5 Reasons Why Harris-Perry is Wrong About Star Wars

by Guest Post

1.) Her Outrage is Misdirected

There are actually legitimate claims of racism in Star Wars Harris-Perry could have made. She could have said a number of characters (who were accused of creating caricatures previously) drew suspicious traits from ethnic groups and had much better evidence to boot. Mind you, these examples are debatable, but they are much more defensible than the reason she gave.

Jar Jar Binks

Jar Jar Binks was accused of portraying a racial caricature of many Caribbean peoples.

Nute Gunray of the Trade Federation

Gunray and the Nemodians spoke in accents similar to broken Asian English (I.E. mixing up the ‘l’ and ‘r’ sounds), named their colony worlds Japanese sounding names (Cato, Deko, and Koru), dressed like Chinese royalty, and had slanted eyes. Because of this, they were accused of stereotyping Asian people.

Watto

Watto was seen as some to be an offensive character because he stereotyped Jewish people. Accusers cited that Watto had a hooked nose, a beard, beady eyes, a thick Yiddish accent, and only was concerned about money, thus creating a caricature.

Again, it’s important to realize that while not absolutely true, the accusations that these three examples are racial caricatures still have more merit than the idea that Darth Vader is racist.

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