#OscarsSoWhite Forces The Academy To Finally Mandate Diversity

Oscars 2016 will go down in history as the year when the Academy bowed down to the force and embraced the unthinkable. Diversity.

In what has been deemed as “historic”, Cheryl Boone, The Academy’s president, who also happens to be black – announced that after a unanimous vote, the Board of Governors acknowledged that drastic changes had to be instituted in order to ensure the entry of more women and minorities, in order to guarantee that what is happening now – never happens again.

Click here to read the announcement in its entirety.

If not, then lets discuss. Basically once the Oscar nominations made landfall, social media and black Hollywood (well, half of black Hollywood) had a field day because none of the categories featured a talent of color.

#OscarSoWhite began trending instantly, Jada Pinkett Smith, hubby Will Smith and Spike Lee confirmed they were boycotting the festivities (or maybe the media did it for them), either way – all hell broke loose. And now, here we are.

After decades of being accused of not including talents of color in a satisfying way – it took an overheated hashtag and the wrath of social media to bring The Academy to its knees and force members to consider revising an overwrought blueprint that clearly isn’t working.

Only time will tell how things will shape up from here. According to the released statement – we have until 2010 to find out.