Star Wars' Kelly Marie Tran faces down Earth's racist trolls

This poster of Finn, Rey and Rose, characters from The Last Jedi, must upset the white racist mysogynists.

IN THE TOXICITY of today's racial environment, it is not surprising that some folks could not handle having an Asian/American as a key protagonist in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

In the box-office hit of the newest chapter in the Star Wars saga, Kelly Marie Tran plays Rose Tico, a lowly mechanic who - thrust into the heat of battle between The Resistance and the Galactic Empire - does extraordinary deeds to emerge as the hero.

Tran is also the first Asian cast in a major role in the universe created by Star Wars creator George Lucas.

Apparently, fans of the series have no problem accepting Wookies, Ewoks, Hutts and any number of other sentient aliens, but casting an Asian into a speaking role is a little too much for them.

Much of the negative reaction comes from the human subspecies known as racists, aka white supremacists, aka alt.right, or the followers of the KKK or Nazis.

"Last week, they emerged from hiding to throw a virtual tantrum: first, on fan-made encyclopedia Fandom, trolls swarmed the entry for Tran's character Rose Tico, filling it with racist slurs and changing her character’s name to 'Ching Chong Wing Tong' and calling the character a 'dumbass b*tch.' Clever," notes Salon.

The Star Wars fan site Fandom responded by taking down the tweets and issuing this statement: 

“FANDOM has a zero tolerance policy for vandalism, inclusive of racism and harassment,” the company told Newsweek. “The wiki admins take this very seriously and took the steps to resolve this situation as quickly as possible, including escalation to our team, and subsequent lockdown. This lockdown will remain for the foreseeable future and we will be closely monitoring activity on this wiki.”

Tran, well aware of the historic inroad of Rose Tico, not only in the Star Wars galaxy, far, far away but in the galaxy of Hollywood, handled the racist trolling with grace on her Instagram account:

This isn't the first time racists have attempted to take down the Star Wars saga. When The Force Awakens was in production and it was revealed that John Boyega would have a major role, so-called fans tried to launch the #BoycottStarWarsVII. The fact the boycott was unsuccessful speaks about how narrow the racist point of view represented the saga's fandom.

When asked by the Detroit Free Press about Rose Tico's role in the context of today's world, Tran answered:

"I hear that a lot. ... I think that’s why I get so emotional – because I know how impossible this is. It’s not just because it’s hard to be an actor, which it is when you’re first starting, especially if your parents are from a different world and you didn’t grow up in the entertainment industry. It just seems so far away. It seems truly, completely impossible. Whenever I talk about this I think, “Man, I wish I didn’t have to talk about this” — that in 2017 there were a plethora of different types of people writing and producing and directing and creating, and that we didn’t have to address this. But the fact is, it is 2017 and we have to talk about it, because we’re just not there yet.

"Because I’m an Asian American, and every role I was auditioning for before was sort of this same side character … . To have someone like Rian write something that was so full and rich, and a complete human – I’ve never had that before. I don’t know that many people of color have that often."

Tran, who admits to not being a Star Wars fan before she landed her groundbreaking role, must know by now -- The Force is with her.
____________________________________________________________________________