Franchise tweeted that he was “proud to welcome” Ingram, who just made her debut as Reva in the Disney+ series “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“If anyone intends to make her feel unwelcome in any way, we have only one thing to say: we resist,” the “Star Wars” account tweeted. “There are over 20 million sentient species in the Star Wars galaxy, don’t choose to be racist.”
Ingram posted several examples of racist messages and comments on Instagram, noting that she received hundreds of messages, some of which included the N-word.
“No one can do anything about it. No one can do anything to stop this hate,” she said in a video posted to her Instagram Stories.
“What bothers me is…this feeling, I just have to shut up and take it, I just have to smile and bear it. And I’m not built like that,” she continued. “Thank you to the people who show up for me in the comments and places where I’m not going to put myself. And to the rest of you, you’re all weird.”
Ingram’s experiences after his ‘Star Wars’ debut became a trend – actors John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran also expressed the racist hatred they received after appearing in the ‘Star Wars’ movies.
Tran, the first woman of color to play a major role in a ‘Star Wars’ movie, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times about the harassment she faced after starring in 2017’s ‘The Last Jedi’. The hate got so intense that Tran quit social media and spent time in therapy.
Even earlier, in 2014, Boyega’s appearance in the trailer for “The Force Awakens” sparked a whole #BlackStormtrooper social media movement, after many reacted to his casting with suspicion and racist remarks.