beatrice_otter | (Reply)

This is kind of the flip side to a fic someone wrote because of a discussion we had about how Vulcans saying somebody is illogical is the same as any other -ist insult, because that's what it means to ~them.

I do think your fic makes a good point. I understood Roddenberry's point in having the constant banter about Vulcan vs Human, logic vs emotion, with Kirk the concience or id that balances them; but it did get heavy-handed, after a while. Especially since they picked McCoy to deliver the worst of the lines-and don't think it was by chance they chose the white Southern man to do that, not given the time period, and the prejudices against Southern hicks/crackers/white trash/hillbillies, etc. Hell, in "Enterprise" they chose another white Southern man to, gosh, have a problem with the Vulcan (aka symbolic minority character). Can we drop that plot anvil just a little bit harder, please?

I wish this discussion had happened in the series, and that it had happened not long after they met. It's more fair to the characters, especially these two. McCoy is a kind man, and he wouldn't have intentionally hurt Spock, if he'd realized this; and it wouldn't have taken him DECADES to do so, anyways. He's not stupid, and he never had any problem treating Uhura, Sulu, or Chekov nicely, despite the fact that their nationalities or races would have been of note, not comparatively long before; and he usually reacted with no more than a "cranky doctor-ish" grumble about the various warlike aliens they had to deal with.

However, he does sometimes make good points about Spock being part Human, both biologically and culturally. Not acknowledging that in any way is very insulting to Amanda, in particular; and to humans and Earth. He didn't even tell anyone he was part Human until "Journey to Babel", and he had to. Choosing one side of a heritage is perfectly fine; but Spock tries to deny it's there at all.

It's a more complex issue than just "Dr McCoy is a bigot", which is what it gets boiled down to all too often in fandom; and it's worse since the Reboot movie. D: