To clarify, the reason he was never allowed to direct an episode is because he never went through any director's training, not even the streamlined version that was created specifically to work around an actor's schedule for the actors who were interested in becoming directors which every other Trek actor turned director partook in.
Yes, he actually blamed Berman of racism for that reason in interviews and at conventions until Robert Duncan McNeil stepped forward and revealed it was Garrett Wang's less than professional work ethic as an actor and his refusal to do the director training which were the reasons why he didn't ever direct an episode.
Though even if RDM hadn't said anything, the racism accusation falls apart completely when you factor in that among Voyager's actors who became directors was Tim Russ. And in the other Berman era shows there was LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Avery Brooks and Alexander Siddig. And that's before you factor in the numerous non-white directors the Trek shows in general had in the 90s, even Voyager.
Definitely with you on that one. In fact, I think that particular picture garnered some negative attention for that very reason (cool picture, but, yeah, should never have been portrait-oriented). Not 100% sure, but I think that was the last one to do that. They also had weird calendar grid start and stop days early on, which made them useless as actual calendars. They eventually fixed that one too.
