‘Star Wars’ Reacts To Racist Backlash To New Black Character
Moses Ingram is making her Star Wars debut as Inquisitor Reva in the Disney+ original series Obi-Wan Kenobi. However, some fans are upset a Black woman is in the role.
According to CBS News, on Ingram’s Instagram Stories, the actress revealed she has been flooded with racist messages since the series dropped last week. The posts have now disappeared.
Star Wars responded to the hateful messages with a statement that read, "We are proud to welcome Moses Ingram to the Star Wars family and excited for Reva's story to unfold. If anyone intends to make her feel in any way unwelcome, we have only one thing to say: we resist."
The statement continued, "There are more than 20 million sentient species in the Star Wars galaxy, don't choose to be a racist.”
This is not the first time Star Wars received racist backlash for casting. In 2018, after Kelly Marie Tran was cast as the first Asian-American woman to appear as a lead in the popular film series, fans inundated her with racist messages, causing her to remove all her content from Instagram. John Boyega, who was also targeted with hateful messages when he was cast as stormtrooper Finn in the franchise, responded in her defense.
“If you don’t like Star Wars or the characters understand that there are decisions makers and harassing the actors/ actresses will do nothing,” he tweeted. “You’re not entitled to politeness when your approach is rude. Even if you paid for a ticket!”
However, back in 2020, Boyega told GQ how he was disappointed his character wasn’t as developed as expected. Boyega implied that not only happened to him, but other cast members of color such as Tran, Naomi Ackie and Oscar Isaac.
“It’s so difficult to maneuver,” he said. “You get yourself involved in projects and you’re not necessarily going to like everything. [But] what I would say to Disney is do not bring out a Black character, market them to be much more important in the franchise than they are and then have them pushed to the side. It’s not good. I’ll say it straight up.”
He added: “Like, you guys knew what to do with Daisy Ridley, you knew what to do with Adam Driver. You knew what to do with these other people, but when it came to Kelly Marie Tran, when it came to John Boyega, you know f**k all. So what do you want me to say? What they want you to say is, ‘I enjoyed being a part of it. It was a great experience...’ Nah, nah, nah. I’ll take that deal when it’s a great experience. They gave all the nuance to Adam Driver, all the nuance to Daisy Ridley. Let’s be honest. Daisy knows this. Adam knows this. Everybody knows. I’m not exposing anything.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi is currently streaming.
