New Feature: Articles Deemed to Controversial to Publish Elsewhere.

I won't say where this article wasn't published due to the subject matter, I'll just leave it at the fact that I am publishing it here because it was bounced back to me:

WHY THE "BLACK STORMTROOPER CONTROVERSY" IS IDIOTIC.

It’s almost become a running tragic joke. A person of color gets cast in a film as either a character from a novel or comic book who wasn’t originally of color or was described in a manner that indicated being of color and trolls go bat-crap crazy! Recently, the casting of Idris Elba as Heimdall, the guardian of the Rainbow Bridge in the Thor movies horrified some because a character from Norse mythology would no longer be white. While they never clarified why they thought a god from another dimension would look just like the people that believed in him, their ire was flammable. Then there was the casting of Amandla Stenberg as Rue in the first installment of The Hunger Games. The comments made about her casting were beyond repugnant.

The latest actor to join in the “fun” is 21-year old John Boyega. In a sea of asinine comments on YouTube that would cause even the greatest spiritual leaders in history to reconsider their faith in humanity, people started complaining about the black man’s head on the white Stormtrooper’s body (Well, the armor is white anyway). People complained that the very inclusion of someone who isn’t white indicates a slide towards supposed “political correctness,” because we all remember how Billy Dee Williams joining the cast in The Empire Strikes Back basically turned the whole thing into Roots in space.

Then, of course, there have been the obligatory hip hop references where the character couldn’t possibly act like anything except a negative black stereotype, even being from another planet and dwelling in an entirely different galaxy!
Never mind that he’s not even American.

Naturally, some people are claiming there is no controversy and the “few” negative comments that have been made have come from stupid kids. Only the most sheltered individual would believe that, and why not? It makes them feel better about their fellow person.

If there is one ray of hope in this reaction, it is that people can be pretty damned dumb. In fact, history alone shows that “dumb” is an upgrade. So, perhaps they don’t understand why they’re complaining and perhaps, just perhaps, some of them just don’t get a crucial element of the  Star Wars mythos: Namely, that the Clone Troopers were only the beginning. It’s been roughly fifty years since the ascent of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader. In that time, there have been literally thousands of conscripts who felt it was their patriotic duty to join the Imperial military.

Don’t believe me? That’s fine. Click here for the whole story.

In the meantime, John Boyega told those who had a problem with his casting to basically shut up and deal with it. Good for him.