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Inspiring story. Thanks for sharing it.
@RickiTarr@beige.party I seem to recall hearing about how MLK, Jr. visited the set of Star Trek right about the time Nichelle Nichols was seriously considering leaving the show and Dr. King basically told her something to the effect that Lt. Uhura was basically the most important character on TV right now. Hearing that story moved me.
In Nichols words this is what MLK said to her when she told him she was quitting Star Trek:
"You cannot, you cannot... For the first time on television, we will be seen as we should be seen every day—as intelligent, quality, beautiful people who can sing, dance, and go to space… who are professors, lawyers… If you leave, that door can be closed..."
Mae Jemison, the first black woman astronaut was inspired by her. Nichols worked with NASA to recruit Sally Ride and others.
@rayotron @mike30030 @RickiTarr I really love how Star Trek has always been about lifting people up, not just in fantasy, but in real life, too.
@rayotron @mike30030 @RickiTarr Whoopi Goldberg was inspired by Nichelle too. That's why she joined Star Trek TNG even though she had a ton of awards for the movies she was in already.
I'm fessing up to that.
@RickiTarr Here's the source so it's easier to read (and with bonus context - a similar story!) https://www.tumblr.com/spiders-hth-is-an-outlier/180353253277/thegaymccoy-representation-matters-happy
@RickiTarr
Wow, this really puts my story of getting someone to call their Jewish mother to shame. If I were Brooks, I'd go home and feel that my existence had been justified
@RickiTarr
And people will look at you and dead serious say "It's just a TV show/ movie, book, etc.".
I hate how much pop culture gets painted as only something for distracting yourself from the "really important things" and such.
@RickiTarr Their relationship is such a great part of the show. Ben doesn't always get things right first time - because no parent ever does. But he's always trying his very best.
@RickiTarr what a story, and I love to see the DS9 adoration. So many people crap all over it and it is possibly my favorite Trek series.
@RickiTarr I used to think it was very weird that Sisko constantly kissed his son in the series. 30 years later and two great kids on, I think it makes perfect sense.
As a dad, who recently lost my dad, and with a son, I'm definitely tearing up. This is why representation freaking matters.
@RickiTarr i am, and so are you.
@RickiTarr @AnneTheWriter1 The power of storytelling
@RickiTarr the love between Sisko and Jake is one of the most pure and beautiful things in any drama I’ve ever seen. The unselfconscious physical affection was something novel, an undiscovered possibility, I managed to absorb as a young dad.
Which is why I spent about two days crying after seeing this.
@RickiTarr Brooks performance in the episode when lived a week as sci-fi writer in the 50s brought me a little closer to understanding what it would be like to live in a society with a caste system undermining me. When Sisko had an outburst of understandable anger at racism at the end of the episode, even his colleagues saw it differently because of his appearance. Brooks made it seem so real. I love #DS9.
same with his 'outburst' on the holodeck casino heist.
@RickiTarr thanks for sharing. As a white male dude, I never really thought about representation, almost everbody on screen my whole life looked kinda like me, so there was no Need. BUT this gave me thinking...and I now better understand the whole point. I still dont care much about gender, skin color or disabilities on screen, but when in doubt, let the so long ignored ppl play...(Hopefully this makes sense, english is Not my mother tongue)
@RickiTarr Y'know DS9 is the only Trek series I actually care about, so I gotta set time aside to actually watch it.
@RickiTarr
I've been saying it's the best Star Trek since it aired. Vindication!
Also, also! Sisko is the best captain because he was the worst. The rest were morally-pure custodians of enlightenment, educating the races with weird foreheads. Sisko started with prejudices about the Farengi, then questioned them, and learned real lessons from them. He tackled nasty questions about war and genocide.
@malin @RickiTarr I'm not sure I'd call any of the captains morally pure. Kirk was judgemental and prone to solving things with violence, Janeway was an authoritarian despot with a coffee addiction, and Picard... wasn't good with children? Okay, yeah, Picard may have been a bit too perfect.
I'd say the big difference between the other starship captains and Sisko is that his character begins as a damaged person who's placed in a very tenuous position and develops from there. It's a lot easier to be the high-minded diplomat when it's from a comfy chair in the ready room of one of the best-equipped ships in the fleet than it is from a clapped-out Cardassian space hulk full of people who want to worship you, manipulate you, or murder you depending on the exact political situation that morning.
@Vordus @RickiTarr
We know Kirk's violent, but at the time, he was cowboys in space, being a real man, doing what he knew was right.
Sisko didn't know if he should send his partner to prison, or let his son be an idiot, or kill that diplomat. Still, he's forced to choose, and then to smile diplomatically at Dukat.
@RickiTarr People often forget that the fictional is always grounded in the real, and the two are intertwined in more ways than most of us would find comfortable.
Our heroes give us strength when it seems nobody else can.