“Selma” star David Oyelowo: Black actors are generally celebrated for being “subservient”“When

“Selma” star David Oyelowo: Black actors are generally celebrated for being “subservient”“When we are not being leaders or kings or being at the center of our own narrative”“Oyelowo sat down for a candid discussion at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Sunday night. There the actor was being honored as one of 2014′s virtuoso actors. During the interview Oyelowo was asked what it was like being “the subject of Oscar snub outrage,” after he was not nominated for his portrayal of Martin Luther King Jr. in “Selma.”After making jokes about calling for calm, but secretly wanting people to be angry, Oyelowo gave a diplomatic yet honest response.“No, look, historically — this is truly my feeling,” Oyelowo began. “I felt this before the situation we’re talking about and I feel it now. Generally speaking, we, as black people, have been celebrated more for when we are subservient, when we are not being leaders or kings or being at the center of our own narrative.”Oyelowo gave the example of Sydney Poitier winning for “Lilies of the Field” and not “In the Heat of the Night,” and stated that he thought Denzel Washington should have won an Oscar for portraying Malcolm X.“So this bears out what I’m saying, which is we’ve just got to come to the point whereby there isn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy — a notion of who black people are — that feeds into what we are celebrated as, not just in the Academy, but in life generally,” the star of “Selma” stated. “We have been slaves; we have been domestic servants; we have been criminals; we have been all of those things. But we have been leaders; we have been kings; we have been those who changed the world.”Read the full piece and watch the video here -- source link
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