Los Angeles-born actress Amandla Stenberg responded on June 19 to the conservative backlash and “intolerable racism” that they’ve been dealing with as a lead star in the new Star Wars series. The 25-year-old The Acolyte actress, who uses she/they pronouns, dropped a diss track after critics slammed the series as being too “woke” and progressive. Stenberg released the diss track on Instagram and directed it to the critics who attacked her online, bringing up old interviews from her past.
The Bodies Bodies Bodies star brought up the negative attention that she’s been getting from watchers in her new song. As the Black queer lead of The Acolyte, the homophobic and racist Star Wars fandom members have been “review-bombing” the show.
The track, titled “Discourse,” delved into the hatred and prejudice that Stenberg has received throughout their accomplished career. Stenberg posted the song on Instagram with a self-directed
music video. They captioned the post, “Happy Juneteenth and to those who are flooding me with intolerable racism— since it took me 72 hours on my laptop to make this song and video, u got 72 hours to respond. and I expect choreo!!”The song started by referencing a 2018 interview with Trevor Noah discussing her feature in The Hate U Give. In the interview, Stenberg stated that “white people crying actually was the goal” of the film.
In the song, they sang, “They splice lines, make hate they recognize, make it look like the same propaganda that they spew/ Cuz they conflate our pain with violence and try to weaponize everything that we do.”
Stenberg continued in the song, “They spinning WOKE, bastardize it and appropriate it/Last I recall, WOKE was something we created, speak truth to power, keep an eye out for you silly racists. And now they use it to describe anything they threatened by/Remember when Gambino put it in the zeitgeist?”
Stenberg’s song has been well received on Instagram, with her supporters hyping up her self-produced song.
RELATED CONTENT: ‘The Hate U Give’ Author Angie Thomas Talks About Upcoming Film and Using Love to Combat Hate