Legendary actor Denzel Washington is tired of all the forced diversity and inclusion foisted on our culture by Hollywood.
From his point of view, the Macbeth and The Book of Eli star gets that diversity is good and should be celebrated. But, the fact that pop culture is fixated on superficial characteristics like race means we are losing focus on the real talents, abilities and humanity in people of all races and identity groups.
In a roundtable interview with NBC BLK (NBCNews.com’s section devoted to the African-American perspective) and various corporate news outlets, Washington claimed he thinks that “diversity shouldn’t even be mentioned.”
“You know, in my humble opinion, we ought to be at a place where diversity shouldn’t even be mentioned, like it’s something special,” the actor told the outlet. “These young kids — Black, white, blue, green or whatever — are highly talented and qualified. So that’s why they’re there."
Of course, that’s a powerful reminder of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s "Dream" just one day after MLK Day. Recall how the freedom fighter famously stated, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
We all know that the left’s obsession with race is often less about bridging the divide between different demographics and races, and more often about irritating the differences between these groups to achieve political aims. Remember how they used the Marxist Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization to achieve change? Feed people a line about how the country was founded to keep them oppressed and watch them change it.
On a smaller scale, there’s this obsession in pop culture about how certain identity groups are aggrieved. And often the idea to rectify those imbalances come in the form of racial or other types of diversity quotas.
Pretty soon everyone starts talking about how a movie cast, or a major awards category, needs to have a certain amount of people of a certain demographic in it. But then we are not focusing solely on the actual merits of those nominated or hired and judge them, in part, because of their skin color or sexuality.
Washington commented on this as well in 2016, when #OscarsSoWhite was trending on social media because people complained that not enough African-Americans were being nominated for awards in big Oscars categories at the time.
Denzel didn’t sympathize with #OscarsSoWhite at the time, saying, “If you’re looking for an excuse, you’ll find one. Is race the excuse? You can find it wherever you like.”
“Can’t live like that," he added. "Just do the best you can do.”
Something tells us Denzel doesn’t buy into the systemic racism narrative.
