Amandla Stenberg fires back at racist tweets

Amandla Stenberg

So the other day, I told you about how a small, stupid, vocal part of the web is pissed off that the characters of Rue, Thresh and Cinna from The Hunger Games were all portrayed by black actors, despite the fact that both Rue and Thresh were defined as black in the books. So yeah, racist and dumb. Winning combination. Anyway, Amandla Stenberg, who is thirteen-years-old and plays Rue, fired back at the critics in the most polite and respectful way possible. Us Weekly reports:

On Wednesday, Stenberg spoke out on the controversy. “As a fan of the books, I feel fortunate to be part of The Hunger Games family,” she told Us Weekly in a statement. “It was an amazing experience; I am proud of the film and my performance. I want to thank all of my fans and the entire Hunger Games community for their support and loyalty.”

Part of me is infinitely glad that someone her age can react to all that hate with such a level head, but the other part of me is picking up the pieces of exploded brain because just how awful does someone have to be to send hate tweets to a teenager for being black? Holy shit, people are the worst.

Amandla Stenberg

About JEREMY FEIST 4832 Articles
Jeremy Feist is an (ahem) entertainer from Toronto, Canada. He writes, acts, and performs on stage, and has been a writer for Popbytes for almost three years now. He lives in Toronto with his boyfriend, his incredibly dumb but cute puppy, and his immortal cat.