With The Bad Batch now over, the hope for many fans of color now is that future Star Wars animation will avoid any racism in writing or character design; that it will respect fans and characters of color, Jewish fans, and disabled and ND fans in its pursuit of telling a story.

Nobody deserves to see a series dedicated to whitewashed characters who are written to be genetically superior to men of color. Nobody deserves to see an antisemitic stereotype on their screen. And nobody deserves to see ableism in their shows.

If future showrunners truly believe Star Wars is for everyone, they'll do the work to root out their unconscious biases, learn about stereotyping, and create a show that reflects the diversity of the Star Wars fandom.

There should never again be any room for racism, ableism, or antisemitism in a Star Wars project.

Hello there!

Sorry, I think this ask has been sitting here for a while. Essentially, Tech fulfills the Savant/Genius Trope, as characterized by his STEM/mathematical genius, manner of speech, and generally detached and formal behavior--the latter two of which are popular ways to code a character as autistic.

You're probably already familiar with the trope, so I'm adding this video for anyone who may read this ask and be curious as to what I mean. I believe around the 7 minute mark is when the speaker gets into the specific trope that Tech fulfills.

Some other fans believe Wrecker has been coded as autistic as well (and others say ADHD). In the Season 7 of The Clone Wars, Wrecker is generally loud, aggressive, and singularly focused on combat/violence. He gets rounder in The Bad Batch series, though--although some (like me and a few of my friends, who are autistic or ADHD) fear infantilization of him by both fans and official members of the team since he's been described as things such as a "big kid" or "big teddy bear" by Brad Rau and I think also DBB, his voice actor. This is especially problematic as he's been written to be the brawn/lack of brains to Tech's brains/lack of brawn.

Hope this helps!

~ Mod CH

Exactly! It's a rehash of the same constellation of autism stereotypes that we've been seeing for decades now in media (and they haven't even bothered making it canon). There's nothing wrong with people finding those traits relatable but we need to acknowledge that they're pretty much the only way we see autism represented and it's not a complete picture.

And on top of all that even if it were the freshest concept with autism being stated canonically, it's significance would still be completely undermined by the whitewashing.

-Mod Donegal

[ID: three tweets by @/Clonehub7567 -

First tweet: The Bad Batch could have been a show to unite star wars fans, but instead the creative team chose to rely on racism, ableism, and antisemitism at the expense of fans of color, disabled fans, and Jewish fans #UnwhitewashTBB

Second tweet: I should not have to see antisemites fighting for their lives for two or three days in a row because a Jewish person rightfully pointed out the antisemitism in tbb like it literally should not be like this. I shouldn't see all my Jewish friends going private bc of

Third tweet: Antisemitic fans of the bad batch getting violent and putting Jewish minors on blast. I myself should not have been called a slur because I rightfully pointed out how racist the bad batch is

/end ID]

Email Draft to Disney

(We are encouraging communication about this draft. Make suggestions and comments as you see fit!)

To Bob Iger, Kathleen Kennedy, Dave Filoni, Jennifer Corbett, and the creative team of Star Wars: The Bad Batch:

We hope this email finds you all well. We are fans of color, disabled fans, neurodivergent fans, and Jewish fans writing out of concern for the portrayal of our communities in the series Star Wars: The Bad Batch. For several months now, we have been campaigning on social media to spread awareness about these concerns through #UnwhitewashTBB, a movement we began to raise awareness about the ways in which the series has poorly represented several minoritized groups of people.

All of the creators of #UnwhitewashTBB grew up with Star Wars as the backbones of their childhoods, and for many of us, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was crucial to our development as lifelong Star Wars fans. We are all firm believers in the phrase “Star Wars is for everyone”, and we would like to see Disney support that message by hearing our plea.

As fans of color, as disabled fans, as neurodivergent fans, and as Jewish fans, we’ve seen ourselves on screen in both good and bad ways, but recently it has been more than latter than the former. One such reason is Star Wars: The Bad Batch, a show whose premise piqued many fans’ interest, but whose main cast has left an increasingly sour taste in the mouths of those who watched.

The #UnwhitewashTBB movement comes with two carrds explaining the grievances of the fans, one long and one short:

We respectfully ask that you read one or both of these carrds and give a public statement in response to these criticisms.

Our movement has only gained traction since its inception on March 30th, 2021. A few months later, we wrote and released an Open Letter to be signed by supporters of #UnwhitewashTBB, and every day it gains new signatures and draws nearer to the next milestone. A survey we released over a month ago has received over 1,100 responses and also continues to climb. The latter displays a range of opinions regarding The Bad Batch, but one sentiment stands out: Hunter, Crosshair, Tech, Wrecker, Omega, and Echo are written in stereotypical and actively harmful ways. Respondents were shocked at outdated portrayals of Autism, sickened by antisemitic stereotypes, and confused at how, in this current social and political climate, a family-friendly corporation like Disney could greenlight a series that sends a message that is the complete opposite of “Star Wars is for Everyone”.

Fans of color, neurodivergent fans, disabled fans, and Jewish fans have been waiting for the day where “Star Wars is for everyone” actually applies to us. If Disney’s message is truly family-friendly, if Star Wars is for everyone, then Disney needs to support these views with not just words, but with actions. Resolve the racism in Star Wars: The Bad Batch, take out the antisemitism, and treat your nonwhite, disabled, and neurodivergent characters--and fans--with the respect and dignity they deserve.

It is our hope that you will take our concerns as well as the concerns of others into account, and address the issues that we have outlined in order to better reflect the Walt Disney Company’s commitment to inclusive, diverse entertainment for audiences of all ages. Thank you for your attention to this issue.

Respectfully,

Fans of The Bad Batch

What's wrong with Echo?

Probably the most egregious whitewashing offense out of all of them is Echo. Compare how he looks now to what he used to look like:

After being frozen for over a year, he's lost all of his melanin. Many fans believe a year without sunlight while locked in a freezer will burn away every last drop of melanin someone has. This is not how melanin works. Those of us who share a skin tone equal to or darker than Echo's know that even years indoors won't lighten our skin to such a drastic shade like this--and no amount of nutritional deficiency and lack of sunlight will drain someone's melanin in such a manner. While certain environmental or traumatic factors can affect one's melanin output and lead to things like vitiligo, this is not the case with Echo, and as much as not been confirmed by the team (1). Echo's appearance in the series is actually lighter than he appeared in the season 7 arc. This is a result of a group of designers who do not know how melanin works, who assumed that people of colors' skin changes the same way white people's does, and who then rendered something extremely unlikely for the sake of "storytelling". Many dissenters of #UnwhitewashTBB cite "narrative/visual storytelling" as a justification for the gross amount of whitewashing that has happened with The Bad Batch. This argument is weak because Echo's being pale serves no real purpose to the plot or characterization of himself or anyone else in the series. Echo's missing limbs do--he uses his probe to hack into computers, for instance. Some have said that Echo is pale for the same reasons that Darth Vader is pale: damage done to the body, an assumed lack of blood, and his being "more machine than man" and somehow less/inhuman because of it. Besides this being grossly ableist, Vader and Echo have only their prosthetics in common. In every other way, they're completely different. Why should Vader and Echo have a narrative connection via visual storytelling like this? Is that the type of story that should be told about Echo: that he is less than or inhuman because of his disabilities? Should we use ableism as a justification for racism? And why assume the creators intended to do something that makes no sense when the much more plausible answer is right there: they do not know how melanin works and defaulted to how white skin behaves under extreme conditions. Beyond this, as of this carrd update (7/29/2021, after the release of episode seven) Echo has basically been ignored by both The Bad Batch and the plot. Fans have begun to think that his presence is for nostalgia and nothing else, because his treatment in the series has been subpar to a worrying degree. Disabled fans are concerned about the ableism surrounding Echo. The Bad Batch is introduced to us by insulting regs and establishing their superiority complex. They harass his brothers and doubt his loyalty to his family for the entire arc, and then we see Echo again, and it's revealed that he's disabled: multiple amputations and various devices needed to keep him alive. Even when he's saving their lives, the Bad Batch don't trust him. At the end, Rex says that if Echo no longer "fits in" with clones like him, he can go with The Bad Batch. There are multiple issues with this, the largest being that Echo is disabled, not a criminal, and not a freak. There is absolutely no reason as to why the 501st that he's fought beside for most of the war beforehand would suddenly reject him now that he's missing some limbs and hair. There wasn't ever any point in TCW where clones were shown to collectively be ableist. Why wouldn't have Echo been able to fit in? Why wouldn't he have been accepted? Would Jesse or Kix have mistreated him for being tortured and abused by the separatists? Would Anakin have? Combine this with the continued narrative coddling of the Bad Batch. They have genetic superiority-fueled egos, never saw Echo as their equal, but have him join their team anyways, proving once again that this team of whitewashed superiors are better than the brown "regs" they despise because they "accept" Echo and his disabilities. The message that the team is sending just with that decision at the end of that arc is dually racist and

ableist one. The issues do not end there. Echo is new to the team, so it's understandable that he doesn't have a wall-set bed on Kamino, but he also doesn't have a seat on the Marauder. Despite being a double amputee, he's made to stand in many of the scenes we see him in, while the rest of The Bad Batch reclines in some way. One example is in episode seven, when everyone is asleep waiting for Wrecker to wake up and Echo is the only one standing. His lack of an arm is another example--he's still made to climb and carry things literally one handed, while the probe attachment only occasionally serves a purpose. Why not give Echo a hand that opens up with a probe inside it? Disabled fans have noted that it's like the team refuses to acknowledge Echo's status as a disabled character, instead either choosing to put him in extremely uncomfortable situations that an able bodied person would be fine with, or ignoring him entirely. In episode seven, we also see that Echo has a patch on his head before anyone else has even had the surgery to remove the chip. And when Wrecker wakes up, Rex says they only need to do three more, excluding Echo. Was Echo's chip removed off screen, and if so, why skip it? This may be a continuity issue, but such an oversight calls into question how much the writers see Echo as more than just the butt of jokes and the metal ragdoll, subject to constant uncomfortable situations and dehumanization. Within the Bad Batch, the implications are still dire: they may have pulled out Echo's chip as a tester before doing the "real" work of taking out Wrecker's. Echo is referred to as "more machine than man" by Tech in the premiere, and then Crosshair makes a comment about how Echo has been "turned into that", regarding his series of prosthetics and technology keeping him functioning. The worst offense is when he gets sold, and it's played off for laughs that the mostly-metal disabled man is now being treated as actually metal and inhuman. The Clone Wars already had issues with acknowledging the clones' status as slaves (Slick is villainized, the Kadavo arc makes no mention of how Rex feels being sold into slavery), and it's disappointing to see that these issues have continued into The Bad Batch. Fans are hoping that Echo doesn't keep being put into dehumanizing or otherwise dangerous situations for a disabled person, like when he got thrown and stunned in episode seven. (1) If the team had wanted to show damage to his skin without completely bleaching him, they could have designed him with patchiness, vitiligo, and/or other skin tone variations that show that damage has been done. Fans of color have also noted that this change seems to be permanent, as Echo does not seem to be regaining his melanin. Hunter | Crosshair | Wrecker | Tech | Omega | Home Fan Theories | Photo Gallery | Art Tutorial | Other Issues | FAQ | Goal

What's wrong with Tech?

Tech is the technology and computers expert of the Bad Batch. He is designed to look like a white man; white skin, European features, straight, brown hair, and an unfortunate hairline make up the cognitive genius of The Bad Batch. Tech is unsurprisingly also the least likely to fight. He's very docile and calm, and DBB describes him as "breezy". Contrast this with Wrecker, who's the complete opposite in every way. This goes even further when Wrecker's chip takes control and he attacks Tech; Tech does not fight back and is the only one besides Omega not to make an effort to stop him. In fact, Tech and Wrecker's interactions in the first episode compound the racism in both their writing: Tech mocks or belittles what Wrecker says, and directly states that the team would not pass a mental test because of Wrecker. Even his voice has been removed from the typical Māori accent that all clones are meant to sport (and that the rest of the Bad Batch has). Dee Bradley Baker himself said "Tech is a little more British in his sound". Why does the genius need to sound British? Not only does this ignore the fact that they all grew up in the same environment and so should have the same accents, Tech's deviation is worrying in its implications on what a smart person is "supposed" to sound like, versus what those who aren't geniuses sound like. DBB also says about Tech: "He's almost like someone who's on the spectrum (1), almost (time stamp 16:05) Some autistic fans of The Bad Batch have noted that Tech is a cliche of geniuses in general and a stereotype of autistic people in particular. First, many autistic people portrayed in media are geniuses or savants with little awareness/replication of the emotions of those around them. They're often portrayed in varying degrees as socially awkward with a tendency to infodump. This is not to say that Tech's infodumping is in any way wrong or detrimental to his character, and this is also not to say it's wrong that he's been coded as autistic. This is also not to say that there is any "right" or "wrong" way to be autistic. However, what some autistic fans have noticed is that Tech is yet another stereotypical image of an autistic person: a socially awkward white male genius. This is not representative of the lived experiences of many autistic people--for instance, many autistic people stim, but many more allistic (non-autistic) writers of autistic-coded characters leave that out. The fact that he is a white-presenting autistic-coded genius adds more problematic layers to his character. There are exceedingly few brown autistic characters in media, and certainly none who can take the role of co-protagonist the way Tech does. Why is it that Tech couldn't be both brown and autistic? Why make him a two-fold stereotype? What does it mean when authors default to a European appearance and voice to portray smartness while simultaneously playing into stereotypes about certain kinds of intelligence? From his Star Wars site profile: He may not look like a typical clone, but Tech is a valuable soldier in the Republic army. The result of genetic manipulation like the rest of his special unit, Clone Force 99 (or the Bad Batch), Tech's aptitude for science and technology are unmatched by man or machine. From his Wookieepedia page: His appearance differed from that of normal clones of Jango Fett in that he appeared younger, leaner, and fairer than his genetic template. Tech was also very non-confrontational. When his squadmates would argue with each other, he would frequently walk away and not participate. Much like Hunter and unlike his other two teammates, Tech was mostly civil and respectful to his fellow clones. The page also inexplicably describes Tech's skin color as tan. (1) Please note that "on the spectrum" is a phrase used to specifically avoid calling someone autistic. It's level of offense varies from autistic person to autistic person, but it is generally seen as outdated. Hunter | Crosshair | Wrecker | Echo | Omega | Home Fan Theories | Photo Gallery | Art Tutorial | Other Issues | FAQ |

Goal

What is Our Goal?

What is Our Goal? Why start this campaign, why spend all this time on a carrd and other informational posts, and why take the time out of our day to let Disney know we're upset? Members of the #UnwhitewashTBB campaign have a list of changes that we want to see in Star Wars: The Bad Batch in particular, but in Star Wars in general. While we don't all see eye-to-eye on the exact position of the Bad Batch series, we have a general consensus on these things: In Star Wars: The Bad Batch 1. An end to the racism, whitewashing, and colorism/featurism. We all want to see a group of clones who share the skin tone of the man they are copies of. While some of us want complete model rehauls that make the Bad Batch look Māori in general, others of us would prefer it if the clones all shared the standard clone model. Regardless of the specificities, we are demanding an end to the racism in Star Wars: The Bad Batch that has prevented so many of us from fully enjoying this series. We want to be able to see ourselves, our features, and our racial and ethnic identities on screen without them being lightened, narrowed, straightened, or villainized once we hit the screen. Fixing these means not placing the only representation fans of color have on screen in the Empire, and having people who look like us be heroes rather than supporters of a metaphor for a Nazi regime. 2. An end to the ableism in Star Wars: The Bad Batch. Disabled and neurodivergent fans have expressed continued dismay at the treatment of Echo in the series, from his being sold as a droid to his near nonexistence within the plot. Lots of autistic fans see themselves in Tech and enjoy his character for that reason, but they feel his representation is leaning heavily into stereotypes. Echo must be a full member of the team, and Tech must stop being a stereotype. 3. An end to the antisemitism. Cid is a gross stereotype of Jewish people, who have suffered enough over the centuries and to this day without having to see themselves dehumanized as a mean, greedy lizard person on screen. The antisemitic traits in Cid--whether they be the voice/accent, the personality, the species, or all three--must go. 4. An acknowledgement and apology from Disney and the Star Wars: The Bad Batch team. Fans of color, Jewish fans, disabled fans, and neurodivergent fans have been hurt and alienated by the actions of Disney and the writing/design team for The Bad Batch. Disney has made posts standing up for Black and other marginalized people before. They can do it again. In Star Wars 1. An end to the racism. Star Wars has a long and upsetting history of racism, from the inspiration and portrayal of the Tusken Raiders, to sinophobic racism and cultural appropriation, to more antisemitism in Watto, to much, much more. Fans of color are getting tired. We are noticing a trend that when our cultures are not being mocked, we're being made the enemy in the Empire or the First Order, while the heroes remain largely white (or alien when they're not human). 2. An end to the ableism. The Star Wars franchise also has a long and painful history with ableism. Disabled Star Wars fans deserve to see themselves as both disabled and still heroic and valuable regardless of how many limbs they have, or their other physical abilities/disabilities. Just as examples, Vader and Sidious are disfigured and evil, and the heroes who can be construed as disabled are often not written to be. 3. A promise and an actual committment to doing better. Any time Disney attempts to celebrate its fans and characters of color, fans rightfully point out the treatment of actors like John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran, and the characters they played. Words are not enough. We demand proof that change is coming. To this end, one sign of proof of change would be the inclusion of Māori/Polynesian, disabled, neurodivergent, and altogether more diverse voices in both Star Wars: The Bad Batch and Star Wars in general. Star Wars is for everyone. We, as people of color, disabled and neurodivergent people, and people of religious minorities,

demand to be included in that "everyone". Home