The anti-woke among us rarely miss an opportunity to reveal themselves as anti-inclusive and anti-empathetic. Anti-wokeness and even anti-diversity sentiments are rising and seeping into the strangest places.
If you go just a millimeter down the rabbit hole of social media, there’s plenty of hate coming from all sides, but it’s easy to weaponize it when you can distill it into a one-word trigger: woke.
Social media means Facebook to an older guy like me. The granddaddy of social platforms is a place where people are more open to sharing their political views, and I am guilty as charged. With the exception of a handful of friends who are “on the other side,” I know I’m mostly speaking in an echo chamber. You won’t find the same level of bile on LinkedIn, but even there I’m beginning to see complaints about wokeness and use of pronouns that the anti-woke see in profiles and email signatures. I delete them, disconnect if we’re connected, and sometimes report them as offensive. (I don’t bother with Twitter, which is a cesspool of ping-pong anger of the kind where everyone attacks from both sides.)
But the most ridiculous of places where I find anti-wokeness is in online fan forums. Or one fan forum in particular, as it’s the only one I follow.
In addition to being an unabashed political poster on Facebook and an unabashed ally to the LGBTQ+ community, I am also an unabashed Star Trek fan. Always have been. I belong to a handful of Trekkie fan forums about TOS (the original show, for you newbies) and the newer ones: Discovery, Picard, and Strange New Worlds. Lately I have witnessed a rise in ridiculous posts claiming that certain Star Trek shows, episodes and plot points have become “too woke.”
These gripers must have been in suspended animation (like Khan) for the past 57 years. Star Trek, which began its run in 1966 featuring a multi-racial crew, is too woke? Star Trek, which showed the first interracial kiss on TV? Star Trek, which spent no small amount of time allegorizing the Vietnam War? Star Trek, which once had a black-and-white-faced race at war with another black-and-white-faced race simply because they were black-and-white-faced on the other side? I’m amazed these gripers are still watching the show because it doesn’t sound like they’re Starfleet material.
So let’s compare those supposedly groundbreaking moments from TOS with the complaints we Trekkers hear today. (You can be a Trekker or a Trekkie because we’re inclusive.) The vast majority of people in 2023 surely have no problem with a multi-racial cast, an interracial kiss on TV, or criticizing the Vietnam War. Times and norms have changed in 57 years, and being against such things in this day and age is frowned upon at best. Although tricorders were 10 times as thick as iPhones in TOS, a more important advance that Star Trek got right about the future is the increasing openness of our values.
Fast-forward to the new shows, and the complaints about the franchise becoming too woke are almost always code for being pro-LGBTQ+. (Supporting the LGBTQ+ community is often considered woke by the anti-woke just about everywhere.) In lockstep with America, Star Trek took its time (i.e., too long) recognizing the LGBTQ+ community, but The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine had a few groundbreaking episodes, and the new Sulu was revealed as gay in the movie Star Trek: Beyond (2016) as a hat-tip to the original Sulu, George Takei.
The new shows are out and proud. Discovery not only has a gay couple (played by the great actors and activists Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz) and a lesbian engineer played by the hilarious Tig Notaro, but it also introduced its first non-binary and trans characters in one of the most touching episodes of the franchise. (Discovery gets more criticism for being woke, precisely because it’s been the most LGBTQ-friendly show in the series.) In Picard, we learn that Jeri Ryan’s Seven of Nine is also revealed as gay, surely deflating many straight fanboys from her Voyager days.
Fast-forward to 57 years from now, and I suspect these attitudes toward the LGBTQ+ community will be frowned upon every bit as much as we frown upon those who would complain about multi-racial casts and interracial kisses today, and just as Governor Ron DeSantis’ “don’t say gay” policies should be viewed in the same light that we now view the segregationist policies of Governor George Wallace in the early 1960s, or so I hope.
Star Trek’s Prime Directive teaches us something here: we should not interfere with the natural evolution of a race. I think that extends to the natural evolution of people and societies. The anti-woke are telling us in their four-letter complaints that some people should not be recognized for who they are, that we should not use words that define who they are, that certain groups should not teach our children, that books that recognize them should be banned, and in so many words gay people are lesser. I can’t think of any attitudes that run more counter to our values, whether those are Judeo-Christian values, Star Trek values, or being-a-decent-person values. If you think other people are lesser, shouldn’t be taught about, and shouldn’t be recognized, you’re just not ready for the future.
Real Trek fans don’t want to associate with these haters. Whether you’re a Trekker or a Trekkie, we fans need to speak out, boldly, to counter this hate and support marginalized groups. The time for silence has passed. Perhaps we should edit Star Trek’s most famous line to “Live long, be who you are, and prosper.”
