Sisko (DS9-R spoilers)

[TheAlmanac]

Certainly, Sisko has always, even before his experiences in the past, been a character in touch with his cultural roots. We can see it in the foods he likes to cook, his collection of West African masks, etc. My problem is not that Sisko finds fantasies like Vic's distasteful for what they conceal about the historical reality--I perfectly well sympathize with that attitude--but with the fact that the dialogue seemed to imply (to me, anyway) that the concept of race had persisted even into the 24th century.

The historical awareness you mention is how I was able to accept Sisko's line, which I initially found jarring as well.

Having a father who instilled a love of traditional cooking in him and can quote the Bible probably helped (I always thought that the Sisko family's preference for Old Testament names was also a reflection of that sense of the past); Sisko is not only unusually aware, but also sympathetic to those historical realities. I imagine the reason for his vision of life as Benny Russell took that particular form is because it would speak to him in a way it wouldn't speak to someone else (like Kasidy, for example, who wasn't bothered by Vic's the way he was).

I suppose, to me, that the litmus test would be whether race still serves as criteria for these future communities, or whether individuals of any given ethnic background could claim appartenance to a cultural milieu, without a biological factor, merely because it is the culture they prefer. I think we can see that to a certain extent even today, although individuals who might prefer a culture other than the one they were born into still face a lot of prejudice (with epithets like 'poseur', 'coconut', etc.; and it doesn't even have to be racial: even I sometimes get flak from my more fanatically francophone extended family for being far more engaged in anglophone culture).

It seems like Star Trek characters are free to "borrow" bits and pieces of each other's cultures while still maintaining distinct cultural identities, so I tend to think of Sisko's perspective as being the same as Chekov's ability to be culturally Russian, or Picard's ability to be French, without affecting their perception of themselves as humans.

As you said, that tension can still come up at any point where a dividing line has been drawn...

 

[KRAD]

Why Uhura made such an impact? Because before her, there were very little roles for blacks outside of being servants or buffoons. Though Uhura perhaps said and did little, she was prominently on the bridge, she did her important job well, and she a was respected officer. This was something that was very unusual compared to a lot of the other depictions of blacks, especially black women, during that time on TV and film.

It doesn't get anywhere near the press, but the role of Sulu had a like impact in the Asian-American community.

It's easy to forget this from the distance of 40 years, but keep in mind that, when Star Trek was on the air, the news was filled with stories and images involving civil unrest and violence centered around people who looked like Uhura, a cold war being fought against people who sounded like Chekov, and an actual war being fought against people who looked like Sulu. And here was Star Trek showing the three of them working alongside a bunch of white folks and nobody commented on it or thought it unusual. That was incredibly radical in 1966, and also incredibly risky. It was also brilliant, precisely because it didn't bring attention to itself; it just was. And that made it even better.

That was Gene Roddenberry's vision, more than anything else: that the world was full of people of all types, not just white guys, and we were only going to pull together if we were united as a people rather than divided by arbitrary labels. (Remember, his original concept also had a female second in command.) Before his "vision" got bogged down in utopian nonsense, Roddenberry mainly showed us that the world didn't need to be divisive, that we could put aside our differences and unite.

 

[Sean Aaron]

I imagine the reason for his vision of life as Benny Russell took that particular form is because it would speak to him in a way it wouldn't speak to someone else (like Kasidy, for example, who wasn't bothered by Vic's the way he was).

Didn't that episode come after Far Beyond the Stars? I think so; it's why the line never bothered me. I just assumed Sisko's perceptions were altered by direct exposure to the prejudices of the past. Also whether or not the concept of "race" is scientifically based (it has no viable basis in science) has little to do with whether or not human beings in the 24th century might have cultural affiliations outside of identifying as human. I think Chekhov had a lot of pride in his Russian background which we might even call jingoistic; I don't see people having an issue with that, so why would Sisko referring to other black folk as "our people" be a problem for anyone?