Scott Allan’s World

Jesse Jackson is complaining because Hollywood is too white.

According to Variety.com,

Jackson - who protested the 1996 Academy Awards due to the lack of African-American nominees - said that membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences needs to be expanded to include more African-Americans than the current 110 of 5,830.

“It’s really an issue of infrastructure,” Jackson added. “The voting doesn’t at all reflect the current reality of the population.”

Jackson’s in Los Angeles this week to lay the groundwork for an April conference, organized by Rainbow Push Entertainment Project and focusing on the issues of parity and equity.

No date’s been set yet but the confab would be designed to bring together top execs and experts to seek solutions in several areas of concern:

* Hosts on many cable networks are nearly all Caucasian, or as Jackson puts it “All day, all night, all white.”

* Minorities have limited access to jobs at major talent agencies.

* Casting of minority actors remains a problem. Jackson noted, pointing to a UCLA study by Russell Robinson, released in December and showing that found 69 percent of Hollywood roles were reserved for white actors.

According to the Census Bureau, 2005 American Community Survey the US population is as follows:

* White American, 74.7%, or about 215.3 million (the definition of White includes European Americans, North African Americans, Middle Eastern Americans (e.g. Arab Americans), Central Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans who reported as White in the 2000 Census)
* Black or African American 12.1% or 34.9 million
* Asian American 4.3% or 12.5 million,
* American Indian 0.8% or 2.4 million
* Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander 0.1% or 0.4 million
* Two or more races 1.9% or 5.6 million
* Other 6% or 17.3 million

Jackson may be right about blacks being under represented in the Academy at 1%. However, it sounds to me as though whites are also under represented in Hollywood. Whites make up 74.7% of the population but only get 69% of the roles. I have no figures to back this up but there does not appear to be any discrimination during the award ceremonies themselves. Usually the most deserving wins, unless of course they are up against a candidate promoting a liberal agenda. Isn’t that the way it should be? Personally I would like to see an increase in roles for hot latin women…