#i might write a whole blog post about how vulcans are approached for most of star trek

[zagreus-eats-your-bread]

Star Trek: New Frontier is so cool. I wish it was good

[kirksfattitties]

hi! sorry for sending this on anon, but i wanted to put my two cents in re:spock&mixed race identity and i have a current aversion to linking this directly to my blog for personal reasons.

i am coming to this discussion from the perspective of a brown mizrahi+white ashkenazi jew who is primarily in contact with the mizrahi part, both literally in the sense of they're the family i talk to and more metaphorically in the sense that i live my life moreso as a brown person and am more in touch with mizrahi tradition etc.

this is probably going to get long for it is late at night and u have adhd, so i'm breaking this down into paragraphs for each question you asked that i have presumably relevant input on and trying to avoid walls of text.

the term half-human/half-vulcan

i don't think referring to spock as half-whatever amounts to blood quantum by itself and spock does in canon refer to himself as half-human several times in a way that doesn't bother me. HOWEVER, if you feel you are approaching that territory in some way, i would recommend trusting ypur gut and rephrasing (if you were oversensitive, no harm's been done, eh?). for spock specifically, he seems to mainly view himself as vulcan. i, similarly (?) view myself as brown - in my opinion, spock is most likely to either, if relevant, say immediately that he is vulcan+human (something along the lines of "i am part/half vulcan and part/half human"/"i had a vulcan father and a human mother" etc) or he will call himself vulcan THEN elaborate (a la "i am vulcan. my mother was human"/"i am vulcan and also human" etc). depending on the conversation, the fact he's both may not be relevant at all - it may be enough to say he's vulcan/human and leave it at that; for example, if you're discussing the way starfleet views alien-ness it's probably enough just to say he's vulcan, if you're talking about him doing a kiddush or something (struggling to come up with a differnet example rn, there are probably better ones) it's likely enough to just say he's human.

the term mixed

i don't think it's offensive to call spock mixed, but it does seem to me a little bit odd. might just be personal tendencies, just seems weird to call a white person mixed becuase the word "mixed" implies the "-race" part. in context it can work, out of context it feels awkward to me.

is spock coded as a poc

seems to me like a stretch. vulcan isn't a race, and (for the time being) spock is a white character and is treated as such. coding him as a person of colour would only work if he were actually one, no matter how much star trek loves using his story to talk about race. whiteness is only distanced from spock insofar as he is a jew (jew coded, whatever. he's undeniably jewish it doesn't matter) and that doesn't take away from his whiteness, only ensures a specific experience of it. (however this is not about black/brown spock my friend spock who lives in my head. he has rights he is loved he should be canonical. but [current] canon spock IS white and it doesn't really make sense to refer to him as poc coded or anything of the sort. a comparison may make my point more clear - worf is poc coded [specifically black coded], being an alien played by a black man written in a way which can in many ways be said to fit into some common black experiences and/or black character tropes [there are some cool essays on that you can look into if you want. worf my beloved]; spock isn't, he is a white character whose alien-ness is often used for race allegories.)

balancing humanity and vulcan-ness

a big part of spock's character arc is learning to accept himself whole. part of that has to an extent been admitting to himself he is also human and was raised by a human mother and currently lives in a majority human sphere. spock engaging in more human practices, letting go of some vulcan disciplines he doesn't want or coming to peace with himself are themes that i think fit his stories and that should be featured when talking about him. BUT, i think that's important, it seems to me more like growing up/accepting himself contradictions and all than like learning to Mix His Cultures. i don't think spock's problem is that he doesn't embrace human culture as his own, i think it's that he actively disapproves of parts of himself in the attempt to be the ur vulcan and takes it out as undervaluing humanity in general. basically my point here is that a lot of spock's journey is about accepting parts of himself that are seen as more human but make sure that when you phrase it it doesn't sound like what you're saying is that in order to be happy mixed people need to embrace Traits™ from all their races or whatever. spock's problem isn't that he doesn't act "human", he doesn't have to - it's that he represses the parts of himself he thinks don't fit his typecast essentially.

writing spock

i don't know how to solve the question of how to make sure you're not overstepping the line, but i would simply say proceed with caution. spock is both human and vulcan, it's a significant part of his character, you can write it, just don't set out to write a mixed story and/or if you see you are straying too far into a life you do not feel you know lay off it.

this is most everything i have to say. i hope it was coherent. i hope it was what you wanted. i hope it wasn't exhausting to read. i would like to conclude by saying @paramount cast a jew of colour to play spock it'll be so sexy and so much less white people in alien makeup are trying to talk about race also i think spock deserves it. it's what nimoy would've wanted he told me this in a dream.

(referencing the asks i made in this post)

thank you for taking the time to make such thorough answer! this really helps