I've seen versions of this story numerous times over the years. For those who aren't familiar with it who who don't want to watch the video (and I sympathize with that), Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek's Lt. Uhura, tired of her very limited role and decided to resign after the first season. She preferred the stage, and had lined up a role in a play that was going to Broadway. Gene Roddenberry, the producer, asked her to think it over for a few days. That weekend, Nichols was introduced to Martin Luther King Jr., who proclaimed himself and his family big fans, and that his daughters loved the show and her character. Nichols told him she intended to quit, and King urged her not to, that it was vitally important for his daughters and other black girls to see that there could be black women in space. So she changed her mind, and says she never regretted it.
It's very moving, and it speaks well for Dr. King that he recognized the importance of black women in media. Other black leaders would have supported Nichols's decision, since it would mean a black man could get the job in her place, and anyway, a Black Queen should be at home having babies. I give King credit for his openness.
But on viewing this clip right now, something else occurred to me: everyone, including King, Nichols and Roddenberry, plainly assumed that there was only one black actress in the universe, and that if she left, she'd have to be replaced with a white performer. Or a guy in an alien suit. A Trekker friend of mine declared that Nichols was irreplaceable. In one sense that may be true. For fifty-odd years there has been only one Uhura, so of course I can't imagine who might have taken the comms seat on the Enterprise either. But suppose she'd left after all, and Roddenberry had found another young black actress who ultimately became as much an icon as Nichols has. We might now be saying how irreplaceable that actress was, and how fortunate that Nichelle Nichols had moved on to become a goddess of the Broadway musical instead.
A friend of mine, a graduate student in sociology in the 1970s, posted on her dorm room door this meme: Sexual equality is not when a female Einstein gets a beaker-washing job in the lab; sexual equality is when a female schlemiel gets promoted as fast as a male schlemiel. Many people objected when I quoted it favorably: why should a schlemiel of either sex be promoted at all? I don't know, but male schlemiels do get promoted, and view it as their birthright. If a woman gets promoted, they complain that men are being punished for past inequities.
It has been a long since since I watched ST:TOC. The Enterprise had a large crew, and many uncredited people strode purposefully through its corridors in every episode. How many of them weren't white? I don't remember; maybe I should check out the DVDs. It's important that there were people of color with regular speaking parts in the series, but in a truly open future society, they wouldn't be the only people of color on the ship. I'm aware of the resistance Roddenberry faced from the industry in going even as far as he did, so I'm not blaming him personally: what I'm talking about here is that popular meme "systemic racism," which gets talked about but not always understood. After all, it took me years to recognize the problem in this particular case myself.
