Here lately, and time and time again, there has been a big squabble over Black actors and the “lack of diversity” in the Academy Awards, also known as “The Oscars.”

Actor Jada Pinkett Smith called for a boycott of the Oscars; some say, “because her husband, Will Smith, was not nominated” for whatever movie he did this past year. One of Will’s former co-actors on the old “The Fresh Prince of Bel-air”, Janet Hubert, answered Jada’s call for a boycott with a boycott of her own: Boycott Jada Pinkett Smith, in a word or three or four. It’s too petty, she said. I’m sure white America agrees with her.

Whoopi Goldberg has said that she is fed up and tired of having the same old tired conversation every year. However, considering that she does not consider herself an “African” American, the sight of all of those non-African white “Americans” on the Oscars should be plenty enough equality and diversity for her. At least there are white women and white men and white gays and lesbians, what’s so non-diverse about that?

Others have said its racist, and still other mainly Black folk, so many claim to be, are saying “Who cares?” I say “claim to be” because one never knows who the Black posers are on social media. There are saboteurs and trolls in our midst, regardless.

Facebook and Twitter commenter after commenter leaves the discerning and unimpressed mind wondering why in the holy hayell this is even a point of discussion in the Black community in this day and age?

This kind of thing -“lack of diversity as such”- has been going on in a very race-oriented nation and society for more than 500 years now, so when did any of us miss the memo on that?

We should be well accustomed to it by now and should not be expecting any better of certain ones of “the persuasion.” The level of expectation that something is going to give or change on that is laughable, at the very least; intangible at best.

We want to believe that our GCD (Greatest Common Denominator) as a people is attainment to equality as human beings, members of the “human” race and none other. Yet, we do not need to be “humanized” or validated by those who came after us.

We’d also like to believe that our LCD (Least/Lowest Common Denominator), is staying separated and exclusive to ourselves in this big world filled with the most diverse people, parented on origin by the Black human race. However, Black folk are the only race on the planet who provide a social and economic bridge across the continents, in every color and nationality of the rainbow.

When you walk into a room filled with nothing but Black people, that’s as diverse as the world gets. That’s all there is and there is no more. White simply cannot be “diverse,” as it was not meant to be. God did not create the world that way. When we walk into a room, they are immediately over-shadowed, overwhelmed, and overcome.

White people -the ones we work so hard to worship and give our credibility to- do not provide that bridge across the human divide because they are incapable of it. That still small voice whispering and swirling in the wind says: You can never be “equal” partners in a nation that was built on and forged in inequality at YOUR expense, and at the expense of your ancestors and what will soon become your future generations.

While we, as a People who do not know we are a People, beg for recognition and credibility and validation amongst the perceived “greater thous” of this society, we’ve never stopped to consider that our GCD (greatest common denominator) as a people rests and abides within ourselves, not them.

We are the basis and foundation and building blocks of the beginning of this world as we know it. We, the Black human race, will be its ending.

In the meantime, once again, our GCD rests within ourselves, not within how accepted we are by the self-important “great other.” Worshiping white skin is the true “opium of the masses.” It is a religion that surpasses all other religions on the Earth. While we are busy looking at them, we need to turn our hearts, minds, bodies and souls toward home and take a good look at one another.

As to the Oscars, I concur with the “Who cares?” crowd.

I haven’t watched an Academy award theater in more than 20 years because of it. I knew in my heart it was never going to change; so why have we been trained to believe that this kind of thing is or should be important to us? ‘Sour grapes syndrome’ is just unbecoming to the people that God based the creation of the world upon. We too often forget who we are and why we are here. We are not here to answer to nor constantly compare ourselves to those who did not inherit the Earth at its heart root.

Our GCD is the only thing that is going to stop another “Flint, MI” and all these other travesties of racial injustice across the nation and the world in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.

Somebody should stop trusting that the elusive “they” will do the right thing, and take it on themselves to mind the store and the storehouse BEFORE a tragedy happens, not after it’s too late. The words are “We shall overcome,” not “we shall be outdone.”

Walk away and don’t expect anything better of their kind. It’s off the table, they are not trained or capable of it. Only WE can do that.

Walk away. It’s the only thing that is going to put us on our A-game again.

It’s the only way we stay alive. Selah.

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