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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8706010" data-attributes="member: 4937">I agree with you about disparaging others, but I feel the majority of the times that someone is claiming that the Star Trek fan is bent out of shape over diversity and inclusion, that is just another case of disparaging others.   I'm not really a Star Trek fan so I don't even know what is going on in that community, but in the case of the sequel trilogy the majority of fans I knew weren't criticizing diversity and inclusion per se but tokenism.  They were quick to point out (I think rightly) that it would be stupid to claim that the same people who loved Leia, Lando, Mace Windu and Padme as characters were racist if they didn't like Rey and Finn as characters.  Among their complaints is that it seemed that characters like Finn were created solely to check a racial diversity check box with no clear idea by the writers what role that character was supposed to play in the story, and with the apparent understanding that "black man" was a personality and sufficient characterization that no further character building was needed.   These critics to the extent that they cared about race at all tended to not at all be upset that there was a black actor in Star Wars but that a black actor was asked to play such a flimsy poorly written part as "Finn" solely because he was black and with no other apparent consideration.  And they were equally angry to be told that if they thought Finn's motives weren't clearly explained, Finn's actions weren't logical, Finn's characterization made him seem to be stupid and unlikeable, and Finn was not contributing in any other way than the JarJar comic relief (speaking of embarrassing roles for a black man) that they were bad racist fans and should just shut up.And some of this goes back to the marketing your new product by hating on the old one, in as much as some fans felt they were being told that the original films were racist/sexist and you should feel bad for liking them, as if strong female figures were somehow new to Star Wars (especially in Legends, this is a ridiculous claim).I don't really know how much tokenism played a role in casting and hiring actors for the sequel movies, but I do know that Mace Windu and Lando Calrissian were for all they were supporting characters still much more strongly written than Finn was, and that Leia to me is a cooler character than Rey and Leia's treatment in The Force Awakens was terrible.Isn't suggesting someone is racist about the strongest form of disparagement you can do in society?  I don't like the whole "Either you loved the sequel trilogy or you are a racist." thing that seems to be going on in the Star Wars community.</blockquote>

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