ArcaMax

It is easy to be disappointed by the news that this year's 20 nominees for the Academy Awards included zero nonwhite actors -- for the second year in a row.

It is tougher to figure out what to do about it.

The hashtag movement #OscarsSoWhite popped up for the second year on Twitter. Jada Pinkett Smith, apparently miffed that her husband Will Smith's widely praised performance in "Concussion" was passed over, said on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day that she would not attend the Oscars and encouraged others to join her.

Spike Lee, whose movie "Chi-Raq" also was passed over, joined in. So did Will Smith, who told ABC News he was out of the country when his wife posted her decision online and that he wished she had given him a "heads-up," nevertheless said he supported her decision.

I understand their frustration, but best-actress nominee Charlotte Rampling was not entirely wrong when she complained that the #OscarsSoWhite protest sounded "racist to whites." She later apologized for her inflammatory wording, but let's face it: She said what a lot of other people are still thinking.

Yet, rest assured, none of the #OscarsSoWhite advocates for increased diversity has called for racial "quotas," even though Rampling's French interviewer seemed to have that impression.

Bold discrimination against whites would further damage the Oscars' already embattled brand and prestige as much as allegations of discrimination against nonwhites have done.

I, for one, don't want to see people of color given awards simply because of their race or ethnic group. But I don't want to see them excluded because of their race or ethnic group, either.

Yet, as often happens with these clashes between cultures, this Oscar controversy presents both problems and an opportunity to expand diversity beyond race in their judging process.

It is shocking, for example, to see the demographic statistics of the approximately 6,000 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members who vote for the Oscars. In 2012 a Los Angeles Times study found 94 percent of the voting members were white, 77 per cent were male and 64 percent were found to be over age 60.

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