Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.

irresistible-revolution:

“If we had changed the people’s clothes, this story could be about right now. What’s insidious about racism is that it is unconscious. Even among these very bright and enlightened characters – a group that includes a woman writer who has to use a man’s name to get her work published, and who is married to a brown man with a British accent in 1953 – it’s perfectly reasonable to coexist with someone like Pabst. It’s in the culture, it’s the way people think. So that was the approach we took. I never talked about racism. I just showed how these intelligent people think, and it all came out of them… it was about racism, well maybe so, maybe not [….] But the fact of the matter in ‘Far Beyond the Stars’ is that you have a man who essentially was conceiving of something far beyond what people around him had ever imagined, and therefore they thought he was crazy.”

avery brooks, on “far beyond the stars”

section-69:

“I don’t have any trouble being physical with my children. That’s a part of my nature, as opposed to something they wrote about Sisko and Jake. The first day I met Cirroc, I hugged him. And I hug him every time I see him” - Avery Brooks

savory-breakfasts:

obstinatecondolement:

background-alien:

you know what I’m thankful for? the scene in “badda bing, badda bang” in which ben explains that he’s uncomfortable with the vic fontaine program because it presents a sanitized vision of the past that cleanly glosses over the fact that people of color wouldn’t be welcome in an opulent vegas casino in 1962. and then kasidy replies with her thoughts on the importance of reclaiming fantasy, allowing fiction to be more inclusive than historical fact because acting out how things should have been can provide a kind of catharsis. i love that both of their arguments are equally valid responses to media like the vic program. they’re both responses that anyone from a marginalized community can genuinely relate to when it comes to discussing media representation (factual accuracy versus wishful fantasy? retroactive representation versus representation in new media that gives the spotlight to people who haven’t been allowed to be illuminated before?)

it’s yet another example of ds9 not hiding discussions of major social issues behind layers of metaphor. ds9’s constant refrain is “yes, these issues are real and distinct, they happened in the past of this show which is your present dear viewer, and people who are affected by them will still speak and think about them even in a futuristic utopia because they’re a vital part of their identities and it’s important not to forget”

I feel like it’s important to underline how much DS9’s handling of social issues in this respect can be credited directly to Avery Brooks and his input. Without Avery, DS9 would have been a dramatically different show.

So much respect for Avery Brooks.