Nyota Is Not a Mixed Girl Either - Amended

Here's a more detailed reason why writing Nyota as mixed character doesn't enhance her relationship with Spock.  If anything, it detracts from the powerful notion of a hybrid being dealing with parents from two different planets, rather than mere skintones.  For one, he is a complex biological anomaly, from both copper and iron-based bloodlines (which is supposed to be impossible) while a biracial human is not (how many nappy-headed mixed kids did you see today?).  Two, his being mixed and dealing with humans from an alien perspective allows for the writers to provide commentary on all humanity (just as they did through Data, and Worf, and Tuvok, and the Doctor and Phlox, and [unfortunately] T'Pol) while a biracial human in any century does not (i.e., a person who's black-and-white mixed can't help a writer effectively give commentary on, say, Asians or Latinos).

Reason Four: when writing Spuhura fic, white people (and don't worry, most of you get it right), Spock is the "Other."  Their relationship is controversial, interesting, scintillating, and an overall excellent plot point because SPOCK is the "Other", and for once, not the black woman he's tapping.  Remember, Trek is mostly written from a human perspective (we've yet to have an alien regularly starring as a captain).  So the humans who see Spock and Uhura together can immediately understand what he sees in her, but not what she sees in him.  One writer on fanfiction.net captured it perfectly when she described the irritation a group of human males (all white, by the way) felt when seeing Uhura having drinks with a Vulcan.  The men didn't like the thought of some alien "stealing" their women.  Not once were they thinking, "What's that black chick doing with the pointy-eared white guy?" because the writer immediately grasped that it would be contradictory to 23rd-century* thinking.

I could go on some more, but I'm now becoming redundant.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Sorry for the original error!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, someone sent me this email (will not say who) but I've decided to answer it here.  I'm doing this because 1) I need to make something abundantly (however redundantly) clear and 2) because I'm hoping not to get any more emails like this ever again.

"...Zoe Saldana is a black woman of Indian/Irish/Lebanese descent. In terms of your discussion, she's lighter skinned than a lot of the people in the neighborhood where I live (West End in Atlanta), has a Western name, and is from a Western country, and, yes, she's playing an African woman, and there are a variety of skintones in Africa, but, honestly, before I read the rest I didn't know if you were arguing for or against Saldana's Uhura. From reading the rest and elsewhere in the comments I think we're both on the same page that Saldana is a black actress who identifies with and participates in black American culture and that the fact that she's a black actress is non-negotiable, regardless of her diverse ancestory, because a full participant in the diaspora doesn't dictate that all your ancestors were African."

Firstly, I'm neither arguing for nor against Saldana as Uhura; I wasn't thinking of her when I wrote my initial post (I didn't even mention her). Saldana portrayed Uhura, but she ISN'T Uhura--let's make that distinction now. Speaking in terms of strictly "Uhura"--and unfortunately having to repeat myself--Uhura is black. Her being simply black is a necessity to Star Trek, not just in the 60s, but as we are seeing here, today as well. Bringing up Saldana's mixed heritage in response to this topic is like trying to put out a fire with napalm; though the sender of this email supposedly agrees with portraying her as black only, they're still subconsciously entertaining alternate possibilities as to her ancestry--which is precisely what's causing the outrage.  This is what I meant when I talked about liking a black character as is.

"Where my questions really lay is that I don't think in terms of canon (Roddenberry's white male canon, mind) that it matters if she's mixed or not, and that the writers writing her as mixed are doing it for offensive reasons, but at the same time in terms of the canon /irregardless/ of whether she has white, Arab, Japanese, or Pacific Islander ancestors she's an African woman. As you said "Other thing: in the ST 'verse, race is supposedly not a problem. In our 'verse, yeah sure...it'll be a problem. Either way, fanfic writers need to keep up." I think that goes way beyond whether or not she has black parents."

Uh, Universe Regulations 36.23something-something, "A human being cannot have their cake and eat it too."  Allow me to elaborate:

This is where both realistic demographic trends and Star Trek fiction actually mesh--in the 23rd century (which isn't that far away, btw), we're not all going to be mixed; plenty of humans will still be of one race.  The evitable race mixing that will occur, however, is not going to happen the way fans of a "Mixed Nyota" think its going to happen.  Sociologists predict it'll actually be the other way around: whites are already a minority globally, whites are expected to a be an American minority within the next 50 years or so, and children of color currently outnumber white children nationwide.

Now follow these demographic trends over a course of an additional two centuries both in the real world and in the Trek world.  The bridge crew of the Enterprise looks a lot different now, doesn't it?

If you're wondering where I'm going with this, it's simple: only Nyota's race has been an issue for white Trek fans, and this only happened once she locked lips with Spock.  No one else on the Enterprise is seriously, rigorously being racially analyzed--not McCoy, Scotty, Kirk, Chekov, or Spock.  Not even Sulu--thank God (or should I wait 'til the writers hook him up with Chapel or something?)  Only Nyota gets the scrutinizing racial attention.

See, people of color got over her blackness the moment we first saw her in the 20th century.  Now in the 21st century, when we're supposed to be more accepting, young fans are rewriting her completely, effectively defeating Roddenberry's initial message of racial tolerance and understanding.  How sad is it that an older white man in the Sixties with limited access to racial information, history, and analyses manage to better characterize people of color than young white people in 2009 who have access to friggin' Wikipedia?  Are we going backwards now?

You can't have your cake and eat it too.  You can't have it both ways.  If you want to even briefly consider the notion that she's mixed in some way, you'd have to entertain that notion for EVERYBODY.

Chekov
Russia and China share a border.  Race mixing isn't unexpected in that area for now, so two hundred years from now, it's likely Chekov could at least be partially Chinese.

Kirk and McCoy
As stated earlier, whites in America are expected to be a minority in fifty years and children of color currently outnumber white children.  Continue with that trend for the next two hundred years.  What would they look like?  With the growing number of Hispanics in America, and black-and-white mixed children, I'm certain they'd look vastly different from how they do now.

Sulu
His last name isn't Japanese, as he was named after a sea and written to represent all of Asia.  That's why Korean-American John Cho was allowed to portray a character originated by Japanese-American George Takei.  Naturally, his Asian ancestors will no doubt be quite varied.

Spock
Yup.  I said it.  It needed to be said.  The pointy-eared hottie himself is not exempt.  The Vulcans were originally based off the Asians, and their culture was inspired by Asian philosophy (note the composer's use of the Chinese erhu in the score when the scenes deal with Spock and Sarek).  So if a young Sarek came to Earth and found himself illogically desirous of human women, then the most logical course of action would be to marry a woman whose countenance and culture most closely resembled his own, in order to make life easier for his son on Vulcan.

Nyota
Oh, yes--I said it!  I'm African; my family is originally from Cameroon, and I have Arabic blood from my mother's side.  This combination is not that uncommon.  The trend has been going on for centuries, so what's two more?  If Nyota were to be mixed, her non-African genes would most likely come from Arabia or India.

My point?  If you're going to play the Mixed Game, and dare to cite reality as your source, then at least do the proper research  and play that game with everybody.  Because out of the seven major Trek characters only one is black--we accepted that 40 years ago.  For decades we've also accepted other inaccurate racial portrayals of humanity's future, whether it was Battlestar Galactica or Alien or whatever.  So for white fans who aren't satisfied with five white main characters out of seven, so much that they'd even suggest the only black main character must be half-white, we who love Uhura as is (no matter who we are) find this beyond offensive.

Lastly: hair is not a definite indicator of race.  Saldana wore long straight hair in the film--that doesn't mean anything, so don't get excited and rewrite history because her hairstylist made a really bad call (it's cute, but not very practical during battles).