The Acolyte's Amandla Stenberg releases music video addressing "silly racists" and online hate
"I’m going viral on Twitter again," Stenberg's song—which calls out racists and people who've been deluging her with online hate—begins
The Acolyte star Amandla Stenberg is pretty busy at the moment, what with starring in what is (spoilers for the current latest Star Wars Disney+ TV show) a dual-role in the big-budget streaming series. But that didn’t stop her from venturing into a different form of the arts this week, with THR noting that Stenberg has recorded a music video and released yesterday it via Instagram in honor of yesterday’s Juneteenth holiday—one that directly addresses the reaction that certain quarters of the online world (i.e., the deeply annoying ones) have had to a Star Wars show that dares to highlight a higher percentage than usual of non-white, non-straight characters. (The series has faced tons of online vitriol, as well as allegations of review bombing, with its Rotten Tomatoes audience score having tanked not long after release.)
In fact, Stenberg’s untitled track is pretty wide-ranging in its topics of conversation, having clearly been inspired by a whole series of various shitstorms that have been targeted at her in recent weeks—including a resurfacing and misappropriation of a Daily Show interview she gave when she was still a teenager, talking about The Hate U Give and the fact that “white people crying actually was the goal” for the film. (Which, she also reminds listeners, was about a young Black boy being shot by police, and which is a film entirely about the importance of empathy in the first place.)
If you want a full breakdown of the lyrics—which also cite Childish Gambino, analyze the worst people’s embrace of “Woke” as an insult, and call out journalists for leveraging “metrics and data” instead of pursuing the truth—THR’s got them transcribed. (The song’s refrain, “We so bored don’t fuck with yo discourse,” playing over shots of Stenberg dancing with “Discourse” flashing over her head, convey at least part of the gist.) On her post, Stenberg wrote,
“Happy Juneteenth đź–¤
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!!”
To the shock of no human brain ever, the replies to Stenberg’s post have been absolutely buried in shitty comments and hate.