Authoritative Sources

Los Angeles

Selma did wind up winning a minor Oscar last night, for best original song.

In the acceptance speech, actor John Legend and rapper Common claimed that there are more black men in prison today than there were black people that were ever enslaved in the United States.

Any one with brain can pick that argument apart. That was just a matter of two dumbasses saying something to a crowd of even bigger dumbasses, and everyone in the room thought that something brilliant was just uttered, because nobody in the room had the ability to reason their way out of a paper bag. There are around 40 million black people today, so it stands to reason that there’s a chance that the number of black men incarcerated right now is more than the number of black people that were ever slaves between 1776 and 1865.

Unfortunately for dumb and dumber, the 1860 Census listed 3.9 million black slaves. The total American jail and prison population at the moment is 2.3 million, and not all of those are black men.  In fact, only around 900,000 are.  So, as a matter of fact, frick and frack were wrong.  If there were 3.9 million black slaves in the last decennial census where slavery was legal, it means there were more than 3.9 million black slaves that ever lived during 84 years of American independence before that census was taken.  Still more than 0.9 million.  But then again, I don’t think of a (c)rapper and an actor as authoritative sources on American history.

In other Oscar observations:

*  Ironically, the only Oscar that Boyhood got was Patricia Arquette, for best supporting actress.  As in a woman.  And of course she used the occasion of her acceptance speech to kvetch about the non-existent solved-long-ago gender pay and wage and salary gap.

*  I was cheering for Interstellar and American Sniper.  They did both win minor Oscars for visual effects and sound editing, respectively.

*  Also, I’m so surprised and shocked that a the association that puts on a trade show for actors and movies thought the best movie of last year was a movie about an actor.