Sub Rosa Solo Session

Unedited, slightly incoherent, and mostly redundant, The Beige and The Bold Solo Sessions are episodes where I run through a show with just you, the listener, as my companion. In "Sub Rosa," things get messy.

Sub Rosa has gotten infamous in later years as the one where Dr. Crusher fucks the ghost. I've heard it said that if Riker had fucked the ghost we wouldn't give that episode nearly as much guff. I disagree. Riker gets a lot of guff for his love interests and if he'd fucked a ghost, he'd get flack for it. It would be the ur-Riker episode.

Also, I did a little count recently and there are 10 ghost episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That's a lot of ghosts. A lot.

The Beige and The Bold is hosted on Anchor and is available on most podcasting platforms. New episodes are usually posted on Sunday nights at 9:00 PM CST.

source https://anchor.fm/tbntb/episodes/Sub-Rosa-Solo-Session-e1bugju

Will and Dave

It's funny how people process things. I'm constantly tired of the Star Trek Questions. I'm like a vampire fielding questions about utilitarian philosophy, the physicist hearing about turning on headlights when traveling just below the speed of light, the vegan being asked about protein.

Is the transporter a murder machine? No. Why do the consoles explode? Drama. Is the Federation's policy of respect for other cultures just as bad as The Borg? No, you fucking idiot with a malfunctioning brain.

When Dave Chapelle jokes about being "team TERF"--like he's sympathizing with feminists who exclude trans women--his defenders (and Dave) say we need to watch his whole special to understand the nuance of his position on whether trans people deserve respect as people.

But somehow, when Wil Wheaton talks about respect for others, those same supporters crack out a Star Trek meme even older than the metaphysical questions about transporters: "Shut up Wesley."

Are Dave Chapelle's supporters actually encouraging an understanding of truth and complicated context of--of fucking course not. A nuanced reading would be that two men of a similar age have different and complex takes (Wil Wheaton is one year older than Dave Chapelle).

But that's not the world we fucking live in. Whatever its merits, Dave Chapelle's "trans people are mean on the internet" spiel has attracted people who just hate trans people. It encourages and focuses them. We're told that recognizing this is somehow worse than the behavior of those hateful folks. That taking the side of legitimately oppressed folks 'oppresses the oppressors, actually, which is 100% equally as bad' 

Whether it's gay people or black people or trans people, the folks who believe the social fabric will utterly disintegrate if we're given equal rights because they equate their comfort with a functioning society will always oppose the equality of minority groups. 

I don't agree with Dave Chapelle, but I don't doubt his feelings of loss for a friend who died. I also understand Wil Wheaton's journey of empathy for people who aren't like him. It's pretty simple to respect folks who are using their platform to talk about shit they care about while disagreeing or understanding the harm their words are doing.

It's not rocket science.