There is no place for racism in the Star Wars galaxy, declares the “Star Wars” franchise, responding to the “hundreds” of offensive messages that actor Moses Ingram has been receiving. Ingram, who is Black, recently made her debut as Reva in the Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Ingram had posted to Instagram a sampling of racist messages she’d received from anonymous critics, including many using the N-word. In her commentary, she stressed that she was not the kind of person to take this abuse without protest.
“The thing that bothers me is … this feeling of like, I just gotta shut up and take it, I just have to grin and bear it. And I’m not built like that. Thank you to the people who show up for me in the comments and in the places that I’m not going to put myself. And to the rest of y’all, y’all weird.”
In her posting, Ingram lamented that “There’s nothing anybody can do about this. There’s nothing anybody can do to stop this hate.”
Ingram’s colleagues immediately came to her defense, with the franchise itself tweeting that it was “proud to welcome” her in the role of Reva.
“If anyone intends to make her feel in any way unwelcome, we have only one thing to say: we resist. … There are more than 20 million sentient species in the Star Wars galaxy, don’t choose to be a racist,” the franchise stated.
Ewan McGregor, who plays the lead in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, also came forcefully to Ingram’s defense in a video he posted this week. “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,” he said.
“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 no Star Wars fan in my mind. There’s no place for racism in this world. And I totally stand with Moses.”
Moses has not been the only target of intergalactic racist comments. Both John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran were also the brunt of bigoted remarks when they appeared in earlier Star Wars films.
Deborah Chow is the director of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, which stars Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader. The series premiered on May 27 and will stream weekly on Wednesdays until the finale on June 22.