by Edgar Miraculous Dyer
Consider that Star Trek's beautiful Lieutenant Uhura (played by actress Nichelle Nichols), one of the first African American women with a major role on an American television show, is positively ADORED by sci-fi fans. Furthermore, the television show, which spawned an immeasurably more successful movie franchise, is an American television and film genre institution.
Consider again that Star Trek's lovely African American actress Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura, is adored by sci-fi fans, and I am inclined to assume that, as long as she's serving the white captain - that's James T. Kirk (my favorite) - of the United Starship Enterprise, ..she will continue to be so adored. If you're having trouble imagining what would happen, if Lt. Uhura suddenly got her own starship to captain, ..just take a look at what happened to the universally panned After Earth.
Keep in mind that Will Smith sci-fi outing, After Earth and Star Trek are both fiction, so we can only imagine the animosity reserved for poor Nichelle Nichols, from an audience that turned on American cinema's black buddy, Will Smith! What we're talking about here is anti-black resentment in America. The expressed resentment or pushback, online and everywhere else is very real and always seems particularly acidic, when the target is an Afro-American woman.
Swept up in the anti-black media hatefest launched against Smith's film in its first week, even some African American critics and moviegoers alike, typically applauding Afro-representation in places we least expect to see it, ..couldn't resist taking a swing at After Earth for silly, inconsequential things we've seen in almost every space adventure film ever made.
Yes, some of the resentful parties here are other black people, and we can deal with that. The rest, coming from attitudes beyond our group, is not our problem. Maybe, the problem is the racists, whatever their race and ethnicity, who aren't feeling served, ..while feeling entitled to service by certain races or nationalities.
Stay on your starship, Uhura, ..where it's safe.
Edgar Miraculous (Mel) Dyer, Capicostia's publisher, without his fine, coyote-hatin' Goldiweiller, Kirby (now moved on to that big, coyote-hatin' hate group in the Sky) continues a somewhat bleaker, dogless existence in the Capitol Hill area of Washington, DC. He has been an active member of the Latino Culture Council of the Capitol Area (El Consejo de Cultura Latina – La Zona del Capitolio), the Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill and the Board of Directors for both Total Care Services, Inc. and YMCA Capital View.
Comments
Post a Comment