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Tag: SciFi

Star Trek and the Civil Rights Movement

The year 1966 was a turbulent time in American history. The civil rights movement, which began in earnest in 1954, continued more than a decade later. U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War continued to escalate, as President Lyndon Johnson authorized additional troops, bringing the total from 180,000 to more than 250,000, as well as the bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong, prompting Martin Luther King, Jr., to begin speaking out against the war as well as racial injustice. In the midst of this, an ambitious science fiction television show premiered: Star Trek.

This Week in Geek (6/15-6/21)

On June 19, 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation, first issued in January 1863, was read in Texas, the most remote of the U.S. states that had rebelled in the American Civil War. The date, which has come to be known as Juneteenth, Freedom Day, and other names, is celebrated as the end of slavery in the United States, and a day to honor the contributions of African Americans to the nation’s history.

This week, Geek Unified Theory will be sharing several stories to do just that. On #TrekTuesday, we will post a story about Star Trek and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. For Comic Book Wednesday, we will discuss the history of black superheroes. Thursday Game Night will feature a story about African Americans in the game industry, and SFF Friday will showcase African American science fiction and fantasy writers.

The Bloody Road to Star Trek’s Future

The future of the human race in Star Trek is a bright one. Humanity had struggled with war, disease, and hunger, but had “pretty much wiped ‘em out,” by the mid-twenty-second century, as Charles “Trip” Tucker bragged in the first episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. But, as the theme song to the series made clear, “it’s been a long road, getting from there to here.” The path to the bright future of Star Trek’s Earth was a dark and bloody one.

Minneapolis and the Bell Riots

In the wake of George Floyd’s death and the unrest that has followed, many have taken to the Internet to compare recent events with the Bell Riots from Star Trek, and others have questioned whether the comparison is apt, or even appropriate.

In the two-part episode “Past Tense” from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s third season, a transporter accident sent Commander Sisko, Lieutenant Dax, and Doctor Bashir back in time to San Francisco in the year 2024. Sisko and Bashir were immediately taken into custody and placed into a Sanctuary District, while Dax was taken in by a wealthy media executive. The fact that Sisko was a black man, and Bashir middle eastern, whereas Dax was an apparently white woman (her spots notwithstanding, which were quickly dismissed as tattoos), was not lost on most viewers when discussing their treatment.

Let your geek flag fly on Geek Pride Day

Monday, May 25 marks the 14th annual Geek Pride Day, which was officially begun in Spain in 2006. Taking inspiration from geek pride festivals in the United States that dated back to the late 1990s, Geek Pride Day celebrations quickly spread worldwide. The day is also Towel Day, which honors the anniversary of the death of author Douglas Adams; the anniversary of the release of Star Wars in 1977; and in the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett, it is the anniversary of the Glorious Revolution of the Twenty-Fifth of May.