The Academy Awards Are Making Changes To Make It More Diverse

When the Oscars released its list of nominees for the second year in a row there were no people of color in the major categories and there was an outcry from Jada Pinkett-Smith & Spike Lee, who said they will not be attending this years ceremony. So the Academy took the first step in Hollywood to make it more diverse."The Academy is going to lead and not wait for the industry to catch up," Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs in a statement. "These new measures regarding governance and voting will have an immediate impact and begin the process of significantly changing our membership composition." A 2012Los Angeles Times poll found that 94 percent of Oscar voters were white and 77 percent were men. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences voted unanimously to make "historic" changes to its membership in the face of an industry-wide boycott of the Oscars over the lack of diversity among nominees. As part of the plan, the Academy promises to double its number of women and minority members by 2020. Actor Danny DeVito weighed in on the subject"The entire country is a racist country, so this is one example of the fact that even though some people had given great performances in movies, they weren't even thought about," DeVito said. "We are living in a country that discriminates and has certain racist tendencies, so sometimes it manifests into things like this and it's illuminated. But just generally speaking, we're a bunch of racists."