On Representation

I think we're at a turning point regarding which stories we tell future generations about what possibility means for them.

There are children alive today for whom the idea of a black American president is passé. Who assume that that has always been the norm for some kids to have two moms or two dads. Who would laugh at the idea of women not being allowed to go to university, or own property. Or open a bank account on their own.

To these kids, it’s a joy to watch the rebooted Ghostbusters and see themselves fighting monsters in a kickass uniform that isn’t simply a girl version of a boy character’s costume.

For them it’s a thrill to see Rey action figures, and Finn action figures, and know that for the first time, they can really see themselves as heroes when playing with their lightsabers.

Who can see themselves in T’Challa’s Black Panther. Or Miles Morales’ Spiderman. Or Riri Williams’ Ironman. Or Kamala Khan’s Ms. Marvel.

Ask anyone who has grown up learning by default how to identify with people who don’t look like them, and you’ll understand how that becomes the norm. And you don’t feel it, until one day you see someone on-screen, being the hero, being important, who could be your sister, your cousin, or you. And it hits you just how much you have been missing out on.

Some people dismiss stories as mere entertainment, but stories are the fabric of society. And as the writer Thomas King once said, “The truth about stories is that’s all we are.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie noted the danger of stories that maintained a single narrative, saying, “Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.”

So what happens when you don’t see your story at all?

Junot Diaz presents it starkly: “There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.”

And yet, we’re still having arguments about whether it’s a problem to have films set in Africa or Asia be dominated by white actors, while the characters of colour remain nameless victims for the saving, or are demonized as villains.

Nichelle Nichols inspired Whoopi Goldberg and a generation of black children when she appeared on the original Star Trek series as Lt. Uhura, the first time many of them had seen a black character, specifically, a black female character, on television in a role that was not subservient, but had a title, a sense of agency.

She inspired future actors, like Whoopi Goldberg, and future scientists and astronauts like Mae Jemison, the first black woman in space, and Ronald McNair, the second black man to go into space, who watched Star Trek growing up and saw it not as science fiction but as science possibility.

And when you think about the potentially limitless reach of Nichols’ influence, stemming from her appearance in a role that she initially felt was demeaning (i.e., as a sex object more than anything meaningful) until she was convinced otherwise by Martin Luther King Jr. (yes, that one), you begin to understand just how important it is to see true diversity on the biggest screens in the world.

Nichelle Nichols inspired Whoopi Goldberg on Star Trek.

Whoopi Goldberg, alongside Oprah Winfrey, Cecily Tyson and others, went on to inspire Lupita Nyong'o in The Color Purple.

And when Lupita won the Oscar for 12 Years A Slave, the first black African woman to do so, and on the biggest stage in the world, proclaimed, "May it remind me and every little child that no matter where you are from, your dreams are valid", who do you think she inspired?

I don't know, but I cannot wait to find out.