disease-danger-darkness-silence:
I was born in 1984.
My first Star Trek was Star Trek: The Next Generation. I used to watch it with my father every night; at the time my mom was working swing shift at AT&T and so we would watch TNG together (in San Antonio, they would play, in sequence, the previous seasons, from 9 – 10 p.m., and then on whichever day the new one aired, they’d play the newest one instead) and then drive to AT&T to pick my mom up from work when her shift was over at 10:30 p.m.
I didn’t actually watch the original series until probably 1994, when TNG ended its run. I had watched all of the movies, of course, but the original three seasons, I’d only ever seen snippets of. Dad got them all on VHS at one point and we watched them together. Star Trek was our thing (twenty years later, I would torrent the entire series plus all of the movies and put them on an external hard drive for him to watch using his blu-ray player. He gave me the gift of Trek, and I gave it back to him).
I, of course, didn’t realize at the time that I was incorporating the worldviews presented in TNG into my own. I was like six. I had no idea that media informs.
I’m going to directly rip from a post I recently made on tumblr, about fanfiction, but still true nonetheless:
Every year at the convention I help run, I do a panel called Fanfiction 101. In it, I discuss things like how to keep going, that awkward middle part, how to find a beta-reader, what you should want and need out of a beta, how to get exposure for your fic, etc. But I also explain the core concept behind the phrase “Media informs.”
The basic gist is that when you are consuming media for learning purposes – reading a textbook, watching the news, etc. – your brain has a bullshit filter up. It’s looking to separate fact from fiction. It’s looking for the lies. You may become informed by this kind of media at a conscious level, but probably not at a subconscious one.
However, when you consume media for entertainment purposes (such as movies, TV shows, books, and yes – fanfiction) that bullshit filter kind of goes to the wayside. You’re not trying to learn, you’re trying to have fun! Unfortunately, this means you are also assimilating information subconsciously into your worldview. This is how things like racism, sexism, violence toward women and black people, homophobia, and transphobia are kept alive: not just through shitty parents teaching their kids shitty beliefs, but because we see these things reflected at us daily. If it’s just one instance, sure, you can dismiss it, because it’s one thing. It’s when it becomes repetitive – a trope, if you will – that it becomes destructive, because people see this happening over and over in the media they consume so it must have a basis in reality, right?
One of the most terrifying villains in the 80’s-90’s run of Star Trek (mainly, TNG and Voyager) was the Borg. They were a terrifying species, if you could call them that, who roamed the galaxy looking for other species and civilizations to colonize. And I mean colonize in the way that a wasp colonizes the body of a tarantula — they hollow it out and make it their own. They assimilate. They — the hive mind and billions of bodies of the Borg — take these beings and turn them into more Borg. All in the name of becoming closer to perfection, of course.
They do not give these beings a choice in the matter. In fact, this is their rallying cry: “We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.“
To six-year-old me, that was terrifying. To 31-year-old me, it is still terrifying, but for different reasons.
I grew up listening with pride about how the United States is a melting pot, comprised of hundreds of ethnicities and cultures and religions. How we are all equal. Of course, I didn’t realize then that systemic racism was a thing, and I certainly didn’t realize that these concepts really only applied to white people. That it was okay for an Italian family to revel in having spaghetti for Christmas dinner, or a Polish family to make a massive batch of pierogi to feed their family at Thanksgiving, because they’re adding to the melting pot; but that a family who comes from Mexico having home-made tamales that their homemaker slaved over the entire day previous (listen; I grew up in San Antonio, I’ve had tamales, I’ve made tamales; it is not an easy endeavor, it is a time-consuming one and a labor of love) on either of those days isn’t assimilating. That black people who choose to honor their African heritage by celebrating Kwanzaa aren’t assimilating. That Jewish people who adhere to Hanukkah for eight solid days but don’t also celebrate Christmas aren’t assimilating.
The first time I heard someone tell me that immigrants should learn English because otherwise they’re not assimilating, I physically recoiled.
Because, when I was little, the word “assimilate” was a bad thing. That association has stuck with me since I was six, and I hope beyond hope that it will continue until I’m dying.
It’s applied to so many things today — immigrants (let me please clarify: brown or black immigrants, Asian immigrants, but not white ones); autistic people; gender roles; sexual proclivities and preferences. And it is never okay.
The point of a melting pot is that everything gets melted into the same substance. I’ve come to realize that America is not a melting pot, it just wishes it was — wishes that everyone would conform to the same cultural standards, despite America not having one distinct culture.
We are not a melting pot. We are not crayons being melted down to form a bland grey color that no one ever wants to use. We are not different cheeses being made into the world’s nastiest fondue.
The United States has never been a melting pot. It wishes it is, so hard that people like Donald Trump are actually being taken seriously as presidential contenders. But it is not one.
The United States is a giant case full of all sorts of crayons — not just Crayola brand. You’ve got all the hues of the rainbow in there, and there’s Crayola, there’s Rose Art, there’s dollar-store generics, there’s a few high-end GrandArch Neocolors in there. There might even be a few colored pencils that snuck in, and a lone oil pastel.
We’re the snap-box of coloring supplies that was kept in your Kindergarten class for everyone to enjoy during coloring time. Some of us are brand new and shiny, have never been used and our wrappers still bright and crisp. Some of us are old, nubs basically, and no amount of sharpening will ever allow us to draw a fine line, and our labels have long since been ripped away. Most of us have some of the other crayons’ colors on us, because we’re living in close proximity and we pick it all up. Kindergartners, after all, like to shake the box, just to see what happens.
But we are still all our own crayon. We’ve picked up bits and pieces from the other crayons and we carry them with us — maybe like me, who learned how to make tamales even though I’m white. Maybe you have a friend who is deaf and learned ASL, even though you yourself are not deaf. Maybe you speak fluent Mandarin because you grew up near Chinatown. Maybe your neighbors are Korean and you learned to hand everything over with two hands because they babysat you while your parents were at work. Maybe you have an autistic friend who stims and you have learned to stim with them so they don’t feel so self-conscious, or have learned to carry earplugs around for when they’re having bad sensory days.
But at the end of the day, you are still you, and your culture — be that a mix of various ones that your parents created for you, or a time-honored family tradition spanning generations — is still your own.
This is why I still flinch when I hear someone say the word “assimilate.” In an instant, I become that scared six-year-old again, wondering why the Borg would want to steal away a person’s individuality.
In that instant, when you tell me people need to assimilate, I do not see you as a human being. I see you as a Borg.
The Borg are an allegory. They represent the worst that we can become — a society that insists that everyone fulfill a function and be useful and assimilate.
The Borg still give me nightmares. Not because they scarred me as a child, but because I am afraid that we may become them. Are becoming them.
I refuse to turn into the Borg. I will not assimilate, and I will not force anyone else to assimilate. I will — and I believe this is a radical act, and one each of us should strive for — instead celebrate the differences that make us all human, and help and support people who want to celebrate their own differences. I will not take what is not mine to take, and I will not refuse to acknowledge the distinctiveness of someone else’s being.
I will not become the Borg. Gene Roddenberry made me terrified of them at six years old, and I think he did so for a good reason, because he knew the melting pot analogy was bullshit.
I will not become them, and I will not allow those around me to become them.
I will not let my country become the Borg.
