'Star Wars' defends Black 'Kenobi' actor Moses Ingram after she shares racist abuse she's been getting online

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'Star Wars' defends Black 'Kenobi' actor Moses Ingram after she shares racist abuse she's been getting online
Moses Ingram attends the "Obi-Wan Kenobi" photocall at Corinthia Hotel London on May 12, 2022 in London, England.Dave J Hogan/Getty Images
  • "Star Wars" urged fans not to be racist after Black "Obi-Wan Kenobi" actor Moses Ingram posted about facing abuse.
  • Ingram said on her Instagram story that she's been getting abusive messages from fans.
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"Star Wars" urged its fans not to be racist on Tuesday after "Obi-Wan Kenobi" actor Moses Ingram, who is Black, posted about the abuse she's been facing online.

Ingram, who stars as the Jedi-hunting villain Reva Sevander in the new miniseries on Disney+, posted a series of screenshots to an Instagram story showing racist messages she's received on the platform.

She said late Monday night that she's received "hundreds" of abusive messages online, and added that there's "nothing anybody can do" to "stop this hate."

The official Twitter handle for the "Star Wars" franchise responded in a series of tweets on Tuesday.

'Star Wars' defends Black 'Kenobi' actor Moses Ingram after she shares racist abuse she's been getting online
Moses Ingram as Reva Sevander in "Obi-Wan Kenobi."Disney+
"We are proud to welcome Moses Ingram to the 'Star Wars' family and excited for Reva's story to unfold," the "Star Wars" handle tweeted out. "If anyone intends to make her feel in any way unwelcome, we have only one thing to say: we resist."

It continued: "There are more than 20 million sentient species in the Star Wars galaxy, don't choose to be a racist."

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Ingram said on her Instagram that she's thankful for the "people who show up for me in the comments and the places where I'm not going to put myself."

Ingram isn't the first "Star Wars" actor to speak out against racist abuse.

A year after the release of 2017's "The Last Jedi," Kelly Marie Tran, who played Rose Tico in the saga, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times addressing the online harassment she suffered for months after the movie opened.

"It wasn't their words, it's that I started to believe them," Tran wrote. "Those words awakened something deep inside me — a feeling I thought I had grown out of."

"I thought, 'Oh, maybe if I was thinner' or 'Maybe if I grow out my hair' and, worst of all, 'Maybe if I wasn't Asian,'" she continued. "For months, I went down a spiral of self-hate, into the darkest recesses of my mind, places where I tore myself apart, where I put their words above my own self-worth."

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'Star Wars' defends Black 'Kenobi' actor Moses Ingram after she shares racist abuse she's been getting online
John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran in "The Last Jedi."Walt Disney Studios
Also, John Boyega — who made his debut in the "Star Wars" franchise as Finn in 2015's "The Force Awakens," and then starred opposite Tran in "The Last Jedi" and 2019's "The Rise of Skywalker" — called out racist harassment by fans in 2018.

"If you don't like 'Star Wars' or the characters understand that there are decisions makers and harassing the actors/ actresses will do nothing," the actor tweeted from an account that has since been deleted. "You're not entitled to politeness when your approach is rude. Even if you paid for a ticket!"

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