Racist Trolls Real Mad Black Woman Exists Even In A ‘Star Wars’ Galaxy, Far Far Away
What’s with these people?
So, there’s a new Star Wars series on Disney+ featuring Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Darth Vader’s back with James Earl Jones’s bad ass baritone. This is every nerd’s dream. Unfortunately, way too many Star Wars “fans” are racist bigots who want a "Whites Only" banner draped over the Death Star.
The new "Obi-Wan Kenobi" show includes beautiful Black woman Moses Ingram as Imperial Inquisitor Reva. She’s chilling and awesome, but the usual suspects have showered her with contempt. There are already several “The Problem with Reva” YouTube videos. It’s similar to how a certain segment of fandom reflexively disliked non-white male characters Rey, Finn, and Rose in the Star Wars sequels. They were especially vicious to Kelly Marie Tran, who played Rose. She was chased off social media after unrelenting racial harassment.
LucasFilm even warned Ingram that racist trolls would target her online because she was a Black woman playing in their fictional sandbox. Ingram was born in 1993, but starring in a fucking Star Wars series in 2022 is apparently like integrating a Little Rock, Arkansas, school in 1957.
The Imperial MAGA crowd might complain, “Can’t we just think Moses Ingram is a terrible actor ruining our Star Wars without people saying we’re racist?” Well, no. Ingram didn’t win this role in a raffle. Her credits include Emmy-winning "The Queen’s Gambit" and Oscar-nominated The Tragedy of Macbeth — that’s Shakespeare. Star Wars is the one with Wookiees and baby Yodas. GTFOH.
Besides, assholes were also complaining that Ingram was only cast because of the “woke" diversity agenda. They can’t accept that she’s a good actor or that diversity itself is a positive. Billy Dee Williams is not the only Black person in the Star Wars universe. The "woke" critics respond predictably whenever a film or TV series centers women and people of color who aren’t simply a “prize” or wacky sidekick for the white male protagonist.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi" premiered last Friday but the racist trolls quickly attacked Ingram from their Internet caves. There’s no point in detailing the grossness, but here’s just one sample.
The good news is that Ingram has the full support of her cast. There were concerns that LucasFilm didn’t respond in force when Tan and John Boyega, who played Finn, were bullied, but no time was wasted reading these bigots for filth.
Series star Ewan McGregor posted this sweet message Tuesday night:
“A personal message from Ewan McGregor.”
— Star Wars (@Star Wars) 1654045680
MCGREGOR: It seems that some of the fan base has decided to attack Moses Ingram online and send her the most horrendous, racist [direct messages]. I heard some of them this morning, and it just broke my heart. Moses is a brilliant actor. She is a brilliant woman. And she is absolutely amazing in this series. She brings so much to the series, she brings so much to the franchise. And it just sickened me to my stomach that this had been happening. I just want to say as the lead actor in the series, as the executive producer on the series, that we stand with Moses. We love Moses. And if you’re sending her bullying messages, you’re noStar Wars fan in my mind. There’s no place for racism in this world. And I totally stand with Moses.
There was even franchise-crossover support for Ingram. Anson Mount, who stars as Captain Pike in the excellent "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," also stood up against racist bullshit:
This is Moses Ingram. She is a singular talent and a recent addition to the @starwarsuniverse. She has also been targeted by racists pretending to be fans because her mere existence threatens a skewed, dystopian fantasy that selectively omits the likes of @therealbillydee and others. We, the Trek Family, have her back.
This morning, I noticed that Gina Carano was trending on Twitter. The rightwing persecution industrial complex works overtime, so now fools are whining that LucasFilm and Star Wars actors didn’t rush to defend Carano when people were mean to her on social media. Cyberbullying is never acceptable, but in reality, Carano wasn’t hired for a third season on The Mandalorian after she willingly posted offensive crap. She compared Republicans to Jews during the Holocaust! Ingram, meanwhile, is a Black woman playing a Black character in Star Wars , and she’s doing a damn good job.
Suck it, haters.
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I have always been an atheist - even as a little kid I just never believed in anything unreal - but I was fine with it because of how it worked in the story, just as I enjoyed the angels, demons, and God/Chuck in "Supernatural".
BSG was a bit of a poke at the mistakes as far as both ourselves and our enemies that we made after 9/11. Making the humans pretty secular polytheists and the Cylons crusading fundamentalist monotheists was designed to throw us off our settled game.
The core mythology ultimately posited some sort of Higher Power but not a conventional hands-on God - more a motive force still dependent on the humans and the Cylons to make decisions and act. Free will remained essential for both.
For me, the role of religion was really just another character in the ensemble.