February is Black History Month in the US & Canada, so for February 4th let’s celebrate the one, the only, the played by Avery Brooks…
Captain Benjamin Sisko!
[id: a waist-up photo of Capt. Ben Sisko in his starfleet uniform from Star Trek DS9. He’s at a three-quarter angle with his face turned to the camera, with a slight smile. /id]
Captain Sisko was the first Black lead on any Star Trek show — and the only, before Discovery. The show is a deviation from the earlier two — TOS and TNG — by acknowledging that the world of Star Trek isn’t a perfect utopia. Deep Space 9 carries themes of oppression and racism, while demonstrating that our society can work to be more just. It was Avery Brooks who brought “an emphasis in the importance of the African-American and Black American experiences” to the show. [source]
Far Beyond the Stars
[id: Sisko as Benny Russell from “Far Beyond the Stars.” He is wearing wire-rimmed glasses, a blue collared shirt, and a brown jacket. His head is tilted slightly down and to the side. His expression is somewhat bewildered. Behind him is a generic 20th-century office. /id]
Brooks also directed “Far Beyond the Stars”, DS9 6×13, which is considered one of the all-time best Trek episodes. In it, Sisko experiences the life of science-fiction writer Benny Russell. Russell, an African-American man living in New York in 1953, faces racism in his daily life. He dreams of a day when a Black man can captain a space station, but is laughed at; his editor forbids him from publishing a story with a Black captain. [source] But Russell, who is described as “the dreamer” and “the dream”, tells his editor that “You cannot destroy an idea!” Facing the belief that a Black person could not achieve what a White person could, Russel asserts, “I’m a human being, dammit.” [source]
[id: a screenshot of Sisko from DS9 looking out the window of the space station. The back of his head and neck is visible on the right side of the image. He is wearing his starfleet uniform. On the left side is Sisko’s reflection, but instead of his real appearance the reflection is of Benny Russell from “Far Beyond the Stars.” Russell is slightly transparent, wearing wire rimmed glasses, a collared shirt, and a sweater vest. /id]
Sisko as a Father
Sisko’s relationship with his son, Jake, was also revolutionary for television. The series opens with the unfortunate death of Jennifer Sisko, Ben’s wife and Jake’s mother, during one of Starfleet’s conflicts with the Borg. The relationship between Sisko, a single father, and his son Jake underpins the entire show.
[id: a screenshot from DS9 showing a framed photo of Ben and Jake Sisko. In this photo Jake is a teenager, and slightly shorter than his dad. They have their arms around each other in a hug and are facing the camera. They are both smiling. /id]
The depiction of their relationship is especially important given the racism surrounding social conceptions of Black families. According to A. Bastién, “The arc of American history is undergirded by a continuous, pointed degradation of the black family. The crux of this is the pervasive mythology surrounding the ‘missing black father’,” who is blamed for “poverty, mass incarceration, police brutality, and any number of ills, rather than the real culprit — the systemic, institutionalized racism” of the US. In this light, the loving, mutually respectful, and deep relationship between Ben and Jake takes on larger importance than just one fictional family. [source]
The relationship between the two was also part of the reason why Avery Brooks decided to take the role of Sisko. Their relationship, Brooks said in 2012, “was something else you still don’t often see on air, at least as it concerns black and brown men and their sons. We got to play complicated, emotional and intricate scenes, and we got to have tender and fun moments. It wasn’t a pat relationship or an easy one, and it was very realistic.” [source] [source]
Sisko’s Rank on DS9
Sisko’s role as a Black lead on a Star Trek show was significant. Avery Brooks said in 2012, “Certainly the fact you have a black man in a command position is very important. That is something that goes far beyond just having black people working on a show, which itself is also very important. It goes to children being able to see themselves on screen and visualize that in the future they will be doing something of importance to the world at large.” [source]
However, it’s important to note that Sisko was a Commander — a rank lower than Captain — until the third season of DS9 (3×26). This was a marked change from the first two Trek shows, whose leading roles were both Captains — played by White men. The argument of the creators and studio was that “a starship is led by a Captain, but DS9, which was set on a space station, had to have a Commander in charge.” [source] However, it had been established in previous canon that starbases are usually run by flag officers, who rank higher than captains. [source] It also confuses the distinction between the rank of Captain and the role of Captain — the commanding officer of a ship is referred to as captain regardless of rank, while a starfleet officer promoted to the rank of captain need not command a ship. [source] [source] Sisko’s command of a space station — rather than a starship — should not have prevented him from becoming a captain. One has to wonder if racism is why the first Black lead of a Trek show was given a lower rank than captain.
Sisko was also denied temporary promotion to Admiral by the showrunners. According to Memory Alpha, season 6 was supposed to begin with this promotion, but was vetoed because Ira Steven Behr “felt it took the lead character out of the Star Trek pantheon.” [source] At the time, however, the original Star Trek lead James Kirk had been an Admiral for fifteen years since the release of The Wrath of Khan, meaning that Sisko’s promotion would not have distinguished him in any way from other Trek leads. It also would not have disrupted the storyline, since he still temporarily left DS9, leaving Dax in command. [source] Again, there doesn’t seem to be any real reason that he wasn’t given the promotion.
Sisko is also the only original Trek lead (i.e. pre-Disco) who was never granted the rank of Admiral. [source] [source] [source]
In 1998 we first got to see the ds9 episode “far beyond the stars”, in which Sisko experiences violence and racism through the life of a black sci fi writer in the 1950s. 22 years later it is absolutely unacceptable that the story could have been set in 2020 and he would still have faced racism, hatred and injustice. We don’t deserve to look back at it as a “lesson from the past” because he would still have had to fear for and fight for his basic human rights – that is the reality of being black in 2020. Racism and police violence isn’t a story of the past, this is the reality we are living in right now, this is the reason why its important to fight and speak up. (This is also obviously about more than just star trek, I just wanted to make my stance clear and show my support in a way that was authentic to the content I post here. I want to make it clear that if you like my art and disagree with black lives matter, then my art is not for you.)
In 1998 we first got to see the ds9 episode “far beyond the stars”, in which Sisko experiences violence and racism through the life of a black sci fi writer in the 1950s. 22 years later it is absolutely unacceptable that the story could have been set in 2020 and he would still have faced racism, hatred and injustice. We don’t deserve to look back at it as a “lesson from the past” because he would still have had to fear for and fight for his basic human rights – that is the reality of being black in 2020. Racism and police violence isn’t a story of the past, this is the reality we are living in right now, this is the reason why its important to fight and speak up. (This is also obviously about more than just star trek, I just wanted to make my stance clear and show my support in a way that was authentic to the content I post here. I want to make it clear that if you like my art and disagree with black lives matter, then my art is not for you.)
(”None of This Ever Happened” by Gabriela Santiago)
Avery wanted that look from day one. For us, the notion of the white man ‘holding us down’ is not a thing, but for Avery it was. I can’t even imagine what the poor man went through with those guys. With Rick Berman. It’s like they stripped him of his power. But then as soon as he got to be his physical image and stopped looking like a black Ken doll – I’m sorry, it’s true! – and got to look like his vision of Sisko, it was like night and day. He was suddenly a powerful cat and it was, like, ‘Whoa, I wouldn’t fuck with him!’
Terry Farrell, discussing the change in Sisko’s look at the beginning of season 4 in Star Trek DS9
I’m at the part of The Fifty Year Mission in which the DS9 cast and crew are talking about how finally by season 4 Avery Brooks was allowed by the studio powers to look the way he wanted to look (aka the great hair migration). I had always stupidly bought the official explanation that Paramount didn’t want two different captains to be bald-headed. And I figured it was just executive stupidity. But reading this book with so many comments similar to the ones Farrell gave, I can see that the studio execs were fearful of the image of a powerful black man. That is still executive stupidity but of a significantly different and very problematic nature.
Thinking about it further, you can say that Benny Russell’s battle to bring Benjamin Sisko to life in the episode Far Beyond the Stars is similar to the battle that Avery Brooks had to wage to present Sisko in the way he believed was the correct one.
