Reality Amuck™

Hang with me till the end, because I do make a point, eventually.

We Americans live in a historic age. My grandparents, even my parents, grew up in an age when the idea of an African-American President of the United States would have been considered ridiculous. When writers wanted to drive home the strangeness of their stories set their stories in the future they would sometimes have the President be either African-American or a woman, as both ideas were considered equally unlikely anytime soon. But some of these stories took hold in the minds of the youth.

Star Trek was a huge influence on my life. Today I consider myself a recovering Trekaholic. I feel that Trek was a very positive thing in my life, but I soon let it overwhelm every waking hour of every day. I could find a connection to Trek in everything. Most of my responses to situations would start, “This reminds me of this one time on Star Trek…” After years of hard work, I am able to now enjoy Star Trek for what it is, an entertaining science fiction program that gave several generations of people around the world an optimistic view of the future.

I was part of the second phase of Star Trek fandom that arose in the mid-1970s when the show had its syndication boom. I grew up surrounded by ignorance and bigotry, but I also grew up watching men and women of all races and backgrounds working together as equals. Millions of others grew up watching this and the seeds of tolerance and acceptance were planted in our young minds. To us the idea of an African-American President wasn’t some wild idea. We’re all human, regardless of the color of our skin, the place we were born, or the gods in which we believe.

But all of that has nothing to do with how Star Trek is connected to the first African-American President of the United States. Okay, I’m sure that it played a role, as did many other cultural shifts, but that isn’t the connection I’m trying to make.

The year was 2004 and it was election season. While President George W. Bush was campaigning in his re-election bid against Sen. John Kerry, another race was underway; a race that would change the future.  In Illinois Jack Ryan had won the Republican primary in March and was well on his way to take the seat of retiring Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald.  His opponent was a Illinois state senator from Chicago. Everything was going as well as could be expected until the Chicago Tribune and local ABC affiliate wanted to make public his divorce records.

Jack Ryan was married to actress Jeri Ryan in 1991. If you are a Star Trek fan you might recognize Jeri Ryan as the beautiful actress who was featured in Star Trek: Voyager as Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01. After only a few years of marriage the couple was divorced in 1999 and the divorce records sealed. When Jack began his senate run, the Tribune and WLS-TV began to seek the opening of the records. After the records were opened and the details of the divorce made public, Jack was forced to leave the race. He was replaced with Alan Keyes who eventually went on to lose the general election to the young state senator from Chicago.

That young state senator was Barrack Obama, who eventually moved up from his U.S. Senate seat to another job in 2008, but that’s another story.

BTM