Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is completely counter to the thesis in the article. For example: > Looking back from two decades later, Next Generation (1987–94), Deep Space Nine (1993–99), and Voyager (1995–2001) feel like a single continuous 1990’s moment, a moment that began in a renewed liberal optimism for multiculturalism and progress and the general advancement of humanity. Where is the SJWism and PC culture which saddles the latest ST…
I never really agreed with this tacit assumption everyone makes that ST was this super-progressive show. If you're really paying attention, and with the exception of DS-9, almost all of the heroes are white and educated (or their sidekicks) and all the villains are dark and barbaric. Seems straight up racist to me.
> yes, there was diversity on the bridge, but not that much of it, not really. Uhuru was a service worker and Worf was a punching bag; when the show made a black captain, was it a coincidence that the show also became “darker” and less optimistic, when its characters started to be “flawed” and “ambiguous”? Voyager had a female captain, but it marooned her to the farthest reaches of the galaxy (and the less said about the garbage politics of the reboot movies, the better). But the point is this: Star Trek has always wanted to be more progressive than it ever really managed to be, because it wanted its cake and also to eat it. The future was a human race that had perfected itself, but which also felt comfortable—for white men—because not so much had changed. We were still in charge.