This year’s Oscar nominees were overwhelmingly white -- every single actor and actress nominated for an Academy Award this year is Caucasian. In terms of nominations, the 2015 ceremony will be the whitest since 1998. There has been public outcry over the lack of racial diversity at this year's awards, with particular focus on the movie "Selma" and the lack of nominations it received in the acting and directing categories. The film, which was based on Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic civil rights march to Montgomery, received a 99% rating with critics on RottenTomatoes.

The hashtag "OscarsSoWhite" went viral after the nominations were announced.

Of the current 6,000 Academy Awards members, 94% are white. 77% are male and 86% are older than 50. In a country that’s 36% minority, 50.8% female and mostly under 50 years-old, the voting members don’t seem representative of the typical American moviegoer.

The nominations follow closely on the heels of leaked Sony (SNE) emails in which executives Amy Pascal and Scott Rudin make fun of President Barack Obama and black movie stars. The combination seems to indicate Hollywood may have a race problem.

“I don’t think it’s fair to just blame the Academy for the lack of diversity in Hollywood,” says Jorge Rivas, National Affairs Correspondent for Fusion. “There’s a cycle that helps the system continue where you don’t see actors of color being cast in leading roles. It starts with the agents. It’s also the studios that decided which movies they fund and what movies they’re willing to take a risk on.” In order to get into The Academy, explains Rivas, you need to be working in film and if you’re systematically kept out of the film industry that becomes impossible.