Leah Brahms.....Not Leah Daystrom? (What gives?)

[Kirkunit]

There's another angle, here. Perhaps the producers wanted Geordi to have a relationship with a white woman. (Maybe this was seen as being "progressive," or something.) Since there was some expectation that a character named Daystrom would be black, changing that character's name would be a simple way to avoid confusion.

 

[FordSVT]

Kirkunit said:
There's another angle, here. Perhaps the producers wanted Geordi to have a relationship with a white woman. (Maybe this was seen as being "progressive," or something.) Since there was some expectation that a character named Daystrom would be black, changing that character's name would be a simple way to avoid confusion.

It's funny, because that never even occurred to me.

The OP seemed to be intimating that someone behind the scenes was some kind of racist when the entire episode on screen was about a colour-blind black man and his crush on a white woman.

 

[Hermiod]

Realistically, a black man adopting a white child in the 23rd/24th century is not all that difficult to accept. The difference between black humans and white humans would seem to be insignificant when you've got guys with handles for noses walking around and your kids are going to school with Horta.

I just think this is the reality of making TV in early nineties impacting upon the show TNG's producers were trying to make at the time. I can't see any intentional malice in it.

People complain that TNG is "too PC" and then pick up on it when they aren't.

The most ridiculous one I've ever read was the suggestion that Geordi was written as being a failure with women because the writers were racist and didn't want a sexually aggressive black man amongst the cast.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Hermiod said:
The most ridiculous one I've ever read was the suggestion that Geordi was written as being a failure with women because the writers were racist and didn't want a sexually aggressive black man amongst the cast.

IIRC, it was Lavar Burton himself that made that statement several years ago during an interview, although I can't be absolutely certain that's where it came from.

I also remember in the early days of TNG, a female friend commenting on how both people of color in the show (Dorn & Burton) had some kind of permanent makeup and prosthetics and the others didn't as much - searching for a conspiracy once again where there was none. I was quick to point out Brent Spiner's android full face/hands makeup, as well as Marina Sirtis' Betazoid contact lenses, but to no avail, sadly.

I am convinced that people who blindly look for racism in knee-jerk reactions are something of a racist themselves. They ASSUME that others take into account negative stereotypes in such situations, when they themselves are acting upon the negative stereotypes to convey their opinion, regardless if that was the intent (or not) of the people they were accusing of racism in the first place.

It is hypocrisy of the highest order and I take great pleasure in slapping people down when they engage in such verbal flatulence.

 

[Hermiod]

I don't buy the no sexually aggressive black man thing because we have Worf - the guy who slaps his women around and they like it and slap him back! Can't get more sexually aggressive than that.

Geordi, more than being a stereotypical black man, was a stereotypical engineer. That's why he had trouble with women. And, it seems like he got over it as time went on anyway.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Hermiod said:
I don't buy the no sexually aggressive black man thing because we have Worf - the guy who slaps his women around and they like it and slap him back! Can't get more sexually aggressive than that.

Geordi, more than being a stereotypical black man, was a stereotypical engineer. That's why he had trouble with women. And, it seems like he got over it as time went on anyway.

I hadn't thought of that, but you're right - he's a geek! Born and bred. Same awkward shyness that many of us have experienced in life. I am glad to see that he finally got Leah in the end. Shows a good character development, even though we didn't get to see it.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

137th Gebirg said:

Hermiod said:
The most ridiculous one I've ever read was the suggestion that Geordi was written as being a failure with women because the writers were racist and didn't want a sexually aggressive black man amongst the cast.

IIRC, it was Lavar Burton himself that made that statement several years ago during an interview, although I can't be absolutely certain that's where it came from.

I also remember in the early days of TNG, a female friend commenting on how both people of color in the show (Dorn & Burton) had some kind of permanent makeup and prosthetics and the others didn't as much - searching for a conspiracy once again where there was none. I was quick to point out Brent Spiner's android full face/hands makeup, as well as Marina Sirtis' Betazoid contact lenses, but to no avail, sadly.

I am convinced that people who blindly look for racism in knee-jerk reactions are something of a racist themselves. They ASSUME that others take into account negative stereotypes in such situations, when they themselves are acting upon the negative stereotypes to convey their opinion, regardless if that was the intent (or not) of the people they were accusing of racism in the first place.

It is hypocrisy of the highest order and I take great pleasure in slapping people down when they engage in such verbal flatulence.

There is a television studies book that critics Star Trek in almost this manner called Star Trek and History: Racing Toward A White Future (see: book review).

I've thumbed through it but haven't throughly read it because it's a theory-head critic and I usually don't take stock in theory heads. In my not so humble opinion, theory heads tend to look for things that the original author (s) may not have even intended.

 

[Hermiod]

^I sincerely hope that the author of that book never made one dollar out of it.

 

[Broccoli]

Therin of Andor said:

DrTaylor said:
Startrek.msn.com didn't even exist yet.

Maybe not, but Usenet, Fidonet and GEnie did.

And, right now, in the "mirror TBBS universe" (where mirror-TNG did introduce Leah Daystrom played by the same actress as Leah Brahms), Mirror-Hoshi_Mayweather started a thread on why Leah Daystrom was white when it was established that her ancestor, Richard, was black and why didn't they just give her a different last name?

Seriously, though. If she was Daystrom, even years after the episode aired, people who want to complain about it, would complain about it.

 

[Hermiod]

^Don't be ridiculous. In the mirror universe, Mirror-Hoshi_Mayweather is too busy taking over Earth.

In the end, the Leah Daystrom concept was dropped and the character renamed. It never made it to screen any more than Luke Starkiller or the Borg as an insectoid species did.

TNG gets it from both sides. One group of critics bashes it for being too PC and the other side bashes it for being racist. The fact is neither side is right. TNG presents a society that isn't PC, it's just different. It's not 20th century America with phasers and transporters. These are different, more enlightened (in some ways) people. The "Too PC" people don't like it because it presents a group of characters who, unlike the cynical critics, actually give a crap about things.

The "It's Racist" people are, quite frankly, just looking for trouble and finding it wherever they go. They remind me of Quark in "The Jem'Hadar" when he accuses Sisko of being prejudiced towards Ferengi because he hadn't considered the possibility of Jake marrying one.

 

[TheLonelySquire]

I couldn't stand the character. Like nails on a chalkboard. Doesn't matter if she's green.

 

[Hoshi_Mayweather]

Hermiod said:
^Don't be ridiculous. In the mirror universe, Mirror-Hoshi_Mayweather is too busy taking over Earth.

*ahem*

Now who says, the Hoshi_Mayweater in this universe isn't trying to take over the Earth?

*cracks whip*

 

[Hermiod]

I, for one, welcome our new whip-wielding, Star Trek loving overlord.

 

[Hoshi_Mayweather]

Hermiod said:
I, for one, welcome our new whip-wielding, Star Trek loving overlord.

A very wise individual...

 

[Photoman15]

I'm glad she wasn't Daystrom. Why would you want to have the extra baggage of a grandfather who went insane. Daystrom, at the end of THE ULTIMATE COMPUTER was a few isolinear chips short of a full deck.

 

[Unicron]

The FASA TNG Officer's Manual did contain a biography for a character named Simone Van Gelder, descended from Simon Van Gelder in "Dagger of the Mind." She looked incredibly like Beverly Crusher.

 

[Photoman15]

I was just re-reading this thread and i thought of something that I'm surprised no one else brought up.

Leah was married. Her husbands name couuld probably be Brahms and her maiden name Daystrom (if they wanted to do that, but I think as someone else said, everyone in Trek doesn't have to be descendants of previous Trek (well, except for Pulaski being McCoys' granddaughter or great-grand-daughter, you know, Joanna's kid (or grandkid)).

 

[RoJoHen]

^I was actually just about to bring that up. Good timing.

It's also possible that Leah's parents kept both of their last names, so maybe her actual name is Leah Brahms-Daystrom or something like that and she simply goes by Brahms.

 

[Guy Gardener]

So am I the only one whoever thought that Leah might just be one of Flint's more recent children from the last hundred years, that is if he stopped )&(*ing robots for five minutes?

On the race mater, considering they were paring a white woman romantically with a black man, I think the idea of caramel babies was at the forefront of Geordie's impetus.

 

[Fleet_Cpt_Garth]

I think i would agree with photomans opinion that it is probably a good thing she wasnt to the best of our knowledge a Daystrom, i mean, if one writer had caught on, we could have had a mad holo-engineer sowing all kinds of havoc, or later on, an enraged psyco-woman trying to kill Geordi for screwing around with 'her'(remember how protective Daystrom was of his M5 computer) engine designs, hmmm, on second thought, the psyco-woman thing sounds pretty interesting, Imagine Geordi's ackwardness with women after something like that



edited for lack of proofreading and to add a thought or two