I could say a lot about this clip, but I’d prefer that you watch it in all of its glory before I do anything of the sort. 

Behold, Melissa Harris-Perry, who has apparently never seen Star Wars, taking advantage of the excitement for Friday’s Episode VII: The Force Awakens premiere to connect the popular gestalt to her favorite subject, “everything is racist.”

The money quote:

“The part where he was totally a black guy, whose name was basically James Earl Jones,” she said. “While he was black he was terrible and bad, awful and used to cut off white men’s hand, and didn’t actually claim his son. But as soon as he claims his son, goes over to the good, takes off his mask and he is white — yes, I have many feelings about that.”

Here are a few helpful tidbits. One, Darth Vader thought his kids had died. He didn’t know he had a living son, at least for a great while. By the time he was aware, he was basically the most evil man in the universe, and while he never openly “claimed” them, when he encountered them he was quick to try to make ruling the galaxy a family affair. The “white man” whose hand he cut off was his son Luke’s. And while James Earl Jones is the famoued voice of Darth Vader, when the movie was scripted and the scenes were shot, there was no voice-over actor cast yet. As for whether he’s only “black” when he’s evil, well, he does slaughter about thirty children in a Jedi academy when he’s young, unburned, unmasked and, yes, white.

Fortunately, I don’t think the explanation will matter much to Harris-Perry, so I don’t feel too badly about ruining her carefully crafted worldview on the subject. Unfortunately, other conservatives who seek the same goals may not be doing as good a job. 

Here’s hoping this is a central topic for tomorrow night’s Republican Presidential debate.