How do I avoid Unfortunate Implications?: in Space Edition

So, one of the many, many drafts I'm working on revolves around a fairly standard "La Résistance vs The Empire" set-up, except that I'm trying to play with some of the tropes associated with them. Such as that La Résistance isn't an unified whole, but a group of splinter factions that fight themselves as much as they fight TheEmpire, as well as The Empire actually having several Internal Reformist factions that aren't just relegated to the POV characters. In fact, I was planning on making the main rebel POV character a Tyke Bomb from one of the more extremist splinter factions (read: ISIS in space), and make him (and the audience, too) question the validity of the cause he fights in.

And then I remembered that he's basically Arab.

In fact, most of the rebels aren't even Caucasian; they're a varied group of people of all races, ages, and sexes, whereas most of imperial characters are, well, white. This can prove quite a problem, considering the Grey-and-Gray Morality can make people go Rooting for the Empire instead (and in fact, that's kind of the point), but the racial homogeneity of The Empire is also a plot point.

So, how do I handle having (sometimes extremist) racially diverse rebels without pissing people off? I know that people will somehow get offended, no matter how hard I try, but I would like to offend as small of a group as possible.

edited 9th Mar '17 1:35:44 PM by handlere

You could use the diversity of the rebels to your advantage. Show that there are characters of other ethnicities that are just as extreme (or worse) as the main guy, and people of the same one as his that are more reasonable.

Generally speaking though, I wouldn't worry too much about this sort of thing unless the Unfortunate Implications became really obvious.