Angela Bassett's Oscars Face

Let her alone.

(Credit: Newsweek Magazine. Ms. Bassett’s expression is palpably sad.)

Angela Bassett’s disappointment was written all over her face last night as she did not win the Oscar for best supporting actress. Despite her electrifying, genre-lifting performance as Queen Ramonda in Wakanda Forever—or maybe because she had the audacity to radiate Black Queen anger and grief so palpably within a comic-book franchise—she did not win.

This isn’t the first egregious withholding of awards demonstrated by The Academy against Ms. Bassett. They robbed her back in 1993 when she channeled, with body, energy, and intensity, the iconic Tina Turner in What’s Love Got to Do With It. This is who The Academy is and we all know it: it is not a meritocracy; it is intentionally stingy with who and what films are even considered; it takes rapists lightly and on-air slaps "seriously”; in short, the Oscars have a proven record of breathtaking lack of good judgement. They stumble into good choices (I am ecstatic for Michelle Yeoh and Everything Everywhere All at Once) like a drunk uncle. A drunk, wealthy uncle who sets rates of pay, publicity, and accolades like a mafia don.

But this ain’t even about the Academy. This is about Ms. Angela’s face last night: hurt and disappointed. Seeing her sadness broke my heart. It was quite an intimate look into this woman’s heart, a sacred moment. We know—some of us know—those eyes. The eyes of being passed over after giving everything. The eyes that recognize nepotism and legacy—the unacknowledged affirmative action of family, fat wallets, and DNA. The eyes that watch apparitions of ceremonies past, where Black people were shut out of front doors and banquet tables because of the color of our skin.

These eyes were burdened with knowing; frustrated with progress’s inertia; and grieving.

But apparently Ms. Angela was supposed to keep on acting even though she was playing no role last night. She “should” have been beatific in the face of another snub. She should have fixed her face for the cameras.

Sharon Pisacreta @SPisacreta

Bassett is a fantastic actress. A shame she didn’t continue performing tonight and applaud when Jamie Lee won. Everyone wants to win. However most won’t. That’s life. And sore loser is never a good look. #AcademyAwards

Why are some people so activated by a Black woman being human?

Ms. Bassett did not conduct herself unprofessionally, she simply declined to participate in the split-screen charade. (Why do we think we are owed entertainment by freshly-disappointed people? Seriously, why do producers think it’s cute to cut not only to the winner but all the people who are, in real time, processing their loss? It’s a bit schadenfreude meets sadistic voyeurism, no?)

This expectation—that Black women be calm and comforting and reasonable and pleasant in circumstances where other demographics are free to respond, react, emote, scream, cry—is terrorism. Let the reader understand: this dissection of Ms. Angela’s face is not just about an Oscar’s snub. We are constantly under scrutiny for our responses to hurtful circumstances. I watched how people responded to Serena’s anger at bad calls, or Nikole Hannah Jones’ defending her reputation, or Naomi Osaka’s and Simone Biles’ dedication to their own self-care. It’s bizarre. Angela Bassett is not your mammy. Black women do not exist for your comfort and entertainment. We are created in the image of God and our existence is evidence of divinity and love.

I will never forget Diamond Reynolds. She and her daughter sat in the back of a car as Diamond’s love, Philando Castile, was shot to death by an out-of-control officer. As Philando bled to death, Diamond had to reason with this professionally trained law enforcement officer with all the deescalating, neutral energy that he lacked. Diamond had to exhibit an otherworldly calm in order to communicate with her love’s murderer.

America expects this from us: an otherworldly calm. A nonplussed pleasantness. A comfortable docility. Our humanity is an offense and an inconvenience in a system that has capitalized off of us through systemic rape, enslavement, devalued and undercompensated work, creativity theft, beauty mockery/imitation, and political salvation. We’re supposed to remain stoic and dependable when used, and then bring everyone to our heaving bosoms to be comforted for that usury.

No. This expectation is too heavy a yoke, as Dr. Walker-Barnes would say.

I applaud Ms. Bassett for feeling her feelings instead of performing for the cameras and for an emotionally infantile audience; there’s a freedom in that honesty. I hope also that she is covered and loved well and given space to feel everything.

Imma pray for her.