Ease of migration would no doubt result in significant minorities. Indeed, it might be the only thing that could. Without migration into racially pure enclaves of some sort, the population would probably become 100% mixed heritage and zero minorities soon enough, what with the massive advances in transportation evident in Trek.
Bear in mind that there is no such thing as "racially pure."
Except it doesn't happen by the 24th century yet - say, Ben Sisko is still a very dark shade of brown (although not quite the same shade as his dad), and marries a woman with only slightly lighter skin after having borne a son with a woman of his own color.
I think a dedication to multiculturalism and egalitarianism means recognizing both the right of individuals to marry and raise families with people from outside of their cultures, and the right of minority cultures to continue to exist in the forms that are meaningful to them.
Although it appears Sisko is a bit of a closet racist, or at least holosuite racist, carrying weird grudges across centuries, and perhaps narrowing his options that way.
Pure nonsense. Sisko isn't holding grudges or in any way racist. He is objecting to false narratives that distort history to make it seem as though racist oppression did not exist in the past. There's nothing wrong with that -- indeed, maintaining awareness of historical acts of brutality, oppression, or even outright genocide are vital tools in
preventing racism and racist oppression.
The worst thing you can accuse Sisko of in "Bada-Bing, Bada-Bang" is being unwilling to indulge in historical fantasy.
I don't remember off hand. Was Ardana legitimately a caste system or was it more like Jim Crow laws - democracy in name only or on paper but not in reality?
I got the impression that it was the latter -- liberal democracy in name but not in substance, with Kirk and company not realizing this.
That does raise the question of why the Federation would allow Ardana in if they hadn't done enough study of their society to know this. My theory is that the Federation Council and President were actually violating Federation law by admitting Ardana, perhaps doing so as a concession to the Ardanian power elite so that the UFP would have a territorial toe-hold to project power towards interstellar rivals from the Ardanian system. Kirk certainly seemed to be under the impression that the Federation civil service that would arrive on Ardana after his reports would be taking action to correct the Ardanian elite's oppressions against their workers.
Little bit of non-canonical speculation: The
Department of Temporal Investigations novel
Forgotten History features a reference to Federation President Lorne McLaren being newly elected in 2369 (shortly before "The Cloud Minders") partially on the basis of a mandate to "clean up" after the corruption of the Kenneth Wescott administration (the Federation President featured in the
Errand of Fury novels set before and immediately after "Errand of Mercy" from season one). Perhaps the Wescott administration decided it wanted the territorial beachhead Ardana's admission would give the Federation, and so pressured whatever parts of the Federation civil service or committees of the Federation Council are responsible for evaluating applicants for Membership into falsely certifying that Ardana complied with Federation law so they could puss its admission through the Council. That would fit the idea that the McLaren administration's narrative of Wescott being corrupt, and could have come to light after Kirk exposed conditions on Ardana, giving McLaren a reason to pressure Ardana to either reform or be expelled.
But how long is too long to hang on to that anger? 400 years from now should someone still be angered that the Romans oppressed his or her ancestors from over 2,000 years previous?
Well, the Romans' decision to expel the Jewish people from their ancestral homeland directly led to over 2,000 years of constant persecution and oppression which continues
to this day. The Europeans' decision to inflict massive-scaled chattel slavery on Africans for their New World colonies 400 years ago led to systems of brutality and oppression that continue
to this day (as victims of police brutality can attest). So I'd say the question is not, "How long do you stay mad?," it's, "Has the oppression stopped?"
In
Star Trek's 24th Century, it has. Sisko does not hate white people. He is proud of his heritage and views his culture and other cultures as equals. His anger in "Bada-Bing, Bada-Bang" is not some burning anger over contemporary suffering. There's no particular evidence the oppression of African Americans centuries in the past bothers him any more than the oppression of Frenchmen by invading Englishmen during the era of King Henry V bothers most French people on a day-to-day basis.
Again, Sisko is angry in "Bada-Bing, Bada-Bang" about a false historical narrative that denies the reality of human suffering. Kassidy's counter-argument is that it is universally understood to be historical fantasy, and that there is a role for fantasies about how histories could have been better. They're both legitimate points of view; the worst thing you can say about Sisko is that he is over-zealous in wanting to make sure that the historical reality of oppression is not distorted. But that's an understandable concern. If preserving the historical record of oppression were not an important step in fighting racist oppression, nobody would try to deny the Holocaust.
