Worf’s Journey of Blackness Part I

The Tragic Mulatto

Admittedly, it’s difficult to have discussions about race (made doubly so if you’re prone to use words like nigrescence or ontological blackness). People have defense mechanisms, walls, and quick triggers on the issue that often make constructive dialogue exasperating. However, as metaphor, such discussions are relatively safe when viewed through the prism of science fiction or fantasy (unless the topic of cultural appropriation comes up, then hold onto your Sorting Cap).

I am firmly on record as saying that Star Trek: DS9 is the best of the Star Trek iterations (this is a deal-breaker point with me and I will judge your intelligence and your family’s honor based on whether or not you agree with me). And yes I once described Captain Sisko as Black Jesus. Appearing in more Star Trek episodes than any other character is Lt. Commander Worf, first on The Next Generation, then on Deep Space Nine. As you watch the episodes which centered around him, especially in The Next Generation, you can see that his journey towards what we’ll call ontological Klingon-ness mirrors that of any search for racial/cultural identity.

Worf quite doesn’t fit the category of magical Negro, but a case could be made for him being the “tragic Mulatto”. Trapped between cultures, often kept in his place if not outright neutered by Star Fleet, half the time he comes across as a mascot for the Federation (“look how progressive we are. We let one in!”).

Let’s see how well he follows the journey of Klingescence:

Pre-Encounter

“As I watched Worf, it was like looking at a man I had never known.” –Captain Pikard “(“Heart of Glory”)

Born Worf, Son of Mogh, his parents were killed by the Romulan attack on the Khitomer outpost before the age of inclusion (when he is formally accepted by his people). Adopted by a human couple, he was raised as one of them, learning their ways, and eventually joined the Starfleet Academy. Thus he was hardly among any of his own kind, he didn’t understand them. To fit in, he was asked to change the one thing about him he couldn’t change: his Klingon nature. Too Klingon for humans, too human for Klingons, he was often shunned by both sides.

Worf was a Klingon in name only, perfectly assimilated into the Federation. Colorless, or rather, raceless (race being a matter of accident of birth), it “didn’t matter” to the Federation (except that they could count him as a Klingon statistic). Even Captain Pikard once remarked that “I think it is best to remain ignorant of certain elements of the Klingon psyche.” (“Where Silence has Lease”). Worf existed in essentially a state of non-being.

“Worf is feeling culturally and socially isolated.” –Wesley (“Icarus Factor”)

Typically in this stage of their journey, individuals downplay the importance of race in their lives and focus more on their membership in other groups. Cut off from going to school with his people, cut off from working with his people, all Worf was left with desperate attempts to bond where he could. He made Jeremy Astor his brother through the R'uustai ceremony (“The Bonding”).

In the episode “The Emissary”, he re-kindles a relationship with K’Ehleyr, the mixed heritage (half-Klingon/half-human) woman who also was trapped between cultures. Unlike Worf who initially appeared adrift culturally, she had long sunk into a spiral of self-hate. During an encounter with her “kindred spirit”, the half human/half Betazoid Deanna Troi, the two have diametrically opposed views of themselves. While they each experience the richness and diversity of two worlds, Deanna saw herself as getting the best of each, while K’Ehleyr saw herself as receiving the worst of each. Her Klingon side terrified her and she didn’t like it at all. Part of her self-hate gets passed along to their son, Alexander Rozhenko.

The problem is the negation of cultural identity: his Klingoness is part of who he is. To reject, dismiss, ignore it is to do the same to part of him … even if he is doing it to himself.

Encounter

“Listen to the voice of your blood. You are not of these people.”

The second stage in this journey of Klingoness is when an individual encounters an experience that causes them to challenge their current feelings about themselves and their interpretation of the condition of themselves and their people against/within the mainstream of society. The Encounter experience is one that is so foreign to individuals' previous worldview regarding their cultural identity that it forces them to rethink their attitudes about their culture. The danger inherent danger is that few things can potentially shatter a person like having their worldview collapse.

Probably the most important episode for Lt. Worf came during the nearly unwatchable first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In “Heart of Glory,” he encounters some injured Klingons on a freighter in the Neutral Zone on a mission to seek glorious battles. One of the survivors, Korris, asks Worf to explain his reason for joining Starfleet. Worf explains how after the Romulans attacked the Khitomer outpost, he was left for dead in the rubble. A Starfleet officer found him and took him to Gault to raise him as a son. With his trimmed hair and civilized look, especially when seen alongside “native” Klingons, all of them realize Worf hasn't spent much time among his own kind. Worf doesn’t know his culture, his rituals, and doesn’t know what it means to be a true Klingon. The words “have they tamed you?” haunt him. Though this won’t be the first time he hears from the “More Klingon than Thou” crowd, they would prod him onto a path of self-exploration.

Their words fire his soul. Now he has a taste of his own people, a place he’s meant to belong. And thus he goes on a pursuit of “ontological Klingon-ness”.

[to be continued]

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