Los Angeles, Feb 2 (AFP/APP): April Reign remembers precisely where she was in January 2015 when she launched the #OscarsSoWhite movement with a simple, offhand tweet. “I’d love to have a sexy story that I was sitting in a board room ideating and strategizing,” she told AFP in an interview. “But no — I was half-dressed in my family room, to be very frank. “I picked up my phone and wrote, ‘#OscarsSoWhite they asked to touch my hair.’ That was it.” Within hours, the tweet — sent from Washington, as Reign followed the Oscar nominations announcement over breakfast, and realized all 20 actors were white — had gone viral worldwide. Five years later, the phrase has become a universal clarion call for more diversity at the Oscars, in Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general. But the hashtag made an unwelcome return to Twitter this month as the 2020 Oscar shortlists were announced by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Cynthia Erivo was the only actress of color to earn a nomination, for anti-slavery biopic “Harriet.” All of the male acting nominees were white. Industry website Deadline Hollywood called the announcement “basically #OscarsSoWhite Part 2.” For Reign, a … Continue reading #OscarsSoWhite: the Hollywood ‘hashtag’ activists demanding diversity