Black Magic

Imani Cheers has a request for the friends she has invited to her Academy Awards party on Sunday. They are to see each of the films up for b...

Imani Cheers has a request for the friends she has invited to her Academy Awards party on Sunday. They are to see each of the films up for best picture, as well as the ones from which a Black actor or actress has been nominated for an Oscar.

8216;8216;I8217;m so excited about the Awards,8217;8217; said Cheers. 8216;8216;This year is different because for the first time in the history of Oscars, you have a strong pool of Black nominees in major categories.8217;8217;

With the nominations of four Black actors and five films centering on Black characters or subjects, Cheers and other Black viewers say they will be tuning in to the Awards presentation for the first time in years. Joe Selmon, chairman of the theater arts department at Howard University in Washington, said: 8216;8216;As much as the number of nominees, it8217;s the quality of the roles they are being considered for that has people excited.8217;8217;

Many African American viewers were delighted when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry took top awards for 2001, but they were not so pleased with the roles for which they won their Oscars, say Selmon and Donald Bogle, an author and expert on Black films. By contrast, Jamie Foxx received a best actor nomination this year for his portrayal in Ray of blind song master Ray Charles, a role that Selmon said 8216;8216;shows a united sort of cultural base that we all share as Americans8217;8217;. The three nominations for Hotel Rwanda honour 8216;8216;an outstanding film that presented information that we all needed some insight into,8217;8217; Selmon added.

As a child, Cheers said, the Awards were one of her favorite programmes 8212; until she 8216;8216;became aware8217;8217; that Blacks were chronically excluded from the nominations.

Faye Dixon and George Bazemore of Fort Washington, who, as teens watched Sidney Poitier in 1963 become the first Black man to win an Academy Award, said they have since sporadically watched the ceremony. And it is not lost on them that it is still big news in 2005 for African Americans to be nominated. 8212;LAT-WP