House of Eratosthenes

Of course, this being the Internet Age, where Everything Is Terrible^TM, soon people were talking about the “black stormtrooper controversy.” And then, all of a sudden, there were a series of denunciations of all the “racist” Star Wars fans who freaked out because a black dude was wearing a Stormtrooper costume. This Mashable post is representative of the genre. But there’s something odd about this so-called controversy. All of the people writing about it just kind of take for granted that there’s some hardcore contingent of Star Wars fans who are writing that the series is ruined because a black dude is playing a stormtrooper. It’s just assumed that this is true.

But…is it? I mean, sure, I bet someone somewhere on the Internet is ranting about minorities taking the jobs of, um, Maori clones, because the Internet is a large and terrible place filled with any number of terrible (and probably large) people. That being said, if you search Twitter for “black stormtrooper,” you’ll find 1,291,074* tweets decrying the super duper racist people who are super duper butthurt about a black stormtrooper, and roughly zero** tweets from people are actually upset about the fact that a black dude was in a stormtrooper costume.*** Go back and read that Mashable post. You know what’s fascinating about it? There’re exactly zero pieces of evidence backing up the belief that there’s any “black stormtrooper criticism.”

What we have here is a prime example of a fascinating Internet phenomenon: the preemptive denunciation of a controversy that doesn’t exist. People live to be outraged, and they’re so excited for things to be outraged about that they’ll more or less invent an outrage to get their dander up. We can see another example of this phenomenon here, in which a blogger denounces a raft of columns questioning the character of a football player who walked off the field before the game was over before a single column of that variety had even been written. The preemptive denunciation is a form of moral posturing, an effort to show that you’re a serious person who believes all the right things, unlike other, bad people who believe all the wrong things.

It’s also dumb. Stop being dumb, Internet people. Just enjoy nice things when we’re given them and calm down. Yeesh.

*Approximate figure.

**Precise figure.

***There are probably a few people raising continuity questions, given that the prequels made it rather clear that the Stormtroopers are clones of Jango Fett. That seems dumb since we have no idea if he’s actually a stormtrooper and who knows how things have changed in the 30 years since the end of Return of the Jedi. But arguing over continuity isn’t, you know, racism. It’s just being a nerd. That’s what nerds do. That’s ALL nerds do.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating — I am thankful, every day, for the blessing that is the internet.

I long suspected that most if not all leftie behaviors were Stupid Human Tricks — basically those mating dances birds do, like you see on National Geographic. The internet confirms it. Fake rape threats against feminists. Fake racial slurs against blacks. Endless, endless sockpuppetry. And this, “the preemptive denunciation of a controversy that doesn’t exist.”

The only actual behavior comes from the side that’s supposedly denouncing some behavior.

How one actually combats this attitude beats my pair of jacks — these are the people, after all, who said the words “fake but accurate” without their heads exploding — but it’s a start. At this point, no sane person believes anything a leftist says without first demanding to see the logic and the lab work.
- Severian | 12/01/2014 @ 07:45
But isn’t that what the internet is for?
Just kidding, mostly…
- Frank the Wanderer | 12/01/2014 @ 08:20
Do we mean it’s a storm trooper suit that is the color black that caused the butt hurt?

Wow.
- philmon | 12/01/2014 @ 08:24
DAMN IT, WE COVERED THIS.
Palpatine needed the Clone army before he consolidated power over – well – everyone. Once the Clone War ended and he solidified the Empire, the cloning facilities on Kamino were shut down. By the time the Death Star was constructed, he was able to recruit from all over the galaxy and stock up on Stormtroopers that way. Why bother with the expense of raising clones (who age extremely fast, you remember, so twenty years after the clone war started, they’d pretty much all be dead), when you can just set up academies to crank out soldiers. You know, the academies where, say, Han Solo was in training to become an officer before leaving to pursue a life of crime, or the one to which a young Luke Skywalker was so butthurt about not being able to attend for another year. So, with that, OF COURSE there will be some black stormtroopers.

It’s not a continuity error. It’s a God-damn certainty. http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/5801/are-imperial-storm-troopers-all-clones

Now, regarding the idiots who assumed that, upon seeing a black stormtrooper, that people would be saying, “No! They can’t be black!”, just so they could yell “RAAAAAAAAAAAACIIIIIIST!”, yeah, those dumb fuckers need to jump into the Sarlacc.
- muttley | 12/01/2014 @ 09:38
Yeah, what muttley said.

If anyone in the Star Wars universe is guilty of racism, it’s the Rebellion. Because Admiral Ackbar is clearly incompetent, and he’s a fish-thingie with a Muslim-sounding name. Which is racist, species-ist, and Islamophobic. Also homophobic, because all the Rebel fleet uniforms look kinda gay (although that may just be 70s fashion).
- Severian | 12/01/2014 @ 10:16
Oh, man. Don’t get me started on how racist George Lucas is. If Al Sharpton had seen Jar Jar Binks for even two minutes, the Ferguson riots would have looked like a birthday party.

Oh, wait, no – because he donates to liberals, it’s ok for him to put on a minstrel show.

Fuckin’ Lucas.
- muttley | 12/01/2014 @ 10:24
It’s a trap!
- cloudbuster | 12/01/2014 @ 11:22
But what I want to know is if at some point, at least one of the commenters went…

“NO! THAT’S NOT TRUE! THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!”
- Rich Fader | 12/01/2014 @ 13:55
http://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/star-wars-9.jpg?w=600&h=847
- muttley | 12/01/2014 @ 13:58
Search your feelings, Rich… you know it to be true.

@muttley — I’m trying (and failing) to think of a diversity Lucas hasn’t insulted. Those Trade Federation guys (Asians), blacks (Jar Jar), illegal immigrants (isn’t that who the “clones” really are, according to the Left?), Jews, gays (C3P0), transsexuals (C3P0 again), lesbians (Chewbacca is a dead ringer for an East German women’s track champ, or a WNBA power forward), midgets… how did manly, curmudgeonly, I-suspect-he’s-a-conservative Harrison Ford ever survive three films?
- Severian | 12/01/2014 @ 15:42
@muttley — I’m trying (and failing) to think of a diversity Lucas hasn’t insulted. Those Trade Federation guys (Asians), blacks (Jar Jar), illegal immigrants (isn’t that who the “clones” really are, according to the Left?), Jews, gays (C3P0), transsexuals (C3P0 again), lesbians (Chewbacca is a dead ringer for an East German women’s track champ, or a WNBA power forward), midgets… how did manly, curmudgeonly, I-suspect-he’s-a-conservative Harrison Ford ever survive three films?

Not to mention the fact that Star Wars is rip off of a Kung Fu movie just set on another planet(s)

Really what do they do that Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Chow young Fat or Wong Fei Hung haven’t done 1000’s of times?

Think about it, funny costumes, the wise old master living like a hermit, the lost princess, hand to hand fighting with funky spirit weapons, various powers like air walking, or walking up walls, enhanced senses, ugly mythological looking animals, pantheistic – mind over matter everything is really a unified whole -philosophy; it is all in Kung Fu movies. In deed, the Hong Kong production studios like Golden Harvest should sue copyright infringement.
- Fai Mao | 12/01/2014 @ 15:57
Nope. He’s a commie: http://hollowverse.com/harrison-ford/
- muttley | 12/01/2014 @ 15:58
Well, damn. That’s disappointing.
- Severian | 12/02/2014 @ 11:48
Didn’t mean to ruin your day, bro. Sorry.
- muttley | 12/02/2014 @ 11:49
Eh, I’ll live. That’s one of the nice things about being a conservative– you get pretty thick skin pretty fast. And I almost feel sorry for Our Betters, the Liberals, in that regard — when I find out a celebrity doesn’t share my politics, or that the media are lying about a story, or that some government program had the opposite of its intended effect, I just shrug, because that’s par for the course for us. Meanwhile, they have to expend god alone knows how much effort dodging reality every single day in order to keep the faith. It must be an exhausting way to live. At some point they should turn to the Dark Side, if only to catch their breath….
- Severian | 12/02/2014 @ 14:02

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The Fake “Black Stormtrooper Controversy”Monday, December 1st, 2014

The Fake “Black Stormtrooper Controversy”
Monday, December 1st, 2014