Still, the Academy shouldn’t pat itself on the back just yet. The reason it was able to achieve this ambitious goal is because the original numbers were so low in the first place. As Kyle Buchanan points out in the New York Times , people of color still make up only 19% of the overall membership, while women account for just 33%. What’s more, the 2020 Oscar acting nominations (and winners) were still overwhelmingly white , and, as Issa Rae so memorably pointed out , no women were nominated in the director’s category. Again.