I stayed up on Sunday night to watch the Academy Awards. I wanted to see which actors would win. Up until very recently black actors weren’t even nominated. We talked about this a lot when I was growing up in the Bronx whenever the Oscars rolled around. It was a show for white people, we thought. Most of us knew that the only black actors to win Academy Awards in the 20th century were Hattie McDaniel in 1939 (the actress who played the maid “Mammie” in Gone With the Wind), Sidney Poitier (1963), Louis Gossett, Jr. (1982), Denzel Washington (1989), Whoopi Goldberg (1990) and Cuba Gooding, Jr. (1996). Of these actors, the only black actor to win in a leading role was Sidney Poitier. In 2001, Denzel Washington became the second black lead actor to win, and Halle Barry became the first black actress to win as best lead actress. Jamie Foxx also won as best lead actor in 2004 for Ray.

How things have changed in my generation! To paraphase Ellen DeGeneres (who did an awesome job as host, by the way): What would Hollywood be without blacks, Jews and gays? This year black actors were nominated — and were favorites in — 3 of the 4 catgories. In the end, Jennifer Hudson won as best supporting actress and Forest Whitaker won as best lead actor (the third black actor to win in a leading role in 6 years, after a period of 38 years between the first and second wins for lead black actors!). Eddie Murphy, the third favorite, lost and left the awards early. Seems that he’s not so popular in Hollywood as he is notoriously difficult to work with. It’s difficult to win in a vote of your peers if you’re not so well-liked.

I left the US in 2000, because I was tired of racial politics, tired of seeing everything through a racial prism and tired of always being seen through that same prism. I wanted to experience “blackness” in other contexts, or maybe not to experience it at all. I wanted a break. In the US, you are black first, and that is usually regarded by others as a bad–or at least, stigmatized–status. It’s tiring representing an entire race 24/7, particularly in the mostly white settings in which I tended to find myself. So I pulled a Tina Turner, packed up my bags and decided to change my primary identity from “black” to “American”. People might not like Americans, but they have at least a grudging respect for us. The dislike is often based on our status as the only superpower. I don’t mind so much if people associate me with power (that’s the goal of every American, isn’t it?). But I do mind people feeling superior to me. At a very early age, one of my favorite aunts taught me a phrase that as a young, Black person you can never forget: “Good as any, better than many and inferior to none.”

Being in Europe is different. In the US, you are always representing a race, but that creates a certain power in numbers that leads to social change and political power. Colin Powell’s status as a “racial representative” has an effect in Hollywood, in the business community, in everything, because his very presence and success redefines the public conception of blackness. This is what we see in the case of the Academy Awards. The increased presence and socio-political power of the Black community gets reflected in cultural events like the Academy Awards. The Latin community will be next, and in fact, this year made important advances as well with films such as Pan’s Labryinth and Babel.

In Europe, there is no such thing as black consciousness, black power or black politics. So no one apparently cares if blacks are represented in politics, arts, on television or in any other cultural space. In Spain, for example, the only consciousness that I see relates to regional and linguistic differences (Catalans vs. Basques vs. Madrileños, etc.). You can’t imagine the city when Barça beats Madrid, or if Barça loses. But I don’t see anything like black pride, or Arab/Muslim pride, or Latin-American pride. There’s not even so much gay pride! There’s no pride at all!

The US might be racist, but we accept racial minorities as our own. Maybe as disfavoured cousins, or maybe even unwanted stepchildren, but still part of the family. And this means that talented members of racial minorities have opportunities to reach the very summit of cultural power (the Oscars, the Grammies) or political power (Condeleeza Rice, Barak Obama, Colin Powell, etc). I view my life as a living example of this access to opportunity. But this doesn’t appear even close to being possible in Europe, and I doubt that I would have had the same opportunities growing up here.

This is, in part, why the New York Times is reporting today that Dreamgirls will be an interesting test case of international acceptance. The title of the article tells a sad story: “Film With Black Stars Seek to Break International Barriers”. The US market made Dreamgirls critically and commerically successful (the film passed the ever-important $100.000.000 mark), but there is doubt that the film can do well internationally. Apparently, US marketers believe that the international community is “the new South” (referring to the once-slaveholding region of the US). As one marketer noted: ““The international marketplace is still fairly racist.”

One might argue that it’s just that Europeans live racism in a different way and so don’t relate to US racial tales. But then again, such limitations of imagination generally don’t stop movies starring actors like George Clooney or Brad Pitt from succeeding, even if the themes involved are distinctly American. I liked Bend it Like Beckham and “Pride and Prejudice” is one of my favorite books even though their characters do not reflect my daily life. Suspension of belief / universal tales.

It’s an interesting dilemma, an example of the typical “individual vs. society” conversations that are had in political science and philosophy classes: on a personal level, I feel free from racial politics and thus more content personally. But on a political level, this freedom might be damaging in that it risks tacitly accepting the continuing marginalization of communities to which I belong.

For all of you who still aren’t aware of what Dreamgirls is in any of its incarnations (the original Supremes, the Broadway show or the current movie), please see the performance below from the recent Academy Awards and let me know what you think.