January 22, 2016

The Oscars Just Announced Major Changes to Finally Start Promoting Diversity


On Friday, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced sweeping changes to its structural and voting process aimed at promoting diversity within the Academy and its governing entities—changes the Academy promises will double the number of women and “diverse members” by 2020.

“The Academy is going to lead and not wait for the industry to catch up,” Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs said 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.”

The announcement comes amid ongoing outrage sparked by this year’s Oscar nominations, which failed to include a single person of color in its Best Film, Best Director, or its four major acting categories. The response quickly resulted in the social media campaign #OscarsSoWhite to call attention to the industry’s diversity issues.

 

A photo posted by Lupita Nyong’o (@lupitanyongo) on

Shortly after the nominations were unveiled, Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith, and Spike Lee announced they were not going to attend this year’s awards ceremony.

“The Academy reflects the industry, reflects Hollywood, and the industry reflects America, reflects a series of challenges that we’re having in our country at the moment,” Smith said. “There’s a regressive slide towards separatism, toward racial and religious disharmony, and that’s not the Hollywood I want to leave behind, that’s not the industry, that’s not the America I want to leave behind.”

Read the Academy’s full announcement here:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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