The Acolyte's Amandla Stenberg hits back at Star Wars trolls with empowering song

The Acolyte star Amandla Stenberg has hit back at bitter Star Wars fans who have racially abused her over her role in the latest TV spin-off.

The 25-year-old actress plays twins Verosha 'Osha' and Mae-ho 'Mae' Aniseya in the new sci-fi epic that is currently streaming via Disney+.

The show has been met with a vicious response from some corners of the Star Wars fanbase who have review-bombed the series to drag down the Rotten Tomatoes score online and who have directed blatant racist reactions towards the star who is leading the cast.

Amandla has hit back at the trolls, releasing a song and music video to bite back at the racist comments.

Sharing her project online on Wednesday - which coincided with Juneteenth celebrations in the USA - the actress wrote on Instagram, "Happy Juneteenth... 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!"

Since The Acolyte started streaming at the start of the month, footage has been appropriated from a 2018 interview Amandla gave to talk show host Trevor Noah where she discussed her film The Hate U Give which confronted racism in the US police system.

Her quote about the film, where she said "white people crying actually was the goal", has been used by trolls to imply the actress was talking about her involvement in the Star Wars franchise.

The incident is among the lyrics of Amandla's musical response when she sings, "I'm going viral on Twitter again / open up the news to find some interesting things / 20 million views / interview from 2018 / with Trevor the king when I was a teen.

"I was running from city to city to speak on a story / you know the one: police murdering a black boy / my people cried in theatres finding release / white people cried they could see us as human beings / Trevor ask what I want the people to know / I say white people crying was the goal / If they could take one thing what would it be? / I say empathy."