I'm Asian and there's no need to rationalize in-universe the lack of Asians up till now. Just cast more Asians in Trek, especially males. I guess Yeoman Nguyen was a start, too bad we'll probably never see him again (unless he breaks out of prison and becomes a recurring villain or something)
Jenna Mitchell - hey, wait a second...
- Thread starter Kirby
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Cast more Asians. Period. Don't care who. It's stupid and nonsensical to not.
Obviously, we know that it is a Hollywood casting issue with Asians that there are barely any in Star trek. Things are clearly changing today. But not everything is a grievance, which is how you are a approaching this. That is why we try and find in universe reasons to explain the lack of a strong Asian presence until Hollywood catches up with what is expected.
You can complain that the lack of Asians in Star trek its racist all you want. I'm going to approach it more rationally until there is better representation in the shows.
The more proactive approach is to demand better representation rather than blindly accept the status quo.
There is no need to provide "in universe explanations" - ie, excuses - for this, none at all.
Agent's of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Chloe Bennet told us "Marvel didn't notice that I am Asian, which is lucky since they wouldn't have hired me if they had, because they already had already cast Ming-Na Wen."
And that's only because she changed her acting name from her real name of Wang to Bennett.
The systemic exclusion of Asians is a grievance. Jesus. "I recognize that bad things were done but you shouldn't treat that as a grievance???"
Doing so will merely send the message that an aspirational future is one in which there are few Asians. That's not a message you want to send. That would be a racist message. Don't do it.
But you're not approaching it "more rationally." You're just trying to make up an in-universe explanation for racist casting practices. That's not rational.
But, dude. If I was in charge of Trek, they’d all have been casted in great numbers long ago, and already leading series and movies. If I was writing Trek books, they’d be featured in great detail already.
But I’m not in charge of Star Trek or writing books for Star Trek. What do you want me to do. Agitate? Even though Trek is already changing and is set to have an Asian be the lead a Star Trek movie? And it known that there are multiple lost eras where Asians could be features in larger numbers than white or black characters? Seriously, I do not know where your argument is coming from.
You might be crying racism at a problem that might not really exist anymore. And are coming at it from a holier than thou position paying attention solely to the past instead of looking at what is being done today.
Why do you insist that the out-of-universe problems with Asians have to be represented by in-universe justification in current works? Do you not realize how insulting you are being?
Communicate to the people in charge that this is a problem.
Because it's a huge problem, and not just in Star Trek, but in Hollywood in general and it's sad that Star Trek, of all franchises, is succumbing. It's equally sad that instead of asking for change, it's called "agitating" and use of in universe rationales for a profoundly out of universe problem.
I'm Asian and am not really bothered by what @FederationHistorian is saying, but I can't speak for other Asians and maybe they might be. Trek has done dubious in-universe relocations of races, notably the TNG episode where Picard removed a bunch of future Native Americans from a planet and kicked Wesley out of Starfleet when he objected. They got away with that kind of story in the 1990s somehow but I don't think it's a good idea for Trek to do that story with real life groups including Asians, even if I'm not personally offended by someone here proposing that kind of a story involving Asians
I don’t mean any offense. I’m just not preoccupied because I can see things are changing these days and know I would have changed things already if I was there long ago.
He didn't remove them. He was prepared to, but in the end agreed to let them stay. Nor did Picard kick Wesley out of Starfleet, Wesley willingly resigned.
To just acknowledge the racism of how Star Trek has historically starred disproportionate percentages of white people, and then to stop trying to find an in-universe explanation. Just accept it as a flaw in the work that doesn't need to be rationalized in-universe.
Russel Peters is a Canadian Indian Comedian.
This is one of his jokes. Or as close as I can remember.
"Future people are going to be beige. Not white, beige. Think about it. There's a Billion Indian people and Billion Chinese people, and they are going to make billions of babies, together eventually. Beige babies."
Math incoming, of 70 main cast members, by my count 5 are of asian/pacific islander decent (but one is playing a Romulan). I also didn't count minor characters like Mitchell and Ogawa at all. Anyway that's 7.1%. The asian population of the United States is 7.3%. that's not far off. Interestingly I cant find any statistics on the percentage of asians in SAG. You can complain about world population but realistically you should only expect the cast to match the acting pool.
Most of the casting is Canadian.
No, it should do one of two things: 1) find a way to represent all of these racial groups without centering one over others [you know, the way ST has historically centered whites over other racial groups], or 2) reflect the actual world percentages of these racial rather than the racial group percentages of only one nation.
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