I enjoyed the brief series Firefly as much as I've enjoyed over the years Star Trek: TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT (there, I think that's all the abbreviations).
Gina Torres (Zoe Warren-Washburne, coincidentally married to Lawrence Fishburne), Nichelle Nichols (Nyota Uhura, literally "freedom star"), LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Worf); Avery Brooks (Benjamin Sisko), Felicia M. Bell (Jennifer Sisko), Brock Peters (Joseph Sisko), Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko); Tim Russ (Tuvok), Anthony Montgomery (Travis Mayweather, AKA "Boomer"): they are the offspring of Dr. King's encouragement to Ms. Nichols to not quit after the first season of TOS.
Gina Torres (Zoe Warren-Washburne, coincidentally married to Lawrence Fishburne), Nichelle Nichols (Nyota Uhura, literally "freedom star"), LeVar Burton (Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Worf); Avery Brooks (Benjamin Sisko), Felicia M. Bell (Jennifer Sisko), Brock Peters (Joseph Sisko), Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko); Tim Russ (Tuvok), Anthony Montgomery (Travis Mayweather, AKA "Boomer"): they are the offspring of Dr. King's encouragement to Ms. Nichols to not quit after the first season of TOS.
Yet, despite this, and the astronomical odds of going from amateur to professional athlete, we've apotheosized athletic accomplishment over academic accomplishment; physical prowess in subjective games with the one goal of winning for ONE team over physics and STEM, with very objective, obtainable and worthwhile goals for the individual, and our nation.
This was a link posted in an online forum I participate in on black science fiction:
It’s Black History Month and a great time for The Internets to remember that black people exist, and apparently, it sucks to be us.
First I read a piece in xojane about the racism hurled toward black cosplayer Chaka Cumberbatch. Then Comic Alliance published a piece on the dearth of black writers in the comic book industry. I’m sure there will be more articles just like this in the next 22 days.
I’m a second generation Trek fan, a life long Star Wars fan and sporadic Marvel fangirl. I know the Fellowship of the Ring by heart. I self-identified as a geek long before I self-identified as a metalhead – but I honestly never really thought I was much of an anomaly until going to a mostly white college. You see, many of the kids I hung out with in my middle-class, black neighborhood in Chicago were (and are) geeks, obsessing over Star Wars lore, reading Spiderman and X-Men comics, trading Transformers, watching Aliens on HBO.
There are tons of us: black, geek, proud – and generally invisible in portrayals of mainstream geek culture. And let’s face it, geek culture is mainstream.
Her article makes the astute observation in the following sad, simple formula:
"Geek" culture = white; "Urban" culture = black (in general).
"The Big Bang Theory" had Neil deGrasse Tyson in a brief cameo, but with the exception of an Indian scientist played by Kunal Nayyar (Dr. Rajesh Koothrappali) that fell in love with Siri, the cast is as diverse as "Cheers," "Friends" or "Seinfeld."
Advertising is simply information about a product or service - where/how to purchase it and what price; marketing is informing our minds how-to-think, or how we should think to drive the sales to said products and services.
Marketing has data that drives its decisions. Thus, an appearance by Dr. Tyson, as [his somewhat] ubiquitous presence has been in popularizing science to American culture is seen as a brief deviation from "the model." The model is the marketing plan that drives viewers to television stations and web sites, eventually to "point-and-click" = sales.
It is why things are so neatly packaged, socially "quantized" - and how we explicitly go along with it. An African American young woman that wants to write gaming code, a young man that wants to study science rather than hang out in the streets is labeled "white girl/boy" (I should know), and this sadly sometimes comes from their own immediate families. It is why Lil Wayne and Future can publish a controversial song about Emmett Till, further proving that for the untimely deaths of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, the current two modern day minstrels would be flipping burgers at McDonald's, or sharing a cell.
"Geek" culture = chemistry sets, Lego's, museum trips, science documentaries, Sylvan tutoring, scholarships, telescopes; leading to science or engineering positions, management, entrepreneurship, vice president, CEO, Nobel Laureate. These guys couldn't "make" the team, they now expense $200,000 box seats and/or OWN the team!
"Urban" culture = 5 Star basketball camps, football camps, hip hop/pop culture, memorizing rap, sagging (minstrel) britches, weed smoking, "thug life" glorification, leading to in the RAREST of cases, Russell Simmons or Jay-Z. The majority become the poor, or brick and mortar for the prison-industrial-complex.
"When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary." Carter G. Woodson, "The MIS-Education of the Negro"
It is simply, a matter of marketing...
Advertising is simply information about a product or service - where/how to purchase it and what price; marketing is informing our minds how-to-think, or how we should think to drive the sales to said products and services.
Marketing has data that drives its decisions. Thus, an appearance by Dr. Tyson, as [his somewhat] ubiquitous presence has been in popularizing science to American culture is seen as a brief deviation from "the model." The model is the marketing plan that drives viewers to television stations and web sites, eventually to "point-and-click" = sales.
It is why things are so neatly packaged, socially "quantized" - and how we explicitly go along with it. An African American young woman that wants to write gaming code, a young man that wants to study science rather than hang out in the streets is labeled "white girl/boy" (I should know), and this sadly sometimes comes from their own immediate families. It is why Lil Wayne and Future can publish a controversial song about Emmett Till, further proving that for the untimely deaths of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, the current two modern day minstrels would be flipping burgers at McDonald's, or sharing a cell.
"Geek" culture = chemistry sets, Lego's, museum trips, science documentaries, Sylvan tutoring, scholarships, telescopes; leading to science or engineering positions, management, entrepreneurship, vice president, CEO, Nobel Laureate. These guys couldn't "make" the team, they now expense $200,000 box seats and/or OWN the team!
"Urban" culture = 5 Star basketball camps, football camps, hip hop/pop culture, memorizing rap, sagging (minstrel) britches, weed smoking, "thug life" glorification, leading to in the RAREST of cases, Russell Simmons or Jay-Z. The majority become the poor, or brick and mortar for the prison-industrial-complex.
"When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary." Carter G. Woodson, "The MIS-Education of the Negro"
It is simply, a matter of marketing...
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