PERRY: After 49 years, Star Trek’s social justice lives long and prospers, even in Colorado and Aurora

An entire generation of Americans, including myself, were transported to what promised to be a better future when the most famous ship in the universe set sail on Sept 8, 1966.

Just days into having my world rocked by entering the first grade, millions of kids like me sat in front of the cool hue of a black-and-white TV as “Space, the final frontier,” launched what is arguably America’s oldest and longest prevailing cultural phenomenons ever: “Star Trek.”

Its appeal was immediate and pervasive. The show, spun weekly around progressive and social justice themes, grabbed my generation, shaking sense into many of us and simply awakening in others an innate desire to be fair and kind to all people and all things.

Although President Kennedy had several years before charged us with finding our way to the moon, “one small step for man” actually came that night. In the weeks and years to follow as Capt. James T. Kirk and Co. blew past ingrained and seemingly unmovable ideas about racism, imperialism, xenophobia, environmentalism, militarism, bigotry, sexism, human psychology, republicanism, democracy and, above all, tolerance.

Even as a young child lucky enough to grow up in a family and a neighborhood that was a nearly ideal cultural, racial and socioeconomic melting pot, televised race riots in the South, Denver school busing protests and the occasional, ubiquitous noisy bigot made me keenly aware of what racism was. For the most part, it just wasn’t. My neighborhood looked a lot like the bridge of the starship Enterprise. My best pal was Hispanic, our next-door neighbor and second family were part Hispanic and part Swedish immigrants. Across the street were Japanese immigrants. There was a Dutch family, Italians, blacks and lots of mutts like me. While the world of the 1960s fought on, we just wanted to play.

So we were immediately sucked into “Star Trek,” which transcended racism and many other social ills. With heavy handed lessons, humor and what was at the time absolutely astounding special effects, my generation was taught to not just work past racial issues, but see them for the irrelevant human peculiarities that they were. We learned about our responsibility as custodians of the planet, of other life forms besides our own and of questioning authority in a ceaseless effort to do the right thing. We were taught to shun organized religion, especially proselytizing agencies that set out to covert the “heathens” in far-away lands. Such missionary work was a clearcut violation of the Prime Directive, the idea that interfering in other cultures is dangerous and always plays out bad, like the Vietnam War. Each week for three years of the show, we learned about human history as one planet rolled out a new Nazi society, an important lesson of what happens when the Prime Directive is violated. We were treated to obtuse social justice lessons like the one when Frank Gorshin — the dude who was The Riddler on Batman at nearly the same time — was painted half black and half white to drive home a glaring lesson about the ridiculousness of racism. Oh, sure. Laugh about it just being a silly kids show. But if you don’t think it helped shape the political minds of millions, realize it left us with other nuggets such as warp drives, tribbles, the Federation, Klingons, Vulcans, dilithium crystals, tri-corders and the ability to have Scotty “beam me up” to the transporter room. 

For me and millions like me, it launched a lifetime of crusading against eons of social injustice. Yet, almost 50 years later, here we still are, watching cities burn in riots spurned by racism, which just won’t go away.

Its appeal was immediate and pervasive. The show, spun weekly around progressive and social justice themes, grabbed my generation, shaking sense into many of us and simply awakening in others an innate desire to be fair and kind to all people and all things.

This month, The Aurora Magazine, which we publish, delves into racism in Aurora, and how our city hasn’t escaped it, but it has for decades avoided what persistent racism brings: violence. Staff writers reveal how Aurora got where it is, and where it plans to go.

Much of what’s worked here that was absent in other cities mirrors that Star Fleet mentality, seeing the world as a place to be improved while following simple and pronounced progressive rules along the way: be fair, tolerant and sympathetic.

The show often devolved into triteness, more times than not, but its progressive pummeling of the U.S. military, the country’s bigots and those who couldn’t resist a push for imperialism that comes with power and money, shaped my generation to work and solve the racial virus America just can’t seem to kick. While so much more than this popular Hollywood franchise has led us to a better place in Aurora and Colorado than across the country, the crew of the Enterprise have certainly helped get us here, imposing the wisdom of social justice on new generations.

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