Really, people?

Apparently there is a group of people calling themselves Star Wars fans who are OUTRAGED that John Boyega appears to be portraying a black stormtrooper in the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens film (as evidenced by the release of the first teaser trailer last week).

In case you haven’t seen it, educate yourself here.

So as I said… apparently there is a vocal minority of morons who feel compelled to somehow assert that all Imperial Stormtroopers in the Star Wars universe are white.

Ummm… no.

Speaking as something of a colossal Star Wars nerd, let’s get a couple of things straight, people:

1) Stormtroopers (of the Imperial variety) are generally humans (the Empire *was* somewhat xenophobic, canonically speaking). There has never been ANYTHING published that says there are restrictions or even preferences regarding races of humans in Imperial service. Keep in mind, in fact, that you have NEVER seen an Imperial Stormtrooper on screen without his entire body covered in plastoid armor and a black body glove. So you have NO way of knowing WHAT race any of them are.

2) Contrary to the assertions of some people, Stormtroopers are NOT the same guys who served as Clones/Clonetroopers in the Prequels and/or Clone Wars (aka Clones of Jango Fett, as played by actor Temura Morrison). All of those guys have long since rotated out due to their accelerated aging process. Remember, this was mentioned when Obi-Wan Kenobi was given the tour of the factory on Kamino. This was confirmed by Pablo Hidalgo of LucasFilm’s Story Group, and you can read about that here.

So… bringing this overly nerdy and verbose response to a close…

No, idiot. Stormtroopers are NOT all white people. As Mr. Boyega says, get over it.