Star Trek was originally a show to address racism and not just science fiction! It might take a reminder from a baby-boomer to realize what it meant for a black woman, Russian, Japanese, Scottish characters to all share the same bridge in close quarters in 1968! Then we can't forget all of the aliens, strange encounters with other cultures, etc...
Leonard Nimoy's Advice to a Biracial Girl in 1968
31–40 of 42 posts
Re: Leonard Nimoy's Advice to a Biracial Girl in 1968
#32The fact that he wrote this in 1968 is really amazing. How many people in 1968 would not have felt compelled to respond to the girl in a compassionate way?
Do you seriously think people in 1968 were different to people today?
People have always been people, they are and always have been intrinsically nice to others at a personal level. Most people then and now would have responded in a compassionate way.
It's in groups and at higher levels they can be more uncaring.
Re: Leonard Nimoy's Advice to a Biracial Girl in 1968
#33Am I alone in finding the irony in... Be IN start a fad ...the ad next to the article?
I'm not sure what your downvotes are for. While it doesn't lessen the value of the Nimoy article, I also found the juxtaposition a bit ironic.
Re: Leonard Nimoy's Advice to a Biracial Girl in 1968
#34This is amazing. Especially in a time that wasn't so obsessed with social-media and celebrity. Why was there no black bar again?
It's weird that you deride celebrity culture with 'obsessed', then immediately ask for a celebrity-acknowledgement device.
No, not really. To call it that would be disrespectful to Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie.
Re: Leonard Nimoy's Advice to a Biracial Girl in 1968
#35This is amazing. Especially in a time that wasn't so obsessed with social-media and celebrity. Why was there no black bar again?
"wasn't so obsessed with ... celebrity"? Quoting from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossip_magazine : > This genre of magazine flourished in North America in the 1950s and early 1960s. The title Confidential alone boasted a monthly circulation in excess of ten million, and it had many competitors, with names like Whisper, Dare, Suppressed, The Lowdown, Hush-Hush, and Uncensored. These magazines included more lurid and…
Things are different now. 24-hour news cycle, realtime reporting of celebrity activities, celebrity images managed by a team of experts...
Re: Leonard Nimoy's Advice to a Biracial Girl in 1968
#36The fact that he wrote this in 1968 is really amazing. How many people in 1968 would not have felt compelled to respond to the girl in a compassionate way?
If you want something to really blow your mind, in my state, just 1 year prior to this article, it was illegal for white and black people to get married and have sex. She would have literally been the product of an illegal act.
That's a pretty fucked up burden to grow up with and only hints at the kind of twisted cultural thinking that would vote such a law into existence.
Re: Leonard Nimoy's Advice to a Biracial Girl in 1968
#37Re: Leonard Nimoy's Advice to a Biracial Girl in 1968
#38Star Trek was originally a show to address racism and not just science fiction! It might take a reminder from a baby-boomer to realize what it meant for a black woman, Russian, Japanese, Scottish characters to all share the same bridge in close quarters in 1968! Then we can't forget all of the aliens, strange encounters with other cultures, etc...
A lot of science fiction had that goal as well - through looking into the future they often held a lens up to the present.
Re: Leonard Nimoy's Advice to a Biracial Girl in 1968
#39The fact that he wrote this in 1968 is really amazing. How many people in 1968 would not have felt compelled to respond to the girl in a compassionate way?
Do you seriously think people in 1968 were different to people today? People have always been people, they are and always have been intrinsically nice to others at a personal level. Most people then and now would have responded in a compassionate way. It's in groups and at higher levels they can be more uncaring.
Not necessarily. The unpopular point of view is that some are just prejudiced, regardless of the group that surrounds them.
Re: Leonard Nimoy's Advice to a Biracial Girl in 1968
#40Interesting that "Spock" uses a lot of emotional language -- "prejudice", "lonely", "happiness", "frightening", "feel best about himself" -- contrary to the popular conception of Vulcans as an emotionless, logic-above-all race. Certainly, modern conceptions of Vulcans are a lot more nuanced e.g. they are privately strongly emotional or otherwise have to strongly suppress their emotions. See for example Star Trek (200…
Actually, the fact that young Spock was an outcast was already established by the early '70's thanks to the animated series’ episode “Yesteryear”, written by D. C. Fontana. For the most part, this was only episode of that series that was considered canon until ST: Enterprise incorporated more of that series into official lore.
It was actually established in 1967 in "Journey to Babel", when his mother said "When you were five years old and came home stiff-lipped, anguished, because the other boys tormented you saying that you weren't really Vulcan. I watched you, knowing that inside that the human part of you was crying and I cried, too."