Avery Brooks Blacklisted?
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Honestly, I think it must be some sort of projection going on with the people wanting so badly for Avery Brooks to somehow be racist. Really says more about them than any dreamt up bias they want to pin on Brooks.
It's a rumor that's out there that's all, one that's been alluded to in interviews and highlighted by Brooks departure from Hollywood. People today seem to overreact to "bias" as something no one harbors or has ever expressed privately or if someone has, then that person is "bad yada yada etc". Avery Brooks is obviously not a hateful crazed racist and that's not really being suggested, more that he could have expressed some racial bias particularly in his younger days in the industry, not really that uncommon for a black actor in the late 1970s/early 1980s. Building strawmen and running away doesn't solve much, so how about a different angle. Lets assume Brooks does (or did) have a different viewpoint on race, one that most people on here would disagree with but isn't completely abhorrent, would this fact affect how his performance on the show is viewed? Does an actor's personal politics or bias disqualify them from acting?
In this world, yes.
Also, I'm asking for evidence. Otherwise I won't entertain rumor.
Also, I'm asking for evidence. Otherwise I won't entertain rumor.
I honestly find it quite fascinating how openly Robert Beltran and Jolene Blalock could criticize their own show without any repercussions.
One would assume that such a move would not be conducive to one's career in a field where one can be hired for the most subjective of reasons in a country where this is already generally so.
Some seem to believe so; I judge everything independently. He can be convicted of murder and I don't think that alters his acting performance.
That having been said, I am rarely impressed with actors; most of them simply play the role and it's not obvious they are actors but seem their character, and that is all I ask and rarely is an actor given opportunity to go beyond that.
The last time I was genuinely impressed is in the case of the lead actor of Orphan Black, who was required to play many roles, and does so so convincingly, that one as a viewer forgets they are all played by the same actor, even though they share the same face in different haircuts.
Benjamin Sisko is simply a “role”; — I have no higher or lower opinion on the acting ability that that of any other television role, really.
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This is the weakest concept since New Coke and at least that had the excuse of coming out in the cocaine-fueled 1980s.
I dunno about Avery Brooks, but I boycotted DS9 once I found out that Andrew Robinson hated children.Sigh, again with this shit. Where are people taking this from? What evidence is there to support this “theory”?
Did you mean to write "heresy" or "hearsay" there? The meaning differs quite a bit between the two, but at least both have the virtue of being real words.
This.
The man is a lover of music and has a very unique take on the universe. One might say that he's earned the right to not be like the other Trek Captain actors. More power to him.
So in a nutshell, you've got nothing in the way of actual evidence to support your accusation / wishful thinking. Better luck next time.
These newer arguments seem like trying to make mountains out of molehills. Yes, psychology shows that humans generally behave according to in-group and out-group biases. That's a long way from proving that Brooks' behavior was racist, whether being aggressive to white colleagues or insisted on some sort of exclusiveness in Sisko's relationships. Proof has not been forthcoming.
[emphasis mine]
Psychology has never shown this, because no test can simultaneously fill the condition of having blinds and showing what the general case is; it can only show what the average case is.
The flaw with research into biases and similar is that, given a large enough sample size, if only 1% of the subjects has the bias, but 99% is completely neutral, it will show an average bias, because the bias will never be negative.
Indeed, in the hypothetical case that 50% show a strong positive bias, and the other 50% a strong negative bias in exactly the opposite direction, the result will be that on average, humans have no bias, even though no human being among the subjects was free of bias.
This is why such research into human biases is to be taken with a strong grain of salt; you will note that it almost never comes with numbers such as “We found that 40% of subjects exhibit a strong bias, 30% a mild bias, and 30% no measurable bias at all.”, as it cannot pinpoint the percentage that exhibit the bias, only that it on average exists, which should be obvious, given that such biases are not ever negative.
How could I ever forget this very impressive performance:
I am fundamentally flabbergasted as to why such rumors need be given any seriousness.
Anthropology says the same thing.
Anthropology as a discipline completely lacks controlled experiments.
It indeed “says” things, but not even this specific claim, but it does not “show”.
Neither psychology nor anthropology has any result on the generality of the phænomenon, and if you believe it does then I challenge you to come with specific numbers on how general it would be among the human population.
Whether this is skepticism or denialism, impugning the methods of established academic and research disciplines seems far outside the question of Avery Brooks' attitudes, don't you think?
I've not impugned any such thing; I've simply said that they never claimed what was said they claimed.
It's very common on the internet to misrepræsent the claims of scientific research; actual scientists typically are well aware of how far their research goes and know the difference between “average” and “general” and make no claims about generality when the research cannot show it.
I'm simply saying it has shown averages, not the level of generality, which is more meaningful, but cannot be done so easily.
Avery's not an anti-white racist. Next?
it's hearsay, pure and simple
I see what you did there.
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