Star Wars actor John Boyega has made it clear that when he tweeted that he he “fucking hates racists” he was not opening up the floor for a debate.
John made the declaration on Wednesday morning, after the tragic death of George Floyd in Minnesota once again raised the issue of police brutality towards Black people.
“This just burns,” he tweeted, alongside a photo of Floyd. “Seems to be a never ending cycle. The murderers need to be charged severely. Even in the face of death this man was given zero empathy.”
Minutes later, he followed this with a second tweet, saying simply: “I really fucking hate racists.”
While many, agreed with the sentiment of John’s tweet, others began flooding his replies with counter-arguments. And he was absolutely not here for it.
Some of his critics suggested that “hate” was too strong a word for him to have used…
...while others questioned his swearing, given that his role in the Star Wars franchise has meant that he has a lot of young followers on social media...
And then there were those who wanted to remind John that racism exists in many communities, which he was quick to point out was not the point of his initial tweets:
To illustrate his point further, John then retweeted a video addressing those who were tweeting #AllLivesMatter in response to Geroge Floyd’s death:
Earlier this month, John put Sky News on blast over an article on their website referring to a traditional African hairstyle as a “spiky coronavirus haircut”.
“You lot lost your damn mind putting this on the internet,” he wrote. “Which hairstyle did you just call spiky coronavirus haircut? Are you guys okay? The media need to make sure they do research before wiring articles like this. Ya fackin dummies.”
John is best known for his role as Finn in the most recent Star Wars trilogy.
He has also appeared in films like Pacific Rim: Uprising, Detroit and the dystopian drama The Circle.