& for all the people who didnt know, star trek already has a very rocky past with trying to portray native american characters
chakotay from voyager was an attempt to try and create an inspiring and ground breaking character for native american people the way uhura was for black people (like the way whoopi goldberg cites her existence on the show as a huge influence on her), but because of the situation it Really didnt work out
in their effort to write a good native character they got a native american on as a consultant which is a great idea! the only problem is the man (jack marks, his fake name he used being ‘jamake highwater’) they hired was later exposed for racefaking and building an entire career on his fake native identity and publishing books and documentaries and working on other things, like star trek.
marks became a massive name for native american stuff but at the same time there were many native americans who said they doubted his ancestry since his works were painfully stereotypical and insincere. he received well over $800k from federal grants put aside for native american people and took dominance in the media as a Native American Expert On Native American Identity, while pushing out work putting natives as weak caricatures and stereotypes.
marks was the consultant for making chakotay be a good native american representative, and so chakotays character ended up stereotyping native americans and being contradictory in itself. while i before would say “well, they tried and they just had bad luck that they chose someone who ended up being fake,” i just now in looking at it see that they hired marks well after his racefaking was exposed and marks himself admitted to it - the exposé was published in 1984, marks stopped claiming to be cherokee but continued to profit off of his established ‘indian presence’ and later said he pretended to be cherokee to get into the writing industry, and marks submitted his notes for chakotays character backstory in 1993… nearly a decade after being exposed.
where uhura inspired black women like whoopi goldberg to become actresses, chakotay is a confusing mess that reinforces age-old stereotypes about native americans and keeps native media rep locked into caricatures of ndn identity. while it is good there was a main cast native character and there were definitely good aspects to his character and writing, the ridiculousness of his native american identity has gained a lot of criticism from actual native americans. the poor writing and decisions dont even hurt too much, its that we (native americans) were robbed of the chance for a powerful, inspiring, and main cast member on an incredible scifi series by a fraudulent racefaker and a production crew that hired him on either without doing a background check or without caring that he was exposed for it.
so star trek has already failed harshly in their attempt to make a diverse starfleet, particularly in the case of native american characters, so im not surprised by this questionable production decision and i would invite the fans defending it or not seeing the issue with it to educate themselves. star trek has had amazing diversity and powerful messages, and thats honestly why chakotay and the decision of hiring jack marks as the consultant hurts so much.
star trek has done amazing things but there will still be mistakes and places where they fail to write as diverse as they aimed and its messages of understanding and progress are what should inspire us as the audience to see those mistakes, acknowledge them, and work for better writing and representation in the future and not allowing these mistakes to fall through the cracks or even be defended as “good diversity” when they are clearly not.
tl;dr chakotay was written badly and partly as a racist stereotype through what is at best ignorance and at worst purposeful apathy on the star trek production side when they hired an exposed racefaker who got native american federal grant money based on his fake identity. star trek doesnt have perfect diversity, especially wrt natives, and its important to be knowleadgable and critical of this when we discuss native american characters, themes, and identity in regard to the series.
if you would like to do research on this situation, feel free to google ‘jamake highwater’, read chakotays wikipedia page, and follow the citation links to more in depth content.
