UPDATED 2:12 PM PT with more groups and media involved.
Feels like I’ve crossed over two or three alternate universes since the last time we visited here. Even as, yes, I’ve been on mic and camera more than ever— and now YouTube and Twitch, too (subscribe and follow!).
But know this, today: #BlackLivesMatter.* As a Star Trek fan, I hope that hardly needs saying here. And yet it does.
So here’s #TrekkiesTogether — and I’m proud to stand Portal 47 and everything Trekland behind this alliance of podcasts and newssites that truly reflects what Star Trek and its community are about. Born amid the civil rights era, with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as a farsighted fan… the DNA of the entire franchise across five decades is about fighting for justice— and what the Vulcans called “infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” IDIC.
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, of course, famously said:
“Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms.”
And now we have the awareness to know in this moment that George Floyd‘s murder, the national/global reaction to it, and the pushback—after all the other murders caught on camera— is a crossroads we cannot and must not ignore.
In fact, the embedded and often invisible structures of systemic racism are so insidious. It’s a cancer far bigger than, say, a one-hour Star Trek allegory. It would barely even fit in a modern, whole-season streaming arc on Picard.
So— let’s do this in real Trek life.
The teams at reddit/startrek and trekmovie.com reached out to form this alliance within Trek this week, to help front-line groups supporting those in need and those backing change— racially, legally, personally, broadly.
It only makes it more awesome that they (not me!) came up with the obviously Trekkish $47 suggested donation.
And kudos to official startrek.com for being loud and proud about the message, too— and fearlessly marshaling the licensed video to do it! (When you’ve got Gabriel Bell and Benny Russell on your side, it’s easy.)
So, I’m urging you to join me and do what you can in this #TrekkiesTogether moment (the full joint statement here).
There are SO MANY of these hardworking, overworked groups fighting now for a brighter Trek tomorrow.
But I’m going to suggest two groups who are working to reform on a SYSTEMIC level— and if you have the means:
—Donate to the hallowed and ever-ready ACLU. For all the reasons — protecting minority rights, victims, and fighting those in power who would cover up the truth and even assault the press about events as well as policies — it’s the American Civil Liberties Union. Many of the #TrekkiesTogether entities you know are doing the same there.
—Donate to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Don’t be fooled by the scope of that name: Since 1971 the SPLC has worked to ID and expose hate groups all over the country, of all kinds. The very kind of hate groups who are trying to hijack protests and sabotage any drive for real justice for real peace.
Kudos to everyone else whose names you trust as leaders in current Trekworld — the rest as podcasts, news sites and colleagues like RPN’s Mission Log Live, Women At Warp, Daily Star Trek News, Priority One… plus Trek News, TrekCore and Memory Alpha. And now the great Marc Altman with Inglorious Treksperts and celebs Mary Chieffo and the man George Takei. So far.
And maybe more by now.
Racial justice, police reform, press protection, IDIC — let’s make it so. Share and hash it, too!
Kudos to SyFyWire ‘s Brian Silliman, and to Ryan Britt on Inverse, for spreading the word.
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*Oh—and if #BlackLivesMatter still strikes you as a negative or subtractive phrase to make all others “less than” … let my little friend here (that I’ve never met) spell it out.
This does it all:
