Some people did act sexist and racist as the case might be (and I would say of the two, Palin got more discrimination on the basis of non performance-related issues than Obama did). However, I also think we have to be VERY careful not to conflate genuine dislike of a person or their policies with a racial or gender-based attitude.
For instance, I have a major problem in substance with things Obama has said and done, and I felt that he had an inadequate resume to the job. That does not make me a racist. I also think that Palin was not the best candidate for the job of vice president; however, I made my decision on substantive grounds (while she had a better resume than Obama, I felt her debate performance was subpar and based more on certain staged sound bites than substance--something that doesn't look good on any gender and that I felt was a flaw of Obama's as well). This does not make me sexist. If a woman or a person of color is the best person for the job, if I approve of their platform, then they'll have my vote over the other candidate any day...just like I give Sisko the "best captain" vote. It's simple: he has the superior job performance and decision-making capacity and if he were my commanding officer, I could trust him. I would follow him into battle, which I would not with the other commanders. Nothing else needs to be considered. Present me the resume and the skills, and you get my vote. That's it.
As to stating it's a significant problem, I said so because as you have revealed, you extrapolated two real-life incidents onto the fictional characters without providing evidence of a similar chain of attacks against them. With Palin especially, and to a lesser extent with Obama, specific comments and evidence can be produced to show that some people regarded them in a manner that was inappropriate.
ON THE FLIP SIDE--anger on political and philosophical grounds has been falsely conflated with racial attacks in some cases. This is what I do not want to see happen, and what I did fear COULD happen because of the immediate leap to "it must be because Sisko's black and Kira's a woman."
With the fictional character of Sisko, I have not seen similar evidence of attacks based on his race, or on Kira based on her gender. It's very instructive to notice that while Janeway gets criticized for her command style--and badly--Kira does not. Quite simply, Kira is the superior commander and people recognize this. Where is your evidence that any dislike for Sisko or Kira is race/gender based?
