![lizjamesbitch:
femmeforeverybody:
“One of the organizers came up to me and said that there was someone who wants to meet you; and he says that he’s you’re best, biggest fan and I’m thinking it’s a Trekkie! [laughs] and so I said certainly and I got up and turned around and maybe 10 or 15 feet coming towards me I see Dr. Martin Luther King and I remember thinking whoever that little fan is, he’s going to have to wait, because here’s Dr. King, who walks straight up to me with this big, magnificent smile on his face and says, “I’m the fan!” because I’m sort of looking around for someone else, and he says, “I am your best fan, I am your biggest fan!” and I… I was at a loss for words, and if you know me, I am never at a loss for words.
I just couldn’t say a thing and he began to tell me how important my role was, what an inspiration it was. And you have to understand we were in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, people were regularly being attacked by dogs, and marchers were being hosed on the television every night, real life things, and here I am in this futuristic thing on TV and he was so complimentary, he told me “I was so important and the way you have created this role,” and I am just looking at him and looking at him and I remember I just kept hoping he’d never stop talking. Because his voice is just… you know the voice. And I finally just start saying, thank you so much Dr. King and I am shaking his hand and still shaking from nervousness and I said thank you so much and I am really going to miss my co-stars.
And at this his face totally changed, and he said “What are you talking about?!” and so I told him I would be leaving the show, because; and that was as far as he let me go, and he said, “STOP! You cannot! You cannot leave this show! Do you not understand what you are doing?! You are the first non-stereotypical role in television! Of intelligence, and of a woman and a woman of color?! That you are playing a role that is not about your color! That this role could be played by anyone? This is not a black role. This is not a female role! A blue eyed blond or a pointed ear green person could take this role!” And I am looking at him and looking at him and buzzing, and he said, “Nichelle, for the first time, not only our little children and people can look on and see themselves, but people who don’t look like us, people who don’t look like us, from all over the world, for the first time, the first time on television, they can see us, as we should be!”
http://planetwaves.net/pagetwo/daily-astrology/martin-luther-king-mlk-uhura-nichelle-nichols/
Wow. I’d never heard this story before.
Never ever sick of reblogging this story.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/c0cf791b13499986ea6ad66b92efb193/tumblr_mkufsfprSc1s9wwkco1_500.jpg)
“One of the organizers came up to me and said that there was someone who wants to meet you; and he says that he’s you’re best, biggest fan and I’m thinking it’s a Trekkie! [laughs] and so I said certainly and I got up and turned around and maybe 10 or 15 feet coming towards me I see Dr. Martin Luther King and I remember thinking whoever that little fan is, he’s going to have to wait, because here’s Dr. King, who walks straight up to me with this big, magnificent smile on his face and says, “I’m the fan!” because I’m sort of looking around for someone else, and he says, “I am your best fan, I am your biggest fan!” and I… I was at a loss for words, and if you know me, I am never at a loss for words.
I just couldn’t say a thing and he began to tell me how important my role was, what an inspiration it was. And you have to understand we were in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, people were regularly being attacked by dogs, and marchers were being hosed on the television every night, real life things, and here I am in this futuristic thing on TV and he was so complimentary, he told me “I was so important and the way you have created this role,” and I am just looking at him and looking at him and I remember I just kept hoping he’d never stop talking. Because his voice is just… you know the voice. And I finally just start saying, thank you so much Dr. King and I am shaking his hand and still shaking from nervousness and I said thank you so much and I am really going to miss my co-stars.
And at this his face totally changed, and he said “What are you talking about?!” and so I told him I would be leaving the show, because; and that was as far as he let me go, and he said, “STOP! You cannot! You cannot leave this show! Do you not understand what you are doing?! You are the first non-stereotypical role in television! Of intelligence, and of a woman and a woman of color?! That you are playing a role that is not about your color! That this role could be played by anyone? This is not a black role. This is not a female role! A blue eyed blond or a pointed ear green person could take this role!” And I am looking at him and looking at him and buzzing, and he said, “Nichelle, for the first time, not only our little children and people can look on and see themselves, but people who don’t look like us, people who don’t look like us, from all over the world, for the first time, the first time on television, they can see us, as we should be!”
http://planetwaves.net/pagetwo/daily-astrology/martin-luther-king-mlk-uhura-nichelle-nichols/
Wow. I’d never heard this story before.
Never ever sick of reblogging this story.
(via stickmarionette)
Star Trek Into Darkness Berlin photocall
(via puckling)
This is a gif that should be in every Trekkie’s blog
That right there is my idol! She went in for a double ass slap and did is flawlessly
This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, and it just keeps getting better the longer I watch it.
Can she be President, please?
(via ladysaviours)
(via hellotailor)
Uhura being single in TOS was not empowering.
She was single because the male leads were all white and as a black woman she was less of a person than them, she was less of a person than a white woman, and the fact that this serendipitously ended up meaning that she didn’t have to spend all of her time mooning pathetically after dismissive men does not make that any more acceptable.
She got to sit in the back and rarely do anything and have her sexuality ignored not because they respected her so much as a colleague and a person, but because she was not a full, real human being and when you’re not a full, real human being the idea that actual people would ever desire you or romance you or love you is ridiculous. The idea that you might have any kind of sexuality at all, regardless of what it is, is irrelevant. You are invisible.
I could go further with this and elaborate on what Nichelle Nichols was put through by the network, the infamous plea from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for her to stay on the show despite mistreatment, or even her recent acknowledgment that they actually wanted to do Spock/Uhura in TOS but it was made impossible by the times. But that’s too much for this post and really the central point is the same as pretty much all discussions about race.
Namely, please consider the point of view from which you are approaching your analysis because experiences vary wildly and one size does not fit all.
Nyota Uhura is a black girl and there is no angle from which her actually being allowed to have consensual sexuality, being desired, and being loved (in addition to having her job and intellect, no less) is a fundamental downgrade from what she had before.
In TOS, her being there at all was a massive step forward. Her mere presence in STXI puts her on par with that, and that standard, as indicated earlier, is not one that is often met even now.
I’ve always found it really, really difficult to describe or articulate how this invisibility feels, how it affects you and the way that you view and experience media. I remember someone posted a one page article or somesuch wherein all of the actors in STXI had just one little soundbyte type quotation about their character and their feelings about the original version. John Cho’s was him noting that his reaction to Sulu was essentially: “OMG AN ASIAN GUY IS ON TV.”
The comments on that post were filled with people loling about how hilarious John Cho is, as if he were telling a fucking joke.
I don’t know John Cho and am more than a decade younger than him, but I do very well know the immediate, gut reaction of OMG [A BLACK GIRL] IS ON TV because I have spent my entire life having that reaction. It’s not an exaggeration or humorous aside, neither is it calculated or intentional or even entirely conscious. It is genuinely nothing but the authentic surprise and delight that comes on the occasion when I actually see someone like me in my entertainment media.
Yes, even in 2009 with a black president, it grabs my attention and sticks in my mind and I remember because it is made memorable by the overwhelming dearth that still exists.
OMG A BLACK GIRL! Gabrielle Union is guest starring on Life. OMG A BLACK GIRL! Dana Davis is playing the evil popular girl on 10 Things I Hate About You. OMG A BLACK GIRL! Rutina Wesley is doing what she can on the world’s weirdest and skankiest vampire show. OMG A BLACK GIRL! No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency exists.
OMG A BLACK GIRL! Zoe Saldana is a major character in a summer action sci-fi blockbuster. OMG A BLACK GIRL! She is ambitious and intelligent and clever without being a caricature. OMG A BLACK GIRL! She is not inexplicably denied any exploration of her sexuality by the narrative. OMG A BLACK GIRL! She is one half of the principle romance. OMG A BLACK GIRL! She is in love with and desired, romanced, and loved by one of the most iconic figures, not just in all of nerdom, but in all of popular culture.
OMG.
A black girl is fucking Spock.
Nyota Uhura is not a white girl. Her just being there is still worthy of a fuckton of notice. This, right here, is one of the biggest coups in media representation that I’ve seen in my entire lifetime.
— tumblr user glamaphonic in an excellent post you can read in full over here (via fictionaladyfeels)(via boldmatter)
So, shall we begin?
(via ladysaviours)
(via peridexis)
FS says: I deeply love this woman. She was badass.
“Uhura” comes from the Swahili word UHURU meaning “freedom”. Uhura was pretty much the first ever black main character on American television who was not a maid or a domestic servant in 1966. TV network NBC refused to let Nichelle Nichols be a regular, claiming Deep South affiliates would be angered, so Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry hired her as a “day worker,” but still included her in almost every episode. She actually made more money than any of the other actors through this workaround, and it was kept secret from the other actors, but it was still a humiliating second-class status. The network people made life hard for Nichols, constantly trying to pare down her screen time, purposefully dropping racist comments in her presence and even withholding her fan mail from her.This deplorable state of affairs led Nichols to make the decision to quit after the 1st season, but then she happened to meet the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. who pleaded with her to stick with the show because as a Black woman she was portraying the first non-stereotypical role on television.
Relevant to all my interests.
this is an Uhura and Nichelle Nichols appreciation blog. haters out the nearest airlock.
To add to Nichelle Nichols’ BAMF factor, she went on later to make ads for NASA encouraging women and PoCs to work for the space agency. Specifically, she was supposed to get them to be astronauts.
Quoth IMDb: “From the late 1970s until 1987, Nichelle Nichols was employed by NASA and was in charge of astronaut recruits and hopefuls. Most of the recruits that she launched were minority candidates of different races and/or ethnicities, as well as gender, like Guion Bluford (the first African American male astronaut), Sally Ride (the first American female astronaut), Judith A. Resnik (one of the original female astronauts recruited by NASA, who perished during the launch of the Challenger on January 28, 1986), and Ron McNair (another victim of the Challenger disaster). She lived in Houston, Texas during her years as a Johnson Space Center employee.”
(via afrogeekgoddess)
