By Julissa Catalan
Many were shocked Thursday morning when the nominations for the 2015 Academy Awards were announced and the critically acclaimed film Selma was shut out of almost every anticipated category. The snub helped make this year’s Oscars the “whitest” since 1998, with not one Black person nominated for an acting award.
While Selma—the film set in 1965 about Martin Luther King Jr.’s march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., at the peak of the civil-rights movement—was nominated for Best Picture, Ava Duvernay was notably missing from the Best Director category, while David Oyelowo was not nominated for Best Actor for his portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr.
