In yet another day ending in “y,” racists reared their ugly little racist heads on social media after the teaser for the seventh installment of the Star Wars series was released Friday. Star Wars: The Force Awakens seems to be a more post-racial Star Wars in the sense that the cast is more diverse than ever, but not everyone is too happy about that.
Just take a look at the first few seconds of the trailer:
Apparently certain people (ahem, racist people) took issue with the black Stormtrooper featured in the beginning of the trailer. The comments on the YouTube video were littered with the n-word and other derogatory remarks about the idea of black people being in a galaxy far, far away. I mean, sheesh, you’d think people would realize we’re everywhere. Even if it is sci-fi. Also, everyone forgot that Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) and his luxurious hair was a black man in the movie.
Fans stated that Stormtroopers were clones of Jango Fett, and since Fett wasn’t black, then the Stormtroopers shouldn’t be, either. There is only a black Stormtrooper because of “political correctness,” they lamented. Sure, Fett wasn’t black, but guess what? He wasn’t white, either. The actor who portrayed Fett, Temuera Morrison, is a brown-skinned person of Maori descent.
John Boyega, the 22-year-old British actor playing the Stormtrooper, took to his Instagram account to laugh in the faces of the racist Star Wars fans.
It’s amazing how racist some of these fans are. It makes you wonder if they actually realize that just because something is science fiction doesn’t mean it has to be lily-white. But then again, racists will always be racist. Let's just hope the black Stormtrooper isn’t killed off early on in the movie.