IMO, the problem with the Academy extends beyond potential racial bias, and its something that other group's and their awards have had to deal with recently. The two places that I'm familiar with is the Baseball Hall of Fame. There, the issue hasn't been surrounding race but whether or not people who play "modern" positions like the DH, relief pitchers and closers are "deserving" of being elected to the Hall of Fame and secondly, the steroid issue. The solution that Baseball came up with is that voters must have been active in the BBWAA in the last 10 years. 100 voters lost their privileges, and that group was predominately old, retired writers. And this year's votes definitely showed a marked change.
I don't know the exact makeup of the Academy voters, but a similar solution may be available. For years the complaints have been that the Academy is made up of old, white men and that the Oscars have become less relevant to younger people who see a growing disparity between performances they value vs this old guard. And that might benefit all actors whose roles or who themselves are viewed as non-traditional. This is a good reason why the makeup of the Hosts has been more "representative" over the last decade, because the ratings forced their hands. But it isn't enough to stop just at hosts.
The second place, isn't my "world," and I really don't know much about, except that I stumbled across a long article about it, several months back (I wish I knew which one, but google Hugo awards and puppygate and you'll find plenty). But apparently, the Sci-Fi writing community is struggling with it's white male conservative group of writers vs writers whose stories are more friendly to LGBT, females and people of color. The Hugo Awards became the focal point when a group who calls themselves Sad Puppies, and a 2nd group who calls themselves Rabid Puppies, orchestrated this year's ballot (block voting) to be more in tune with their politics, which meant white guys got nominated. Several popular authors, including George RR Martin spoke out. Unlike the Academy, it's easier to participate in Hugo voting, so membership swelled and this year's awards themselves turned out to be less controversial. But the groups who orchestrated the ballot plan to do the same next year.
Everywhere you look battles are being waged between so-called traditional and progressive values, with all the code words you can think of thrown in. This is another "symptom" and IMO, if people think this is just Jada's "sour grapes" aren't really paying attention to the rest of the world. People aren't perfect angels, no one. So there are going to be mistakes, injustices, biases etc everywhere. All we can do is strive to be better than before. And I don't see how we get there when, going in, we're looking to diminish, dismiss or subject the complaint raiser to "how perfect are *you*," tests. Obviously, Jada is sensitive to racial issues, but I think it's a mistake to think that the dissatisfaction is coming only about race. IMO, it's speaking to something bigger, and sometimes the words to describe don't come easy and it becomes easier to speak about just the racial component.
