"Star Trek Beyond" was recently released, and a new television series of "Star Trek" will be released on CBS in 2017. I have watched the entire original series and all of the reboot movies. As a nerd, I love the franchise for its sci-fi elements and in-depth story universe. Beyond the traditional sci-fi tropes, I especially love the original series of "Star Trek" because of its fascinating themes about race relations and unity.
Gene Roddenberry produced "Star Trek" in 1960, a time of great racial strife and tension in U.S. history. The series depicted humans from all racial backgrounds in contact with sapient species from different planets. The original series was about the adventures of the crew of the starship Enterprise. It was led by Captain James Kirk, a native Iowan. Dr. McCoy was the ship’s medical officer and hailed from the Southern US. Montgomery Scott from Scotland served as the chief engineer. Pavel Chekov from Russia was the ship’s navigator. The helmsman Sulu was born to Japanese parents in San Francisco. The communications officer Uhura was also born in the U.S. and was of Swahili descent.
Roddenberry went through great lengths to create a multicultural cast because he wanted "Star Trek" to represent the future. "Star Trek" is obviously set in the future because of the highly sophisticated technology that allows time travel and faster than light travels. Roddenberry also wanted to depict the future through culture, and Roddenberry believed human culture in the future would be open and tolerant. The members of the Enterprise acted with zero racial animosity toward each other unlike the people of the 60s and to an extent even today.
"Star Trek" does offer racial commentary not through the human characters but instead through the various humanoid species across space. While the crew encountered dozens of species on their travels, the most prominent one was the Vulcans.
Vulcans were especially important to the series. One of the show’s most famous characters, Spock, hailed from this species. Vulcans were very human like but had pointed ears and arched eyebrows. They were physiologically stronger than humans and were known for their embrace of logic. Spock was not actually a pure Vulcan. His father was Vulcan, and his mother was human. His biracial identity was very relevant to his character. He would often hide the human half of his heritage and embrace the Vulcan side. His conflict with biracial identity was essentially the larger conflict of race relations within one person. Spock also became an icon for people with mixed heritage. In 1968, Spock’s actor, Leonard Nimoy, wrote a touching response to a biracial girl asking for advice on how to deal with the social pressures of the time. She lamented that many people avoided her, and no one wanted to be her friend because her parents were from two different races. You can read it here.
The original series also featured the first interracial kiss to be broadcast on live television between Captain Kirk and Uhura. It was controversial at the time, and it almost did not make it on air. If you watched the original series now, it would not be bold or shocking to us. The progressive themes of the show are taken somewhat for granted today. Once you consider the prejudice of the era, "Star Trek’s" statement on race had boldly gone where no one had gone before.
