for star trek day, i think we should start talking and raising noise about how avery brooks has been, according to cirroc lofton, blacklisted for discriminatory racist reasons from being on the screen despite wanting to return to acting, and star trek corpo keeps absolutely silent about it despite still using his name/captain sisko/ds9 as a cute little cameo for all their new shows, including name dropping his character in the episode he directed which he is most proud of and according to everyone involved put his whole heart into, far beyond the stars, of course ignoring all context surrounding the episode.
it predates ds9 too – ira steven behr wasn’t actually involved in casting, but he talks here about getting phone calls from executives telling him not to hire avery brooks, allegedly because he was “too much trouble” and “[didn’t] like white people”
(which. quick note on this, because I think the historical context is crucial here: i’m having trouble pinpointing when the ds9 casting process took place, but may/june 1992 seems likely. this would’ve been in the fairly immediate wake of the april 29-may 2 riots in LA following the acquittal of the four police officers who killed rodney king, so racial tensions were notably high at the time, and i fully believe that would have played a role in a reactionary statement like that. anything a black actor said negatively about a white person could be easily twisted into a claim about them universally hating white people)
ALT
