In the wake of Star Wars fans attacking Moses Ingram, who plays Reva in ‘Obi-Wan Kenobi’ here’s a history of racism in the Star Wars’ fanbase.

In the midst of fans’ racist backlash against Moses Ingram’s inclusion in Star Wars, many official accounts, and Moses Ingram herself, have stepped in to defend.

“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.”

“Racists have no place in our community. If you feel “attacked” by that simple statement, smash that unsubscribe button.”

“There are more than 20 million sentient species in the Star Wars galaxy, don’t choose to be a racist.”

“Moses on the racism she’s been encountering. Star Wars fans are the WORST.”

“to those who think they are smart by saying “they tweet about racism and this comes to your mind” I remind you Disney is okay with racism if it brings in money. Notice anyone missing? John Boyega had been one of my favorite actors since attack the block”

While fans of Star Wars have built a history of abusive and racist actions toward BIPOC, they’re not alone, although, Disney does their racism in much more discrete ways, as seen above.

John Boyega fans will remember when the actor faced extreme backlash and violent threats from deranged Star Wars fans in the same way that Moses Ingram currently is. When Boyega was revealed to be playing Finn, a black Stormtrooper, in The Force Awakens trailer, Star Wars fans started screeching about the color of his skin. Disney itself showed little to no support for Boyega during the backlash and his part would eventually take on diminishing roles as the trilogy proceeded.

John Boyega spoke to Vanity Fair on how Disney treated him during his time with them, “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”

Boyega touched on Marie Tran as well, who received massive blowback from fans for her inclusion in Star Wars Episode VII: The Last Jedi.

“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, fuck all,” Boyega continued. “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.”

Many fans have pointed out that the criticisms of people such as John Boyega, Marie Tran, and Moses Ingram aren’t racially motivated but instead come from a place of disagreement with the characters’ writing. These claims will point out that there have been BIPOC characters who have been accepted in the past and white characters who have drawn major criticism. Notably, in the modern Star Wars era, Jake Lloyd (young Anakin Skywalker), Alden Ehrenreich (young Han Solo), and even Hayden Christensen (teenage Anakin), albeit to a lesser degree for Hayden, received large amounts of fan backlash.

However, what these viewpoints fail to address is that a lot of their examples come from a point before the advent of social media, which can often create and spiral echo chambers out of control. Another point that this theory fails to address is the real and large amount of racist and threatening remarks directed at BIPOC actors, and that insults and pejoratives that are based in a history of systemic violence against those same people carry a weight that is unlike any insult you can direct at a white person.

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