What is the rather careful point in calling Bashir British instead of English? Bringing in the token egalitarianism in TOS is pretty irrelevant to DS9.
Sisko's racial rant in Badda-Bing Badda-Bang
- Thread starter John200
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No, I don't see why he would necessarilly see his skin colour as having any meaning in his self-identification. Why should looking in a mirror make him say "I have brown skin- and this is significant"? First of all, in his society it doesn't mean anything. If there's no distinction between white, black, green, whatever, why would one see that as a mark of self-identification? Second, even were that not the case, you might be surprised how often people do not self-identify in obvious, even biological ways. To bring up my boy/young man issue again, I've found very few young men or boys actually see theimselves on those terms. No, they're Christians, Jews, Muslims, Americans, Italians, Irish, black, white, etc- but they never actually identify with "young men" despite this historically being far, far more relevant to their treatment and society's views of them than any of the labels they do apply. And if that's the case, do you honestly think that in a future where there was supposedly no form of differentiation on genetics, sex, race, whatever, it might not be even more likely that they might not self-identify in that manner?
There is no reason to assume Sisko would ever identify as "black"- indeed, I never saw him do so in memory until this episode. Given the Benny Russell experience, it sort of makes some sense, but it's still a surprise.
There is no 24th century; the show isn't produced there and is obviously intended to be watched by contemporary audiences. Race is an issue now; race is a relevant issue to be addressed at least occasionally by a show that takes itself as seriously as Star Trek.
Over time Trek has handled race pretty badly - on the one hand pretending that the characters are all color blind and on the other assigning broad emotional and intellectual tendencies to characters entirely on the basis of their race (that term being preferred in the Franchise to refer to alien beings rather than "species").
Over time Trek has handled race pretty badly - on the one hand pretending that the characters are all color blind and on the other assigning broad emotional and intellectual tendencies to characters entirely on the basis of their race (that term being preferred in the Franchise to refer to alien beings rather than "species").
Oh, I shouldn't think so!
When Bashir explains what happened to the cast, they take it very seriously. They all resolve to help Vic--especially Nog, for obvious reasons.
They certainly cared for Vic. The fact that they were having fun helping him does not take away from that.
But Sisko doesn't know that. At that point Sisko never met a hologram that could simulate sentience, he never met Vic, he never bothered running the program, he just thinks that Vic is like all the other brainless holograms he has met. Remember, this was a time when EMH Mk1s were used as slave labour in dilithium mines, very few people were aware that holograms could be people too.
There's still a certain amount of racism here aimed at the English, there's a piece of graffiti that's a ten minute walk away from where I live saying "BRITS OUT". It also comes up in subtle ways during conversations, and in some circles it comes up blatantly during conversations. That doesn't stop me from having English friends, and I'm sure it wouldn't prevent most Irish people, but I'd say there are some people for whom it would be an issue.
My location is a closely guarded secret. 
Okay, fine, I live in Limerick. The graffiti is on a wall in the Garryowen housing estate, near the dog track, and I assume it is referring to Northern Ireland. While I was growing up it used to have graffiti saying "UP THE IRA" and "NO EXTRADITION", but around 5 years ago the city council had the wall painted. About a year later the new graffiti appeared.
I completely forgot it was there when I walked past it one day on the way to the cathedral with that English girlfriend I mentioned up-thread. She got freaked out by it, spent the rest of the day worried over it and told me that she didn't think she'd ever fit in over here. When she went back to England she decided she was going to stay and be a teacher and never came back to Ireland. Although, in fairness, that probably had more to do with me being an asshole.
Okay, fine, I live in Limerick. The graffiti is on a wall in the Garryowen housing estate, near the dog track, and I assume it is referring to Northern Ireland. While I was growing up it used to have graffiti saying "UP THE IRA" and "NO EXTRADITION", but around 5 years ago the city council had the wall painted. About a year later the new graffiti appeared.
I completely forgot it was there when I walked past it one day on the way to the cathedral with that English girlfriend I mentioned up-thread. She got freaked out by it, spent the rest of the day worried over it and told me that she didn't think she'd ever fit in over here. When she went back to England she decided she was going to stay and be a teacher and never came back to Ireland. Although, in fairness, that probably had more to do with me being an asshole.
RobertScorpio
Pariah
I do too. People seem to forget, and need to be reminded, that DEEP SPACE NINE is a TV SHOW, and that it is not real. When he said that line, my cousin, who was ten years old at the time, asked me what he meant; I explained 1962 America to her (we are Americans by the way). So, any "unreal" show, especially one like DS9 that is so far removed from reality, that gets people to pause it and talk about 'real life' is, in my opinion, doing the right thing.
How many times did Kirk/Spock bring up our political issues on their show? Many times...So, I have no problem with Sisko doing this at all; it IS star trek at it's best. Maybe its because he's a black guy doing it and not some white guy or a dude with green skin and pointed ears.
Rob
My location is a closely guarded secret.
Okay, fine, I live in Limerick. The graffiti is on a wall in the Garryowen housing estate, near the dog track, and I assume it is referring to Northern Ireland. While I was growing up it used to have graffiti saying "UP THE IRA" and "NO EXTRADITION", but around 5 years ago the city council had the wall painted. About a year later the new graffiti appeared.
I completely forgot it was there when I walked past it one day on the way to the cathedral with that English girlfriend I mentioned up-thread. She got freaked out by it, spent the rest of the day worried over it and told me that she didn't think she'd ever fit in over here. When she went back to England she decided she was going to stay and be a teacher and never came back to Ireland. Although, in fairness, that probably had more to do with me being an asshole.
I stand in awe of your refreshing honesty. I too have been an asshole on occasion and am now able to admit it. A great burden has been lifted.
To avoid precisely the hair-splitting you engaged in further uphtread. One could argue all you want about it not being an English concern, but it's pretty blatantly a British concern.
I'd hope not, and this was referenced actually in the DS9 Companion.
The liberal agenda again. Star Trek at least claims to give a damn about this kind of thing.
Yeah, it's a secret decoder ring.
But no, it's just a behind the scenes book, with commentary by cast and crew on all the episodes of the show's run. Pretty good read for a Niner, actually.
I have a mental block about anything that doesn't appear on the TV or large screen, when it comes to scifi. Fantasy I'm okay with, since I've read everything Terry Pratchett wrote and grew up on Tolkein and Mervyn Peake. I just can't bring myself to even try to read scifi. For me it's a video medium or nothing.
Well, there is a difference between me admitting that I'm an asshole and actively trying to stop myself from being one. I've reached the first stage, I'm not quite sure I'm ready for the second one.
Withers
Captain
If no one in Star Trek identified themselves by use of external characteristics I'd go along with your point. But that is absolutely not the case. How many times does Dax refer to her spots? How many times are the wrinkles on Bajoran noses brought up? Even the lack of forehead ridges on 23rd century Klingons gets brought up once. We even hear a Starfleet Officer call a Cardassian a Spoonhead. Sisko has a fondness of history (or at least some passing interest in it), personal experience with said history (through time travel) and a mirror so that he wouldn't identify at all as a black man seems kind of silly. It isn't a problem when the fictional races talk about their race and its plight but the minute a black man does it its calamity from the skies.
(That's three Final Fantasy references in one thread- Can anybody tell I'm really excited for the next game?)
-Withers-
nuBSG, for instance, seemed not to care about race. However, religious and planetary differences were huge. I think they made a deliberate decision to have that stand in entirely for racial differences.
That's the way I saw it as well.
Actually, he should know through O'Brien. O'Brien has extensive experience with AIs--Data, Lore, Pup, Moriarty, and the intelligence birthed by the Enterprise. Pup and the Enterprise progeny were more animal-like in sentience...but he definitely saw what happened when Moriarty was created. He knows that Moriarty had sufficient ability to challenge Data and had become self-aware. He would've been able to recognize Vic as being on par with Data in terms of ability to know himself and form his own desires. Vic, of course, is more steeped in his environment at this point than Data, but O'Brien should be able to recognize him as way beyond the standard EMH that isn't pushed to grow his programming.
Again, I think that it is the staff's duty to report the presence of a sentient AI on DS9's computer to the station's commander for security purposes. While Vic, unlike Pup, is benevolent in character, this is most definitely information that they would need to know given Vic's ability to activate and deactivate himself, to intrude on other people's programs at will, and access information from the station. So to my mind, there is no reason Sisko shouldn't have known...even without personally experiencing Vic's, his chief engineer most definitely has the expertise to recognize what is going on and convey that to him.
Time for the obligatory moment of immaturity here...
To an American that has potential to read as a very weird statement. Without "WITH" in the sentence, it's easy to look at that and think it looks like an unfinished sentence...and ask the question, "up the IRA's what?"
They were taking it "seriously" in the same sense that they were taking the baseball game against the Vulcan crew "seriously".
They were treating it like a game they wanted to win, but still just a game.
By continually mimicking the storytelling patterns and cliches laid down in 1964-1969, and by treating stories as opportunities for self-conscious symbolism and allegory.
