this post and in particular the really excellent descriptor “thoughtful explorations of cultural differences that have the general tenor of 19th century anthropologists in their armchairs” is basically how i feel about voyager’s lineage in terms of it being a story that’s trying to show a character dealing with her internalized racism yet still manages to be extremely weird about race. the whole episode just reeks of one drop rule type thinking in a way that’s painful to watch if you have any understanding of the real world history of race and how klingons have historically been heavily coded as both black and east asian. the way they wrote klingon genetic traits as being so heavily dominant over human genetic traits is weird and bad and the way everyone talks about b’elanna’s 3/4 human child as if she’s fully klingon is also weird and bad. it’s yet another entry in the long list of examples of trek writers (and not just in voyager, but over the whole franchise) wanting to say something thought-provoking about race but in doing so they end up just being racist in a different way
Wow, I had no idea the writers were trying to explore a character's internalized racism. I thought B'Elanna was written as "constantly apologizing for not being a white woman" because that's the only way they'll let a brown woman be a regular character on the show.
