(CNN)A best picture nomination is not exactly nothing. Many would argue that it's just about everything. Yet there was brush-fire-level rage on and off the Internet -- see #OscarsSoWhite -- following Thursday morning's announcement of this year's Academy Award nominations over the fact that "Selma," the critically acclaimed drama about Martin Luther King Jr.'s epochal campaign for voting rights in the South, received only two Oscar nods, one of them for best picture. (The other was for best song: "Glory," the Golden Globe-winning anthem co-written by Common and John Legend, which one can safely label the prohibitive early favorite its category.)
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Gene Seymour: At #OscarsSoWhite, many complain the 'Selma' Oscar snub is about race
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He says consider difference between Oscar support for "12 years a Slave" and "Selma"
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Seymour: One is about blacks as victims; one is about strong blacks as agents of their own salvation
"Selma's" partisans cried racism at the Academy voters, even though a few of these critics pointed out that this was the pretty much the same @placeholder that a year ago conferred the best picture, best adapted screenplay and best supporting actress Oscars to "12 Years a Slave."