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Michael B. Jordan visits the Stella Artois suite at the 66th Cannes Film Festival - The 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival

Source: George Pimentel / Getty

Michael Bae Jordan is not here for the haters who have been trolling him online due to him being cast as The Human Torch in the upcoming Fantastic Four flick. In case you didn’t know, The Human Torch from the comics was a twin who happened to be a blue-eyed White man, so you know the fanboy (and girl) trolls had a field day in his social media mentions when it was announced that he got the role. But guess what? He still filmed the movie any way, got his coins, and got Stan Lee’s approval. Bloop.

In an essay for Entertainment Weekly, he wrote that the hate used to bother him, but after looking at the bigger picture, he wanted people to be able to see past his race:

This is a family movie about four friends—two of whom are myself and Kate Mara as my adopted sister—who are brought together by a series of unfortunate events to create unity and a team. That’s the message of the movie, if people can just allow themselves to see it.

Sometimes you have to be the person who stands up and says, “I’ll be the one to shoulder all this hate. I’ll take the brunt for the next couple of generations.” I put that responsibility on myself. People are always going to see each other in terms of race, but maybe in the future we won’t talk about it as much. Maybe, if I set an example, Hollywood will start considering more people of color in other prominent roles, and maybe we can reach the people who are stuck in the mindset that “it has to be true to the comic book.” Or maybe we have to reach past them.

To the trolls on the Internet, I want to say: Get your head out of the computer. Go outside and walk around. Look at the people walking next to you. Look at your friends’ friends and who they’re interacting with. And just understand this is the world we live in. It’s okay to like it.

How many times has Hollywood remixed classic concepts with whatever the heck it wants to do? I mean…Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra? But y’all wasn’t mad then, huh? Get over it.

Anyway, he handled that graciously. And this (among many other, things, ahem) is why I love this man. I mean, I’d watch him stare at a wall for an entire movie, so I could be bias.

Michael B. Jordan Addresses Human Torch Controversy In Essay  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com