irresistible-revolution:

been thinking more about race and disability wrt to julian bashir, but also wrt benjamin sisko, a character i almost never see discussed as neurodivergent, and how this framework offers some interesting (to me at least) insights into both characters. as many disabled and neurodivergent people of color have consistently stressed, race and disability/ableism are co-constituted. european race science in the late 1800s and early 190s freely used race as the language of disability - specifically intellectual inferiority - and vice versa; disability also became the language of race, meaning those whose brains and bodies were thought to be irrevocably different than those of european aristocratic men were automatically deemed intellectually and physically inferior (let’s also think about how siddig as julian was required to wear shoulder padding because his natural thinness wasn’t considered masculine enough)

throughout DS9, sisko’s role as emissary sets him apart from his fellow humanoids not only spiritually, but neurologically. his connection to the wormhole aliens, or prophets, manifests in his brain, and he’s hospitalized with difficult side-effects multiple times. many starfleet higher-ups are openly uncomfortable with sisko’s ability to communicate with the aliens - they’re uncomfortable, in other words, with his neurodivergence. sisko is often put in positions where he has to choose between making decisions based on his connection to the prophets, and making decisions based on starfleet-approved neurotypicality. and this neurodivergence is also very much about temporality and the prophets’ non-linear approach to time (anne mclintock uses the term “panoptical time” to describe how colonial europe understood all human history as progressing in a singular line towards white european modernity)

then you have julian bashir, who was genetically augmented at a young age so his brain could work faster. but more importantly, he was augmented so his brain could work according to what standardized education of the time deems normal (the show talks about how young julian, or jules, was “slower” than other kids his age, failing to meet certain pre-determined benchmarks) and, many times throughout the show, by virtue of being the station doctor, it’s julian who’s in charge of “treating” sisko’s neurodivergence. in “far beyond the stars,” an episode that seems to completely forget that julian is also a man of color, sisko’s alter ego is institutionalized and deemed mentally ill for daring to write about a future where black people are free. “it’s real,” sisko insists, while all the white people (and julian) look on in pained fear. essentially, in this moment, a mind that dares to envision liberatory black futures is not only criminalized but pathologized. to imagine black freedom is to be mentally ill. in a white supremacist society, to think and write about black freedom is to be considered neurodivergent.

perhaps, then, julian’s complex and painful relationship to race is just as much about skin color or nationality as it’s about the fact that he’s been “fixed” into white normativity by his augmentations. his brain has been engineered to work the way (euro) scientific standards of efficiency demand, so much so that he’s a doctor, a scientist, a role that, historically, from an european standpoint (and trek’s approach to science is almost completely rooted in western bio-medical epistemes) was the standard for human intelligence against which lesser races were defined. from this perspective, it’s key that jules was considered too “slow,” too out of sync, essentially, with “paonoptical time.” what might jules’ neurodivergence have allowed him to see and do, that the augmentations potentially snipped away? would he have been an artist or musician? would he have had visions? would he have been an empath? would he have been a scientist who challenged starfleet norms and protocol? 

i want to be careful here and say that i’m not suggesting an easy binary between artistic vs neurotypical, or that julian bashir as he appears in canon lacks the capacity for kindness and empathy. rather i’m interested in thinking about what neurodivergence looks like when we consider the racial history of disability and layer that onto how both sisko’s and julian’s neurodivergence mark them both as insiders and outsiders within starfleet (sisko’s role as emisssary is useful until it goes against military protocol, julian’s intelligence is an asset until it’s revealed he came by it “illegally”) and as both insiders/outsiders racially. they’re both black men in the future, but sisko’s neurodivergence firmly locates him oustide european traditions of intelligence and logic, while julian’s tethers him to those logics. there’s a lot more to unpack here but, i just think positioning sisko as also neurodivergent opens up a lot of uncharted ground for thinking through his and julian’s connection to each other and to blackness, and to thinking through race and disability and neurodivergence in futuristic media.