Sure, but how is that worse than the Uber-PC version of alien worlds that have the same ethnic mix as Earth? (white Vulcans, black Vulcans, asian Vulcans, you name it)Talk about being afraid to offend... Of course true aliens would appear to be fairly homogeneous to us -
Maybe - it depends. There are things you can't do on screen due to cost but that would make sense biologically and sometimes show up in books - though rarely, because even in SF writing alien species tend to be portrayed as very homogenous.
Think about what forms "race" in humans. I make it parenthetical because race has no genetic basis whatsoever and today, in the West, we tend to discuss what are actually cultural differences in terms of surface biological characteristics - skin shading, whether eyes do or do not have the epicanthic fold (common to Asian races and some African races), hair color and texture, occasionally things like median height.
But talk to an African and you'll hear a whole other set of characteristics that determine race, because while we call all black people one race, Africans divide themselves into something like 2000 different races, and include characteristics like how high a person's forehead is (that is whether the hairline is high or low).
So any alien species with some sort of biological skin covering (a la feathers, fur, spines), or even their skin could be of different color, texture, etc. Slight differences in shapes of eyes, ears, noses, mouths. Shape and length of digits or limbs - any of these could be racial characteristics.
And my only problem with black Vulcans was that I'm sure there are Vulcans of many different skin tones - they just wouldn't be our skin tones. I always thought there should have been a Vulcan race with a more greenish tint to the skin (their equivalent of "white" since "white" people are actually pink due to our blood showing through as it were).
Does anyone know of any stories where alien species and their races are dealt with?
