Giantrobo

If you had answered like that I woulda bought 10 cruises.

matta

You have been reported to yourself.

Giantrobo

Jadzia

Are you serious?

What was racist, repeating what a black person said to me?

Nick Martin

Perhaps constantly making the distinction. black person this, black person that. That must be what matta is referring to.

tasha99

That would have been awesome because I was a horrible salesperson. (I should have said Garak rather than Odo, though. So many great characters . . . I think I should rewatch DS9 soon.)

Jadzia

Oh, I guess I could see that, but I honestly meant no offense. I just thought it was a funny story, related to Giantrobo's joke that some of the Trek names sounded like black names. I only mentioned my friend's race because if I hadn't then her comment would have sounded racist taken out of context. If a white person called something "ghetto" that would have sounded much worse. I just thought it was funny to hear her perspective because I never would have thought that about the name Jadzia.

Man, this really makes me long for the future Star Trek universe when all this kind of stuff is no longer an issue.

Giantrobo

Don't take it seriously. I'm pretty sure matta was joking and I didn't see it as racist at all.

Jadzia darling... you're letting your "White guilt" get the best of you.

Jadzia

I would have normally thought it was just a joke, too, except he did report it. I just wanted to make sure everything was ok here, because I was scratching my head at how it could have been taken wrong. I would certainly hate to offend anyone, but sometimes it is hard to discern tone and what you type might be read completely different than what you meant.

Kind of funny that a thread about Alien races on Star Trek derailed into discussing race.

Ok back to those forehead ridges...

BJacks

I'm bridging the topics

Giantrobo

"Ridged for her pleasure"

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

matta

The problem is that you insinuate that the name "Jadzia" is "ghetto" because a "little black girl" has that name. The term "ghetto" is a racial slur, particularly when it is being used to describe general african americans.

Morf

No she doesn't. Re-read what you quoted above. A black person claimed "Jadzia" sounded "ghetto".

If ghetto is now considered a racial slur, that's fucking stupid.

Nick Martin

Think about it though - Star Trek is perhaps the MOST racist of programs out there, only the racism is species-based:

Klingons and Romulans hate each other.

Klingons and Cardassians hate each other.

Bajorans and Cardassians hate each other.

Changelings hate anyone 'solid'.

Humans dislike (not to the extreme of hatred) and distrust Ferengi.

Most races think of Ferengi as bottom-of-the-barrel.

And so on, and so on.

In every case, they mock each other's values, customs, religion, physical appearance, everything.

To relate this to contemporary terms of this world, that would be like humans hating all birds or something like that - prejudiced against other species, or to the lesser extreme of Chinese hating Italian, Australian hating Canadian or something in those terms.

So Trek in all its forms is rife with racism.

davidoflondon

Unfortunately despite its claims to the contrary the racism in Star Trek ran even deeper than you suggest. Armin Shimmerman pointed this out, at length, at a convention I was at a few years ago.

This about the alien races we see:

Ferengi: All want money

Klingons: All want honour and glory

and so on ..

For every alien race we meet its pretty much an accepted Star Trek fact that every other member will behave the same. Its only when main characters, Worf, Quark etc. are introduced from given races that we ever see any depth.

Suppose, for example, an alien race met a communist from Stalin's Russia, or a Nazi from Hitler's Germany, or a modern day Brit etc. just how realistic is it to judge an entire race by one person.

Mr. Mott is the Bolian bartender in TNG and one trading card series says we know from Mr. Mott that all Bolians are ... From one person we know everything about an entire race!!

Jadzia

I understand what you are saying, but when my friend said the term "ghetto" that was her way of saying it sounded like an ethnically African-American name. Here in Detroit, that is commonly-heard slang for saying something seems "black". I probably should not have even repeated her terminology- as I previously said, "ghetto" does seem racist coming from a white person. I just thought her words summed it up better.

The funny part of the story was that I did not believe her that it sounded like a "black" name and only later did I happen to see a Jadzia in real life, who turned out to be black. I should have known better.

The school district I went to was around 40-50% black, and unusual names were common among the black students. I remember when I was in sixth grade, there was even a little girl in kindergarten named Atari. (This was in 1983 -- I have always wondered where she is now.) Oh yeah, and the name of this school district? Romulus. I don't remember any Star Trek names growing up though, but this was pre-TNG.

Damfino

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Andorians. Prior to Enterprise, we knew very little about them, but they were the primary reason the last year of Enterprise was the best season. On Enterprise their appearance was altered slightly with more realistic make up and animated antennae.

General Zod

Good point



I picture their kids to look like Yob..

Giantrobo

Dude, stop it! You're sucking all the fun out of the thread.