Why did Sisko's skin colour matter in Benny Russell's story

[Kor]

These days it makes sense for someone of scots and Swiss descent to be black, so if it's a contemporary set bond, I think it makes a kind of sense.

Just about everything about the "James Bond" concept is antiquated. The character personifies male colonialist white privilege, and he is, as M famously put it, "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur... a relic of the Cold War."

At the time that the character was originally conceptualized, SIS/MI6 basically had a history of recruiting its officers from the elitist white gentry. Today they actively recruit minority officers. Elba would be great as a re-imagined Bond for the 21st century, with a backstory that better represents contemporary society, ignoring Bond's literary roots as coming from (white) landed aristocracy with a centuries-old estate.

Kor

 

[Navaros]

There is no such thing as "white privilege." That's a racist phrase.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

There is no such thing as "white privilege." That's a racist phrase.

Nonsense.

 

[Navaros]

Nonsense.

Spreading racism against white people with racist phrases like "white privilege" is nonsense.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Spreading racism against white people with racist phrases like "white privilege" is nonsense.

Yeah, no. To observe that there is such a thing as white privilege that white people benefit from in the US, which is both factual and demonstrable, is not to say anything racist. And, to attempt to paint white privilege as something racist is to fail to exhibit any comprehension of what white privilege is and of what racism is.

 

[STR]

Per the OP, the story was clearly a commentary on DS9 and race in America. Separating the story from it's context is, frankly, odd to me and will cause you to miss the point of the author. No work of art exists in a vacuum.

Divorcing story from context, for example, guts the meaning from TOS Plato's Stepchild. Of course an interracial kiss isn't noteworthy in the 23rd century. The point was that it was airing in 1960s America, only 5 years after the end of Jim Crow.

Just about everything about the "James Bond" concept is antiquated. The character personifies male colonialist white privilege, and he is, as M famously put it, "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur... a relic of the Cold War."

The books are downright quaint at times. I remember reading "Live and Let Die" and laughing at the passage suggesting two goons were "rabid with marijuana". I'm probably misquoting a bit, but Mr. Flemming clearly thought pot had the same effect as cocaine. I also vaguely recall it being rather racist, in that British imperial supremacy kind of way.

Spreading racism against white people with racist phrases like "white privilege" is nonsense.

"White privilege", like any privilege is the ability to deny the experience of others. You (figurative "you", not you personally) can sit back and say racism doesn't exist and then live a life that avoids the issue. It's equivalent to sitting at a comfy work desk and typing out over your break that the poor just need to work harder. Easy for you to say. To a person already working 3 jobs just to make rent, it's aggravating at best, and a declaration of hostility at worst.

If you don't like the term, don't be a person it applies to. Stop telling people how their life works and listen when they tell you their hardships.

 

[Nyotarules]

There is no such thing as "white privilege." That's a racist phrase.

Tell that to Benny.....and to the White supremacist movement, they revel in it

 

[DonIago]

The books are downright quaint at times. I remember reading "Live and Let Die" and laughing at the passage suggesting two goons were "rabid with marijuana". I'm probably misquoting a bit, but Mr. Flemming clearly thought pot had the same effect as cocaine. I also vaguely recall it being rather racist, in that British imperial supremacy kind of way.

I just read several of the Bond novels myself, and it's hard to imagine any of them getting published in this day and age...though it's also hard to tell where Fleming's attitudes end and Bond's begin.

 

[Maurice]

There is no such thing as "white privilege." That's a racist phrase.

Bullshit. And double bullshit.

 

[jaime]

Yeah, no. To observe that there is such a thing as white privilege that white people benefit from in the US, which is both factual and demonstrable, is not to say anything racist. And, to attempt to paint white privilege as something racist is to fail to exhibit any comprehension of what white privilege is and of what racism is.

Key words 'in the US'. (Despite mass media, the world is bigger) Not to mention proliferating the idea at its core of everyone of a particular skin colour being part of the same nebulous club. It also works against the key ideal of equality....if you have two people of otherwise near identical skills or situation etc, suddenly at its most basic, being treated with respect or 'normally' is suddenly a 'privilege' rather than something that should just be. I can't speak for everyone, and certainly not my race or anyone else's, but there are people better off than me, and worse off than me, and none of us have some specialty ethnicity membership card we wave to make things easier. That's an accusation the right wing nutters wave, and now the left get to wave it too. In the U.K. We also get 'privilege of class' which is probably more a thing to be honest. It's divisive language, designed to create division, not promote equality. I don't pretend that inequality from the banal to the horrific does not exist, and do not think for one minute that it's acceptable...but boxing people neatly by skin colour is what got us into this mess, and it's not going to get human societies out of it. 'You only got that job because you're white' - white privilege 'you only got that job because you are black' - the accusation levelled against positive discrimination (whole other box of frogs there). Both unpleasant ways of looking at the world. Both ways of dehumanising someone and pushing them down. It's base political rhetoric. Using it as a catch-all is stupid. White people in fifties America aren't privileged. Black people in fifties America are being oppressed. There's a difference without needing the infantilisation of making it into literally a binary black and white. One group may be 'priviIeged' in that in the strictest of senses, but it is just rhetoric designed to foster enmity. I am with Martin Luther King who dreamed of people being people together, regardless of skin colour.

All of which ties in to this very episode...segregation and the treatment of people in the ways portrayed simply because of skin colour is abhorrent, and from a modern perspective becomes difficult to imagine. (Just as it is difficult to imagine the horrors along similar lines in parts of Africa or the Middle East, which are the same evils with different markers.) The episode highlights one of the key ideals in Trek, that who you are, you as an individual, is a more important factor in existence than 'where you come from' in many many ways. It also reminds people at that time why Sisko is an important figure in pop culture....Star Trek may have that total equality in its fiction, but it's sorely lacking in the real world that makes it. In Benny we see someone fighting to make that equality happen in some small way, ahead of his time, and we see how brutally a system set up in antithesis to that can bring him down.

 

[Nyotarules]

Yes as a Brit I am aware that in the past and to some degree today class was more an issue than race, that is only because race only became a major factor after the Windrush in 1948 while class has been a factor since feudal times.
Things have improved since the 1940's but there is still a reason why the average white female has better prospects than the average black female (me) even if both have the same qualifications and same social background. Melanin still gives some humans in our society a privilege, whether you like that word being used or not. And its even more so in the USA. Plus these days factor in a non white skin with a non Anglo Saxon name, and heaven help ya!
White privilege exists, if any doubt go walk in the shoes of the average black male for a weeek, make sure you drive a nice car as well. Do not visit the USA cos they might just shoot ya!
P.S Had my 'black person trying to catch a cab' experience in New York last September..trust me all the stories are true!

 

[Eric Cheung]

There's a misconception that Star Trek depicts a post-racial society. There's no such thing and there never will be. What it depicts is a post-racist society. A character's heritage is still an important part of that person's identity and always will be something to be treasured. What it won't be in Star Trek's future is a handicap or divider. People won't resent the pride of others in their own culture, nor will they think that resources are unfairly distributed to others. As Jonathan Frakes likes to say Roddenberry told him, "There will be no hunger. There will be no greed. And all the children will know how to read." That's the difference.

And what Benny Russell wanted to say is that black people, or people of color at all, will still be around in the future he depicted in his story. Until that point, it was an open question if one would read mainstream science fiction stories of the period. It certainly was for Whoopi Goldberg when she saw Star Trek on television a decade later. People of color were simply invisible, especially in science fiction media. It would not be a far-fetched conclusion for consumers of that media to guess that they had been eradicated in an act of genocide by the periods depicted in futuristic science fiction.

Having any black characters at all would be a rejection of that idea. And having strong black characters with agency and humanity would not only challenge that, but challenge the contemporary ideas of racial hierarchy.

Remember, one of the other plots in the episode was that the magazine wanted to show pictures of the authors, but refused to show Benny Russell, KC Hunter, or Julius Eaton. They wanted to exploit the labor of women and people of color, but keep them invisible to their audience, and keep them in their place.

Representation matters on both sides of the typewriter, as it's important for underrepresented peoples to tell their stories as much as it is important for said peoples to be portrayed in those stories. As Star Trek has shown, and movies like Hidden Figures continues to show, is that when kids see people that look, talk, and act like themselves on screen doing amazing things, it shows them what might just be possible with love, and encouragement from others, and one's own tenacity.

That is why Benny Russell made Benjamin Lafayette Sisko black.

 

[Nyotarules]

^And Let the church say "Amen"!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Key words 'in the US'.

The episode is set here in the US, and white privilege existed here in the 1950s and it still persists today. White privilege is pertinent to "Far Beyond the Stars." Anyone who can't see that isn't understanding the episode. Given that this is the DS9 forum and our discussion is ostensibly in relation to that episode, it was unnecessary for me to frame my post to have greater generality.

 

[Nyotarules]

The episode is set here in the US, and white privilege existed here in the 1950s and it still persists today. Given that this is the DS9 forum and our discussion is ostensibly in relation to that episode, it was unnecessary for me to frame my post to have greater generality.

Trust me, you inherited it from your cultural ancestors..the Brits.

 

[Tosk]

the magazine wanted to show pictures of the authors, but refused to show Benny Russell, KC Hunter, or Julius Eaton.

Actually (and curiously), Pabst never mentions Julius in that exchange.

I daresay they could get away with it for the same reason that a lot of DS9 viewers forget Sid's background. ...Or choose to see him as white.

 

[Prax]

I thought he was white....until the episode with his parents. His dad is played by that guy who plays an Indian or Pakistani or Middle Easterner in like every TV show and sitcom of the 90's

 

[Tosk]

Oh, that guy!

Brian George.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Oh, that guy!

Brian George.

That Jewish guy.

 

[Eric Cheung]

Actually (and curiously), Pabst never mentions Julius in that exchange.

I daresay they could get away with it for the same reason that a lot of DS9 viewers forget Sid's background. ...Or choose to see him as white.

Fair enough, but Julius still reacted as if he was going to be excluded, IIRC. It's been a while since I've seen the episode. Of course, since DS9, Siddig hasn't tended to be cast in race neutral roles.