As Tom Wolfe pointed out in 1987, one of the obsessions our age is Plaques for Blacks. In Bonfire of the Vanities, the Mayor of New York winces everytime he asks his chief of staff what’s on the schedule today and his aide answers “Plaques for Blacks.”

From USA Today:

Jussie Smollett is nominated for an NAACP Award, and host Anthony Anderson hopes he wins

Hannah Yasharoff, USA TODAY Published 12:08 p.m. ET March 28, 2019 | Just days after the prosecutors dropped all charges against Jussie Smollett, who had been indicted on 16 counts of disorderly conduct, the “Empire” actor could again make headlines. Smollett is nominated for the 2019 NAACP Image Awards, scheduled for Saturday.

The NAACP Image Awards is a do-it-yourself Plaques for Blacks operation, which seems like a good thing, although it doesn’t seem to actually relieve pressure on other awards ceremonies to give blacks more prizes, which is why, for example, Tina Tchen, Honorary Black Woman, heads the Grammy Awards’ task force investigating why Beyonce doesn’t win all the Grammys.

Nominations were announced on February 13, just a day or two before the Smollett story fell apart due to the Nigerian bodybuilder brothers.

Six-time host and “Black-ish” star Anthony Anderson told Variety on Wednesday that he hopes to see the controversial actor there. “I hope he wins,” Anderson added. “I’m happy for him that the system worked for him in his favor because the system isn’t always fair, especially for people of color. So I’m glad it worked out for him.”

In other words: Jussie deserves to win his plaque to make up for poor Philando Castile getting shot in Minnesota in 2016.

In general, this seems to be a characteristic type of logic of this decade: various celebrities deserve to be compensated for bad things that have happened to non-celebrities of their identity group.



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