Sisko's racial rant in Badda-Bing Badda-Bang

That has gotta be the most cringe worthy moment on DS9.

Sisko just went into militant black man mode which just didn't fit with Star Treks we are one race...the human race attitude.

Don't know whose bright idea it was to put that in there ,but it was just bad.

Sorry it's supposed to be the far future...the 'our people' attitude should be a thing of the past especially with the uncountable alien races that have come ,and gone though Star Trek.

 

I think you missed the point of the "rant." Sisko was drawing attention to the fact that Las Vegas of the 1960's was a very white place and that to pretend otherwise is disrespectful. The writers purposefully incorporated that into the script so as to let the audience know they were aware that what they were portraying was not at all true to the way the 1960's were.

From Memory Alpha...

I don't see whats so wrong with that... if you understand what you're watching.

-Withers-​

 

I agree it was ill-advised. I don't know whether it was the fault of the scriptwriters or Brooks' idea but it was completely out of place in the context of a space station some time in the future. It jarred with me the first time I saw it. But then if you have a fabulous huge space station in a very busy part of the galaxy, next to a wormhole to another quadrant of the galaxy; a wormhole populated with mysterious and powerful aliens, what the hell are the writers doing pissing about in a holosuite at all?

 

The episode was a waste.

But remember this is post FAR BEYOND THE STARS Sisko. He's walked a mental mile in the shoes of a pre-civil rights era African American man.

 

Far Beyond the Stars was interesting because although I disagreed with the whole idea on principle, the tongue in cheek self-awareness at the end made me forgive it. That said it was very well-written and performed. I think the writers just wanted everyone to see the cast as they actually look, for once, before the show ended.

 

While the episode itself is a waste of time IMHO, I thought Sisko's "rant" was entirely appropriate. Star Trek is about celebrating and accepting diversity, not effacing it. Sisko, like Picard and Chakotay (for example), is very conscious & proud of his cultural background, and he's objecting to "playing " in a period that denigrates it. It's not as though he's angry at whites (or whomever) in his own day.

 

I actually think it's pretty much the only interesting moment in that episode!

 

Sisko was raised in an era where racism is unknown, and had been that way for centuries prior to the DS9 era. It probably was discomforting for him to know that in the past, black people in the USA were discriminated against, when he had lived his entire life in a world where racism was unthinkable.

 

The whole idea of the holosuite (much as I hate it) is leisure. The avatars in any program are going to be created by contemporary coders, which means every program will be imbued with the ethos of the time the coders are living in. It's daft to think the avatars were programmed with medieval / Victorian / insert time of choice attitudes, since they were going to be interacting with an awful lot of very strange looking people. In Voyager, for instance (giving that bloody awful 'Oirish' village a large bodyswerve) the captain created a da Vinci program in which she spent a lot of time talking to the great man without changing into contemporaneous costume. The avatar didn't bat an eye. Nor did any of them when faced with aliens in any program. Therefore the idea that any particular game was offensive simply because of the era and location is preposterous.

 

Again, I think the point of the remarks he made are being lost; Regardless of how he had grown up Sisko would be aware of his heritage. Just because I don't know what its like to hunt and gather doesn't mean I'm not aware that my ancestors did so. Sisko's not wanting to participate in a recreation of 1960's Las Vegas because of what Las Vegas was in 1960 isn't at all 'preposterous.' He's aware of his heritage and to go play a role he coudn't have in real life based on the color of skin would be a little off putting.

Moreover- the writers wanted to make the audience aware that they were aware of how crazy the idea of a black man playing at a casino in 1960's Vegas would've been, so they gave Sisko the speech.

-Withers-​

 

The audience would have been happier if they had resisted the impulse to speechify and just got on with the show. I challenge them to find anyone who would have preferred an uncomfortably inappropriate rant about racism in a non-racist environment over those who thought it was a good idea.

 

I have no problem with it at all. I mean, a man can't complain that a fantasy scenario is ridiculously inaccurate and stupidly offensive?

If not, I'm in big trouble.

Actually, iirc Kassidy's reaction was less extreme than my girlfriend's whenever I point out that the hero of her beloved Lord of the Rings films is a feudal bastard who, after helping defeat the reforming force of Sauron, probably goes on to work his serfs half to death and practices droit de seigneur on 13 year olds.

Sure, I'm being a stick in the mud when I do that, but I enjoy it.

There is nothing wrong with pointing out how historical or pseudo-historical fiction in general, and specifically historical fiction that you're being cajoled into participating in, is profoundly insensitive to subalterns, even if the socioeconomic conditions of the fictional world no longer exist in your present.

 

But to use the words 'our people'?

I'm surprised they didn't go further ,and have Sisko accusing the others of racism for liking Vic so much.

The writers explanation for this is lame as well.

People aren't as dumb as he thinks ,and there's a thing they teach kids in school...history.

Nobody is going to think a holodeck on a sci fi show is real life.

And I agree that this show shouldn't have existed to begin with.

 

I think you would have been happier but I was in the audience too and I didn't have a problem with it. The episode was a pretty stupid one anyway (since nothing of consequence happened during the whole show) so its not as if his speech held up the "good parts" that followed it. How many times did the fact that Janeway was a woman come up? A lot right? How many times did it come up that Sisko was black? Yeah... so cut 'em so slack.

-Withers-​

 

I think you should perhaps consider that the proposal that Janeway being a woman and Sisko being black are completely unworthy of comment.

 

Felt the same way about them making a big deal about Janeway being a female Captain.

And Chakotay being an Indian.

Got the feeling that a liberal agenda was seeping into the shows.

 

Seeping into? The whole franchise was based around getting Roddenberry's liberal views to the masses in the guise of a "harmless" science fiction show. That and a way for him to bone pretty young actresses.

 

^This.

Agreed. Which is why I loved Kassidy's rebuke, which forced Sisko to man up and spare everyone the bloody race card!

I tell you, SOMEBODY needs to say something like that to The Nn-Rev-rend--Nn-Jack-snnnnnnnnnnn, or Al Sharpton--or while we're at it, Jeremiah Wright!

 

But it was not in your face.

The main message is come together not divide.

lol and I guess Roddenberry had some fun back in the day.

 

Better than a nutjob conservative agenda.

And I probably would have a problem with it, if not for Far Beyond the Stars. But he DID experience life through the eyes of Benny Russel and he did know how hard a black man had it way in the past. I think having lived through that personally would make someone a LOT more self-aware of that kind of thing.