On Tuesday 31 May, actress Moses Ingram, one of the stars of the latest Disney+ Star Wars franchise, Obi Wan Kenobi, shared a harrowing message about the racist messages she receives on social media. 

Ingram plays the Third Sister, aka Reva Sevander, a former Jedi turned to the dark side and tasked by Darth Vader to hunt Obi Wan (played by Ewan McGregor) in the new Disney+ spin off which started airing in May. Yesterday, Ingram posted an Instagram story (which disappear after 24 hours) telling fans and followers about the 100s of online racist attacks she had received since her Star Wars debut. 

According to a report in the Guardian, Ingram said: “There’s nothing anybody can do about this… There’s nothing anybody can do to stop this hate. I question my purpose in even being here in front of you saying that this is happening. I don’t really know.”

She continued: “The thing that bothers me is this feeling inside of myself, that no one has told me, but this feeling that I have to shut up and take it, that I have to grin and bear it. And I’m not built like that. So, I wanted to come on and say thank you to the people who show up for me in the comments and the places that I’m not going to put myself. And to the rest of y’all, y’all weird.”

Since posting the video the official Star Wars account, Disney+, fans and Obi Wan Kenobi co-stars have rallied in support of 29-year-old Ingram.

A statement on the official Star Wars account on Twitter 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.”

Shortly after that message, star of Obi Wan Kenobi and executive producer of the series Ewan McGregor shared a video of his own. 

“This weekend Star Wars fans made Obi Wan Kenobi the most watched Disney+ premiere of all time” he began, “which just goes to show what we can do when this family pulls together.”

However, he caveated that by calling out the vile behaviour of some ‘fans’. McGregor said he had seen and heard some of the “horrendous racist DMs” Ingram had been sent and “it broke my heart”.

Calling Ingram an amazing talent, McGregor stated, “She brings so much to the series and so much to the franchise.

“We stand with Moses, we love Moses”, he said. “If you are sending her bullying messages you are no Star Wars fan in my mind.”

This isn’t the first time a Disney+ remake has been the subject of racist trolling and abuse. In 2019, the Little Mermaid’s Halle Bailey was targeted with the same type of racist attacks after being cast as Ariel in the Disney remake of cartoon classic. 

Again, in a tale that is becoming wearingly familiar, South London’s own John Boyega (who plays the defecting Stormtrooper Finn in The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker) was subject to racist abuse when he joined the Star Wars world. 

In an interview with British GQ, Boyega criticised Disney for writing Black characters who lacked the nuance afforded to white characters. He said: “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 fuck 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.”

Boyega was also subject to vicious online racist attacks when the casting for 2015’s The Force Awakens was announced and again later on. “Nobody else had the uproar and death threats sent to their Instagram DMs and social media, saying, ‘Black this and black that and you shouldn’t be a Stormtrooper’”, Bogeya told GQ. 

A second tweet from the official Star Wars account gave this advice: “there are more than 20 million sentient species in the Star Wars galaxy, don’t choose to be a racist.”

Since the outpouring of online support, Ingram has shared another simple story that reads: “The love is louder. It overflows. Thank you.”

Baltimore-born Ingram previously appeared as Jolene in the Netflix miniseries The Queen’s Gambit (2020), for which she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress. 

Image credits: Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage, Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney