Moonlight was voted by Sight & Sound as the second best film of 2016, behind Toni Erdmann. This poll is decided on by critics and curators, and Moonlight placed higher than any other nominee.

Whether or not you think fights for diversity were irrational or irrelevant in this day and age, intelligent discussion isn't happening as a result, and these people against Moonlight winning will not consider the possibility that it was the preferred film, but instead that it was the more diverse film to win, therefore it's "pandering". (But La La Land pandering would have been totally fine)

I had to remove dozens of uses of the words "nigger" and "faggot" from those /r/movies threads. While not everyone that holds these opinions went to such extremes, the fact that most of them did showcases that many of them don't care about which film "deserves" to win, they just don't want the Best Picture to make them feel uncomfortable politically, and will result to slurs to make everything "equal" (black people can't win TOO much, or else it's more than a coincidence no matter what).

Also of note, people saying that the Iranian film winning Best Foreign Language Film was predictable and purely political seem to forget Asghar Farhadi is one of the best living directors out right now (which they'd have known if they bothered watching foreign language films), with critical acclaim and another Oscar win for the same category six years prior for one of the best rated films on Metacritic. Also, Iran despite its political issues features one of the greatest film movements of all time. Incorporating meta-cinema, new techniques, literal law-breaking (Jafar Panahi), and with one of the first ever films in the movement being by a female director (The House is Black).

The entire reaction to the Oscars has been not fun for someone involved in film like myself, and for people trying to prove their point that the Oscars are pandering (which they've always have, mainly to mainstream American cinema, but to other groups as well, political or otherwise), there certainly is a portion of this group who cannot discuss these issues without using racist or homophobic slurs.

Whether or not you thought Moonlight should have won, (many don't think it did and for understandable reasons) simply awarding black people or homosexuals is not pandering solely because they're black or homosexual. You could certainly make that argument, but don't act like Moonlight and 12 Years a Slave (among others) were never in contention at all if not for political pandering.