It's one think to remember persecutions, atrocities, and your people's suffering it's entirely different to broadcast them to the broader society and use them as an excuse to avoid solving your present problems.
Racism among humans in the 24th Century
- Thread starter Jetboogieman
- Start date
I really don't see how the Jack in the Box was Siskos problem though.
Well it was keeping his staff from focusing on their work
Plus I'm guessing he wanted to see why they linked the program so much
As much as I liked Avery Brooks' use of African-inspired clothing and decor for Sisko, I found that particular grievance of Sisko's to be unrealistic. Sisko was born and raised in paradise, four centuries removed from Earth's social problems. There's no way he could be carrying a chip on his shoulder about something he would have only learned about in history books, especially when equality on Earth has been perfected. Sure, the descendants of African-Americans might have passed on the memories at first, but after nuclear war and the Vulcans arrive, those memories are going to be crowded out fast. Not to mention as Earth colonizes other planets, the stories about its past aren't going to make sense at all to the colonists; their own colonial histories would take precedence.
To the original topic, I think it's very plausible racism could exist in the 24th century if a particular planet was settled by a homogenous group who maintained a sharp identity of themselves against the "others": such groups could be ethnic, religious, or otherwise, so long as they were seperatist.
Another scenaro: let's say humans colonize a planet, but then different parts of the settled planet develop differently from one another, develop identities against one enough, and subsequently become antagonists. All you need for tribalism is two different identities -- just look at the Sherif experiment, where a group of high school boys was arbitrarily divided into teams. They drifted into violence a la Lord of the Flies...
To the original topic, I think it's very plausible racism could exist in the 24th century if a particular planet was settled by a homogenous group who maintained a sharp identity of themselves against the "others": such groups could be ethnic, religious, or otherwise, so long as they were seperatist.
Another scenaro: let's say humans colonize a planet, but then different parts of the settled planet develop differently from one another, develop identities against one enough, and subsequently become antagonists. All you need for tribalism is two different identities -- just look at the Sherif experiment, where a group of high school boys was arbitrarily divided into teams. They drifted into violence a la Lord of the Flies...
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Whether racism exists in the 24th century really does not hits what is going on in the episode. If it did, it would not be in a way recognizable to us. As I already asserted, identity certainly continued to exist (there's no reason to allow it for one group but not another). Sub Rosa showed that some people were willing to hold and preserve a sense of Scottishness. However, that identity may be more flexible and inclusive than before, allowing a non-human to represent Scottishness, as in Sub Rosa.
Where I think that this conversation is going astray is that some don't recognize the role of historical memory in our culture and its probable persistence. Anyone in the US or Europe who lives in a sizeable enough town or city is probably in the vicinity of some sort of monument to a tragic event, usually the loss of local kids to war. At larger cities there might be monument to battles, intellectuals, or mass tragedies like genocides. The conversation about how to remember the past is often vigorous in German society, where the connections to the past necessarily come across their ancestors' role in WWII and the Holocaust. How they go about memorializing the past is not always perfect, but Germans are more sensitive to such questions than others.
Conversely, Americans can be terrible at memorialization. Yes, we have national museums that explore the Holocaust and the African-American experience. However, the approach to the Civil War shows a narcissistic need to expunge the role of Southern society in precipitating the war, especially expunging the place of slavery in its origins. I live not far from the the capital of my (US) state. The state legislature and executive office are surrounded by monuments to dead white soldiers--the noble Rebel--and starving white women. The portrayal of the war effort is entirely positive, giving no place African Americans.
I find it deeply hypocritical when people then deny memory to one group of people. We see it now when some Americans call it divisive that African Americans (or Native Americans, or any group) remember the tragedies of their past. I don't know if memorial culture would look the same in the 24the century as it does in the 21st, although we do know it exists. After all, Bashir and O'Brien were historical reenactors. Vic's was essentially historical reenacting, and going there might well raise any questions about what it means to remember a particular moment in history: how accurate it is, what it represents, and what it leaves out.
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I would imagine most people's ancestors experienced tragedies or mistreatment at some point during the course of history. But not everyone wears that history on their sleeves.
Wars. conquest, plagues, slavery, starvation.
It shouldn't be a game of "my ancestors had it worse than yours."
Point of curiosity here, when did the Romans rule scotland exactly? The empire had outposts in southern Caledonia and raided further north with markedly limited success, hence the building of hadrians wall.
Even after mons graupius they never successfully established a foothold north of modern Inverness.
The most that can be said is the Romans temporarily held portions of Scotland and many of the tribes accepted this, due as much to bribery as conquest.
The English on the other hand really did do a number on them and yes there is still bitterness there.
Even after mons graupius they never successfully established a foothold north of modern Inverness.
The most that can be said is the Romans temporarily held portions of Scotland and many of the tribes accepted this, due as much to bribery as conquest.
The English on the other hand really did do a number on them and yes there is still bitterness there.
Neither should it be a game of 'get over what happened' especially when the consequences of said history are alive and well and being experienced by your neighbours. There is a reason why sections of the USA have racially/ethnically separated neighbourhoods in the 21st cenutry. If its still like that in the 24th century no wonder Sisko is the way he is.
There is an anecdote from Fifty Year Mission VoI II that I feel is invaluable. RDM relates how Beimler and Manning wrote a story about the Enterprise discovering a genocide taking place on a planet they encounter. According RDM,
TOS, of course, had it's Nazi planet, but that was not written by Roddenberry. Indeed, it was produced at a time when his influence over the production had waned, and over the course of the next twenty years he developed his concept of more evolved humanity. An episode like the one proposed by Beimler and Manning could be seen as dredging up the past: Beimler was the son of German-Jewish immigrants who faced political persecution at the hands of the Nazis. Beimler also cowrote script to the episode in question, Badda-bing Badda-bang.
The problem I see with this thread is that some insisting that some people should forget, as if bringing up difficult topics make for bad dinner conversation. History is a reservoir of experiences and events that we can use, as individuals and as societies, to establish expectations and guard against catastrophes. To silence a group from speaking about their past means to endanger them, whereas keeping a living memory can help everyone to understand new and evolving injustices. The funny thing is that Sisko's reaction to the portrayal of '60s Vegas might have more to do with Beimler's Jewishness than Sisko's blackness, but it shows how the two identities can interact in powerful, perhaps mutually beneficial, ways. The type of erasure that Roddenberry performed--throwing out a script--is shameful.
TOS, of course, had it's Nazi planet, but that was not written by Roddenberry. Indeed, it was produced at a time when his influence over the production had waned, and over the course of the next twenty years he developed his concept of more evolved humanity. An episode like the one proposed by Beimler and Manning could be seen as dredging up the past: Beimler was the son of German-Jewish immigrants who faced political persecution at the hands of the Nazis. Beimler also cowrote script to the episode in question, Badda-bing Badda-bang.
The problem I see with this thread is that some insisting that some people should forget, as if bringing up difficult topics make for bad dinner conversation. History is a reservoir of experiences and events that we can use, as individuals and as societies, to establish expectations and guard against catastrophes. To silence a group from speaking about their past means to endanger them, whereas keeping a living memory can help everyone to understand new and evolving injustices. The funny thing is that Sisko's reaction to the portrayal of '60s Vegas might have more to do with Beimler's Jewishness than Sisko's blackness, but it shows how the two identities can interact in powerful, perhaps mutually beneficial, ways. The type of erasure that Roddenberry performed--throwing out a script--is shameful.
But when will enough be enough? When blacks and women enslave white men? When they kill all of them? Everybody says they want a world of inclusiveness, but it seems all the time that what they really mean is that they want a world without white men.
If we can't learn to forgive and forget, we'll never have that world of peace and inclusiveness that people claim to want.
When's that happening? I hope I don't need to prove my membership in the secret society, because my white hood is at the dry cleaners.
You can have mine if you want. I'm retired.
Remember, never wear your white hooded robe after Labor day.
Blaming current generations for the supposed actions of their ancestors definitely needs to be something which is gotten over with.
Plus, how many people live today in America are even descended from the tiny percentage of slave owners from over 150 years ago? Not that that should confer any responsibility upon them.
It's not just slavery... it's officially sanctioned and tolerated discriminatory conditions that lasted until the second half of the twentieth century, leading to significant social disparities that persist to this day.
But hopefully, such issues will be gone three hundred years from now, especially since Earth might possibly have a post-scarcity moneyless economy, if Picard is to be believed.
Kor
But hopefully, such issues will be gone three hundred years from now, especially since Earth might possibly have a post-scarcity moneyless economy, if Picard is to be believed.
Kor
