toms, coons, mulattos, mammies and bucks".

Look closer at the long, troubled relationship between black actors and the silver screen and it is clear that Hollywood has little to be proud of. From eye-rolling, lip-smacking Stepin Fetchit in the 30s and Hattie McDaniel, the big-bosomed maid in Gone With The Wind, to the two-dimensional gangstas who populate cinematic visions of the hood in today's action films, a decades-long parade of grotesques has passed for an accurate portrayal of black people.

The most revealing moment of the Oscars ceremony came when, in handing over a statuette to Poitier, Academy president Frank Pierson admitted that in honouring him, the Oscars "honours itself even more".

Mendacity is Hollywood's stock in trade. But here was the truth. The Academy expects a slap on the back for not being racist, clearly because acting to the contrary is so much the norm.

It is a shame that awards ceremonies such as the Oscars are often accepted so uncritically. Because rather than a triumph for black people, this show should be seen as a day of infamy.

True, deserving actors won awards. But the success of the few bears no necessary relationship to the condition of the many. In America and across much of Europe, black people are poorer and more likely to be out of work and in prison than their white counterparts. Far from changing that, the Oscars simply revealed how complacent some sectors of white society can be about it.

An ironic contrast to black success in Hollywood was provided on the same day in London, when So Solid Crew rapper Ashley Walters was jailed for 18 months for possession of a loaded handgun. Throughout their short career, the British garage act has been vilified by the press as a menace to civilised society. Ostensibly, Walters' conviction proves the point. Yet his downfall and the Oscar success of Washington and Berry is connected.

White society has a hard time seeing black people as anything other than caricatures. It has taken 74 years for three actors to be named as the best in their field because the Academy, presumably, couldn't see beyond colour.

In Britain, a member of the most exciting young group in many years played according to the expectations of society; carrying a gun because he believed that was how he was supposed to act.

Honouring extraordinary black achievement is important. But so, too, is recognising that black people are individuals, good or bad, brilliant or flawed. Only under those circumstances will groups such as So Solid Crew escape vilification. And only under those circumstances will I feel like celebrating.

- INDEPENDENT

Oscar nominees and winners (full list)

nzherald.co.nz/oscars