Saga Empire/First Order, a White Supremacist Organization

Recently, the Rogue One writers tweeted that the Empire is a white supremacist organization. Do you agree?

I think the symbolism is definitely there, but I have to admit the Rebel Alliance also looks like a white supremacist organization in A New Hope.

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I preferred when they were human supremacists because that actually makes sense in this setting.

 

No, they're not, how do you explain Thrawn, Ventress and Darth Maul, then? And Finn
Rebels, on the other hand are, lol, they're all white in ANH.

 

I don't think that tying the fictional Empire down to ANY particular ''real'' political movement/ideology is a good idea, or even particularly productive if I am honest. They are a pretty generically and generally oppressive, authoritarian regime with parallels to many ''real'' regimes/leaders of various persuasions. Trying to insert ''real'' attitudes towards sexuality, race, gender etc. into SW isn't going to get far when there's so many writers with different perspectives and different views all writing stories about the same characters in the same universe but with different results, all of them valid. Certainly any writer who creates a new Moff that is clearly supposed to be (as an example only) Space-Trump would go down in my estimation.

The worst possible result if it goes too far is a Traviss-style mass insertion of authorial politics and point-scoring against readers at the cost of the actual story, and I am pretty sure no-one really wants that kind of mess served up regularly.

 

I'm pretty sure the GFFA is advanced beyond skin color bigotry. Such beautiful bigotry seems "Earthly" and "primitive" in comparison to the GFFA. Also, when there's species like Hutts and Geonosians running around, why bother scapegoating other humans?

 

This is the best way to go with it IMO. First because it makes the most sense for the setting, and secondly because it's a nice touch for fans who aren't white and/or men to be able to have their escapism in Star Wars too. I felt the same way about the Elder Scrolls games, where the conflicts are all to do with national conflicts/species differences rather than human skin color and there's not much in the way of sexism besides a few scattered NPCs in a giant world - which means that if someone wants to play a hero like themselves they can do so without having to face a wall of the exact same BS they deal with in their everyday lives when they're trying to go on pretend adventures. There's not this tiresome fun-killing sense of "even in magical imagination-land I can't get away from this garbage."

"Fantasy racism" is a way to explore those themes without trampling on fan inclusiveness. Best of both worlds, IMO. Keep the theme of the Empire's human supremacist streak, but the rest makes no sense and ought to be tossed out.

(That said, there is certainly some sexism in the SW setting even outside of the Empire, but from what I've seen it still trends toward alien rather than human women, with the most infamous example being the widespread mistreatment and stereotyping of Twi'leks. So there's still an added layer of separation there. And even with something like Jabba being a creep with Leia, it's still a fairly uncommon behavior from one individual rather than a large-scale cultural thing that's everywhere in the setting.)

 

jakobitis89 wrote

I don't think that tying the fictional Empire down to ANY particular ''real'' political movement/ideology is a good idea, or even particularly productive if I am honest.

Not sure what you mean by productive, but Lucas original idea for the OT (and recently re-emphasized by Gareth Edwards for Rogue One) was that Star Wars was 90% history and 10% science fiction, i.e. using historic analogies and thus providing the audiences with a "realisitic feel" that helped to get immersed in the story and a vague understanding of the political agendas.

Regarding the Empire the design parallels to German uniforms of WW II have been thoroughly documented, yet the obvious influence of the uniforms of the Empire of Japan during WW II is hardly ever mentioned, even though the Imperial regulation caps obviously come straight from the Japanese Empire, especially Japan's Imperial Navy:



And both the III. German Empire and the Empire of Japan had disgusting ideas of "white" supremacy and a "master race". In Europe you had the Nazis propagating Aryanism while in Japan you had the "Yamato Race" (the only difference, apparently, that in Japan it didn't require that much of official state propaganda):

A former Japanese Army officer who served in China, Uno Shintaro, stated: "On the battlefield, we never really considered the Chinese humans. When you're winning, the losers look really miserable. We concluded that the Yamato race [i.e., Japanese] was superior.[100] " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

 

I don't think there's any real necessity for the Empire, as a regime, to receive the benefit of the doubt when considering if it is really as bad as a "white supremacist organization". We know what is meant by that and the Empire may as well be one. They're the bad guys. But not because they are white.

"White supremacist organisation" often attracts a sense of anxiety over the nominated race in that term. If you take supremacist and organisation out of that, the white part can stand on its own, largely without connotations. It's the "supremacist organisation" part that is crucial. If the supremacists happen to white then you cannot deny that they are asserting their supremacy (and yours if you are white) whether we like it or not.

Whether it's totally accurate or not is irrelevant. In the same way that the Empire is supposedly the embodiment of technologically dependent society. Yet it is ruled by a evil sorcerer of magic and his right hand is the remnant of a religious order.

The Nazis wound up conscripting, and sometimes enlisted against the tenets of their expressed policy of racial purity whenever and wherever it suited them.

The Empire as an organisation are a bunch of jerks. Let them be white supremacist jerks. Let them be e the jerks that park in disabled spots and push past you when you hold a door open for someone else. Let them be the jerks that double dip. Let them be the jerks that drop litter and cancel concert tours at the drop of a hat. Whatever.

 

I've always seen species as the equivalent of race in Star Wars, and I tend to think of species discrimination as racism in that universe. However, if we only analyze the treatment of the human species, it is true that pretty much all high ranking imperial officers are white. This could be because George Lucas cast white actors as imperials, but we can only go by what we know in-universe
It isn't clear whether racial prejudice among humans exists in Star Wars, or whether race even exists to then. We do know that the empire is racist against aliens, so it is very possible that they are racist against minorities. After all, Palpatine is a white man, as well as Vader, so it makes sense that their bigotry extends to their own species. We aren't shown how race is treated, but we can assume that Palpatine sees anyone differentl from him as a threat.
The first order doesn't seem to carry racial prejudice, possibly because the supreme leader is an alien.

Zejo the Jedi

Darth Maul and ventress were tools used to advance the Sith plans, and they would have been eliminated when Palpatine didn't need them. Thrawn was an exception to the anti-alien policy because of his military genius.

 

And they were mostly English.

 

What about Finn?

 

Unless you are a vegan, it is very unlikely that you relate to the iniquities of species supremacy. Comparing with racial supremacy, particularly when the iniquities of its practice in human history are all too obvious, is no inappropriate or specious.

What about him?

 

I was asking Emperor Ferus.

 

But what about the obvious smear on the English! We never did... oh.

 

Oh. Never mind then.

 

PaulWrightyThen wrote

And they were mostly English.

Which IMHO isn't accidental either, but apparently paints a much nicer image of the Galactic Empire that is rather analogous to the "First" British Empire (1583-1783) once we cast a blind eye on Tarkin and the genocide of Alderaan...

The way I see it the American Revolution or "rebellion" was also some kind of civil war. And its obvious that the leader figures of the Galactic Empire are trying to hold the Empire together, afraid that "other star systems" will slip through their fingers like the Thirteen American colonies that declared their Independence.

And during the Death Star conference (with the exception of Taggi), we clearly witnessed the Imperials underestimating the Alliance. Looks as if the the men of King George weren't that different in their attitude:

According to British historian Jeremy Black, the British had significant advantages, including a highly trained army, the world's largest navy, and a highly efficient system of public finance that could easily fund the war. However, the British were seriously handicapped by their misunderstanding of the depth of support for the Patriot position. Ignoring the advice of General Gage, they misinterpreted the situation as merely a large-scale riot. London decided that they could overawe the Americans by sending a large military and naval force, forcing them to be loyal again:

Convinced that the Revolution was the work of a full few miscreants who had rallied an armed rabble to their cause, they expected that the revolutionaries would be intimidated…. Then the vast majority of Americans, who were loyal but cowed by the terroristic tactics… would rise up, kick out the rebels, and restore loyal government in each colony.[46] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution​

 

I know, I know. The comment was more of a joke

 

I don't necessarily think so, because I feel Star Wars is loaded with real life analogies. The oceans of our planets have become the void between the stars, the islands have turned to planets and the sailing ships of the Royal Navy have become starships.

When John Mollo redesigned the Imperial rank badges for ESB, the colors remaining were red and blue - Given his other historic works and background, I'm pretty confident he was thinking of the blue naval officer uniforms and the redcoats of the Royal Marines, nevertheless now reduced to a few colored bars on a uniform owing its design to totalitarian systems of the 20th Century.

 

@PaulWrightyThen Joking aside. The British empire is just about as good a comparison for the iniquities of the evil Empire in Star Wars as you can get.

In fact you could say that the comparison is most striking in the context of its long drawn out break up. And how it took America's concept of democracy and our alliance with them to help ensure the UK's survival during WII and shared victory to really let go of that legacy, when a lot of people (particularly Churchill) couldn't understand why we shouldn't still own half the world. Or why it was an injustice to fight for freedom while keeping whole cultures subservient to our state.

The British just got rather good at ignoring (rather than denying) the real horrors done in the name of Empire building and conservation, (including the starvation and constant bloody suppression of its first and nearest colony, Ireland) while the crimes of other countries, illustrated through the mas media of that last century, managed to handily obscure them from our conscience. Not that we should feel personally responsible, of course. That's just daft.

 

I meant the bit about everyone being English. I should have added I agree with the BE comparison. That was in the 'oh' comment. Its amazing how well everyone covers up the facts of the BE. People still want there to be one. Kerrrazeeeee.

 

As for Finn, like I said, the First order is more diverse than the old empire, which the thread refers to. Finn was recruited like many minority officers, but Palpatine's regime was evidently more discriminatory. Snoke himself was an alien, so him excluding based on race wouldn't make sense.

 

What about that black kid from Rebels ?

 

which one?

 

The one that's also a traitor, lol.
But it shows the Empire is not racist, they don't care, only SJWs in real life do.