Black folks have never been so popular in Hollywood. From the red carpet to the nominees, this year's Academy Awards flung open the party's doors for African-Americans.

But Oscar didn’t just invite Whoopie and Denzel. Jay Z got almost as much camera time as Martin Scorsese. With a guest list that wide open, things were bound to get a little awkward.

The unease was never more palpable than during host Chris Rock’s opening monologue. His routine employed a staple of black comedy -- playing the dozens. After a set-up in which he declared that Hollywood has only four real stars, Rock poked fun at a series of popular actors who, he joked, aren’t worthy of their fame.

It was funny. The reaction in the theater and the next morning’s papers, however, largely matched that of Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales, who called the bit “mean-spirited.”

There had been no shortage of pre-show hype about Rock’s potential obscenity. Those that bought it were undoubtedly disappointed. Instead of indecent, he’d just been that rude black guy sitting behind you at the movies.

The problem is everyone missed the point about Rock: His real indecency is his politics. He’s part of a long line of black comedians who eagerly poke their fingers in America’s racial sores.

Rock is unapologetically black, and he loves to play on white America’s anxiety about that fact. From Rock to best-actor winner Jamie Foxx, the 77th Academy Awards showcased America’s love-hate affair with this wing of black culture.

Be it Chris Rock or Allen Iverson, Jamie Foxx or Ray Charles himself, black men (and a few women) who have refused to make themselves appropriate now increasingly rule pop culture.

Unlike the more traditional black celebrities that once held a monopoly on crossover status -- the stately Denzel Washington or the elegant Halle Berry -- those in this class never stop reminding everybody that they don't really need white people to like them.

But it is no coincidence that Foxx kept Oprah Winfrey, the icon of crossover appeal, prominently in his corner throughout the Oscar campaign season. Oprah’s stamp of approval no doubt helped ease Oscar’s embrace of a film about an iconoclastic black heroin addict, portrayed by an actor whose most popular work is more along the lines of the 1997 film “Booty Call” than his recent dramatic roles.

Still, black stars like Rock, Foxx and Charles flamboyantly break the rules. That appeals to many Americans, black and white. Our national identity is wrapped in individualism. We do what we know to be right, the rules be damned. But these black stars are transgressing for a different reason: Because the rules in question are irrelevant to their worlds. That just makes people uncomfortable.

Rock’s best piece of the night again rudely threw this we-don’t-need-you attitude in Oscar’s face. He interviewed black moviegoers at the local Magic Johnson Theater, a chain of movie houses in black neighborhoods. He asked each if they’d seen the films nominated for best picture. No one had. What they had seen -- and loved -- was “White Chicks,” the Wayans Brothers’ comedy making fun of white high society.

This year’s Oscars may signal that the market has finally taught Hollywood what professional sports, the music industry and television already know -- black culture sells. It was the show’s poor ratings that pushed its producers into Rock's line of fire in the first place.

The lesson for Hollywood should be that you can’t always control your product when its appeal has nothing to do with you.

A version of this op-ed was syndicated to daily newspapers via the Progressive Media Project.