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Yes, Stacey Dash, white people do get NAACP Image and BET awards

Sam Smith was not only nominated at the BET Awards, but won the Best New Artist award, beating out the likes of Fetty Wap and Rae Sremmurd.

Sam Smith was not only nominated at the BET Awards, but won the Best New Artist award, beating out the likes of Fetty Wap and Rae Sremmurd.

(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
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Donald Trump weighed in on the #OscarsSoWhite situation Wednesday by pointing out what some are calling a double standard: Why do black people get to criticize the Oscars for being nearly all white, when white people don’t get nominated at the BET Awards?

In a remote interview with Fox and Friends, Trump said he was impressed with “Clueless” actress and Fox News correspondent Stacey Dash, who suggested that there shouldn’t be a Black History Month, and that the BET Awards and the NAACP Image Awards shouldn’t exist.

#OscarsSoWhite: Full coverage of the boycott and Hollywood's reaction

Black awards shows are a problem, she said, because “you’re only awarded if you’re black.” In his interview, Donald Trump agreed, and went a bit further – saying that “the whites don’t get any nominations” at the BET awards.

Actually, neither of those statements is true.

Last year, Sam Smith – who is white – was not only nominated at the BET Awards, but won the Best New Artist award, beating out the likes of Fetty Wap and Rae Sremmurd. Iggy Azalea, a white rapper from Australia, was nominated for Best Female Hip-Hop Artist.

Sam Smith also won an NAACP Image Award in the "Outstanding Duo, Group or Collaboration" category that year. In fact, 4 of the 10 nominees in that category were white. Steven Spielberg won a Vanguard Award at the ceremony in 2000, and "Star Wars" director George Lucas received one in 2012.

Returning to the BET Awards, Robin Thicke has been nominated four times, most recently in 2014 for Best Collaboration in “Blurred Lines.” Daft Punk, a pair of white men from France, were nominated that same year for Best Group.

Other white artists spotlighted at past BET awards include Eminem (nominated five times, including once during the inaugural year of the awards) and Justin Bieber (nominated in 2010 for Best New Artist).

Non-black artists of color have also been represented among nominees, in particular at the NAACP Image Awards. In recent years, stars of South Asian heritage such as "The Mindy Project" star Mindy Kaling, and Erik Valdez, a Latino actor who appears in "General Hospital," have been nominated.

Both the BET Awards and the NAACP Image Awards were founded, and still exist because, as the official NAACP site says, "the lack of racial diversity in the entertainment industry still exists."

Follow me @dexdigi for more on the intersection of culture and the Internet

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