In a pivotal scene from last year’s smash biopic Straight Outta Compton, members of the hip-hop group NWA face the press after a performance of their most controversial hit, “[Expletive} Tha Police,” allegedly incited a riot in Detroit.”Your songs glamorize the lifestyle of gangs, guns and drugs,” one reporter says, but is quickly corrected by Ice Cube. “Our art is a reflection of our reality,” their chief lyricist says. “What do you see when you look outside your door?”

The message was both simple and significant: there is no one acceptable form of ‘art’ and the validation of said art cannot depend solely upon one particular point of view. It’s a point that resonated with me long after the credits rolled and the crux of the contention that many African-Americans are having right now with the Academy Awards, which have failed, for the second year in a row, to nominate people of color in any of its four major categories.

Moments after the nominees were announced earlier this month, the glaring omissions were immediately discussed all over social media, kicked off under Twitter’ hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. As in last year’s #OSW online campaign, many pointed out the availability of quality films and stellar performances, including Beasts of No Nation, Concussion, Straight Outta Compton and Creed. And if that weren’t insulting enough, the only recognition earned by films with African-American casts or directors were given to white scriptwriters (Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff for Compton) and a white actor, Sylvester Stallone for Creed, which seems especially disingenuous.

But of all the famous voices speaking out against the status quo, such as Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Don Cheadle, Spike Lee and David Oyelowo, the responses that went viral responses came from Jada Pinkett-Smith and Janet Hubert, African-American actresses who illustrate the fruit and famine of this high-stake Hollywood industry.

In a video posted to Pinkett-Smith’s Facebook fan page, she said: “Maybe it is time that we pull back our resources and we put them back into our communities….and we make programs for ourselves that acknowledge us in ways that we see fit.”

Many considered her respnse eloquent and empowering, but Hubert, best-known for her role as the original “Vivian Banks” on the hit NBC sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, immediately “clapped back” a scathing rebuttal. She retorted that Smith didn’t feel moved to say anything until the year her husband, Will Smith, was overlooked, and she said neither of the Smiths seemed willing to use their cash or clout to help emerging or other fellow African-American artists. “….y’all need to get over yourselves,” Hubert said. “You have a huge production company that you only [use to] produce your friends and family and yourself. So you are part of Hollywood….a part of the system that is unfair to other actors. So get real.”

Is Hubert just throwing shade, or is Smith too personally invested? No matter what, the 43 million African-Americans in the U.S. represent more than a trillion dollars in spending power, according to a Nielsen Co. study. And according to a 2014 study of frequent moviegoers, 10% were African-Americans. With those numbers, it becomes impossible to justify the Academy’s practice of only honoring contributions, artistically or otherwise, made by whites.

After widespread backlash and ever-plummeting telecast ratings, Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who is African-American, promised “dramatic steps to alter the makeup of our membership.”The action is long overdue, since Oscar voters are more than 90 percent white, 77 percent male and over half of them are older than 50, according to a 2012 Los Angeles Times study. Salaries and careers can be catapulted into A-list range after receiving an Oscar nomination, and if only one group determines what is considered a valuable film, it shrinks the creativity and earning power of all. As NWA once demonstrated, expressing oneself artistically shouldn’t require the approval of the establishment to inspire, educate or make a meaningful impact.