Star Wars: The High Republic Author Justina Ireland Bashes White Men

Justina Ireland

Star Wars: The High Republic author Justina Ireland recently bashed white men leading up to the launch of the first wave of High Republic stories.

Ireland had previously been announced as the author of the Star Wars: The High Republic novel A Test of Courage that will follow the adventures of the Mary Sue character Vernestra Rwoh.

Not only will she be writing A Test of Courage, but Star Wars and Lucasfilm also recently announced that Ireland will be writing “Starlight Stories” that will appear in the Star Wars Insider magazine.

She will also be penning the Young Adult novel Out of the Shadows that will also follow Vernestra Rwoh, the Padawan Reath Silas, and Avon Starros.

On January 3rd, Ireland took to Twitter where she wrote, “I guess mediocre white men are still going to be On Here bragging about their mediocrity as though it’s a hilarious anecdote instead of pure assholery so thanks for establishing that baseline early, 2021.”

In a follow-up she added, “Imagine writing a twenty tweet thread about outsmarting your nine year old what a waste of perfectly good carbon.”

Ireland’s tweets are in reference to a number of tweets from podcast host John Roderick, where he detailed that he challenged his nine-year-old daughter to open a can of beans with a can opener.

Roderick would eventually issue an apology and deactivate his Twitter account stating, “My story about my daughter and the can of beans was poorly told. I didn’t share how much laughing we were doing, how we had a bowl of pistachios between us all day as we worked on the problem, or that we’d both had a full breakfast together a few hours before. Her mother was in the room with us all day and alternately laughing at us and telling us to be quiet while she worked on her laptop. We all took turns on the jigsaw puzzle.”

He added, “I framed the story with me as the asshole dad because that’s my comedic persona and my fans and friends know it’s ‘a bit’.”

Roderick later added, “I was ignorant, insensitive to the message that my ‘pedant dad’ comedic persona was indistinguishable from how abusive dads act, talk and think.” 

 He concluded the lengthy post with an apology, “I apologize to my partners, my friends, and to all the people affected by my words for the hurt I caused.”

What’s interesting about Ireland’s tweets is that she doesn’t take issue with Roderick, but instead targets all white men for one person’s actions.

And this isn’t an isolated incident for Ireland. Itchy Bacca at Disney Star Wars Is Dumb documented a number of tweets regarding Ireland’s issues with white people.

In January 2020, she responded to a Stephen King tweet who wrote, “The most important thing we can do as artists and creative people is make sure everyone has the same fair shot, regardless of sex, color, or orientation. Right now such people are badly under-represented, and not only in the arts.”

Ireland responded writing, “And this is why this tweet functionally doesn’t work. Creators of color, women creators, and queer creators will never get opportunities as long as “quality” is focused on a white, masculine, hetero default as it constantly is.”

In February she would write, “I was today years old when I discovered there was an actual White Lives Matter movement and that they apparently have promotional materials? The caucasity. White supremacy is like the devil: it doesn’t need an advocate.”

Related: Barnes & Noble Cancels “Diverse Editions” After Accusations of “Literary Blackface”

Ireland also responded to Barnes & Noble and Penguin Random House launching a Diverse Editions line that saw classics like Romeo and Juliet and Frankenstein reimagined with black protagonists.

She wrote, “In honor of Barnes & Noble and Penguin Random House and the terrible decision to literary blackface books that your eleventh grade English teacher considered classic but feature nary a person of color, let’s use the #DiverseEditions hashtag to consider what those books would really be like.”

She then added, “White nonsense gets up early, but I get up earlier.”

Then in another tweet she stated, “Just kidding, white nonsense never sleeps.”

Later in February, she tweeted, “I wish Netflix would put as much effort into creating shows with Black kids as main characters as it does in creating movies and shows with plucky white kids as main characters.”

“Shout out to all the black kids on Netflix shows just trying to live their lives while their white friends bring a mess of f***ery to their doorstep,” she added in a follow-up.

In June she wrote, “I’m so tired of the lip service of woke white publishing folks who say one thing and then cash in by taking an extra space at the table (like by writing Black MCs when they got no business). We see you.”

Later in June she wrote, “There are so many white people in publishing who are feeling like this is suddenly the moment to be woke like we’re supposed to forget everything they did on the backs of Black and brown folks for years.”

 

In mid-June she tweeted, “Facebook is a trip because it’s where you go to learn that all the white people you knew back in the day didn’t see you as human until the Today show told them Black Lives Matter and their local Target burned down.”

Ireland would also claim that grilling white authors about whiteness would be her dream panel.

She wrote, “DREAM PANEL! ‘Tell me why you decided to make your main character a white man, like you? Is it because you’re publishing some sort of agenda?'”

In July she claimed publishing “emboldens and facilitates white supremacy and erases racism.”

She wrote, “Sitting here thinking about all of the small ways publishing emboldens and facilitates white supremacy and erases racism—as one does on a Sunday—and I started thinking once more about Ray Bradbury and ‘Way in the Middle of the Air’ from the Martian Chronicles.”

Ireland also wrote, “Ain’t it wild how white people get to be children until they’re like 40 but if you’re Black people think you should be an adult at 12?”

In August she wrote, “If you are a white editor working with a black creator, I hope you understand just how hard 2020 has been for Black people and keep that in mind when it comes to deadlines and expectations.” 

“It honestly feels right now like we aren’t allowed as a people to have nice things,” she added.

In September, she tweeted, “Whew, not gonna lie every time I see a white YA author with a YA with a brown girl on the cover I cringe a little. Like a full body wince. Just waiting for the inevitable.”

She added, “I mean, yea you can write whatever you want but history has shown us you’re prolly gonna f*** it up and then it’s going to be a whole Twitter thing. And why aren’t you tired of this yet? We are.”

Then she wrote, “Anyway, everyone who tweeted all excited about Winterkeep I hope you’re following Melanin in YA. Black people haven’t really even gotten a chance to write their own YA fantasies yet. Give us a f***ing chance.”

Science fiction author and YouTuber Jon Del Arroz would also point out Ireland has also taken issue with white people in blog posts published to Medium.

In one she wrote, “Stories like To Kill a Mockingbird and Green Book excuse white audiences from any culpability in racism or the persistence of white supremacy.”

She went on to explain, “They promote an idea that racism exists in a long ago time period with other people and that the barometer for upholding white supremacy, and by extension, racism, is to sling around racial slurs, burn crosses, and cheer for Jim Crow. When it isn’t.”

“Sometimes all upholding white supremacy requires is rewarding a film about a Black man that centers a white point of view,” she concluded.

What do you make of Ireland’s bashing of white men? And her numerous comments about white people at large?

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