...and it's just kind of a droll boring show

just a poll - is a racist someone that ascribes generalized (often negative) traits to a person based on a stereotypical racial phenotype? or is a racist someone who isnt on board with leveling the playing field and ascribing generalized problems to populations, often categorized and implemented on race-based policies to counteract the unequal distributions one might see when sorting outcomes by race. to my eye this new avatarization of blackness or whiteness or whatnot IS the new racism, it's just practiced by marx reading leftists, and hasn't had the negative fruits of the thinking seen as clearly as the negatives of the old racism we have all been made so aware of in living our lives in these times.

I think it might be because a lot of sci-fi (probably correctly) assumes that "race" will be less of an issue in the future. I'm a white man, so my opinion doesn't count, but I would venture to guess, based on the progress we've made in the last 100 years (still obviously lots of work still to do), in another few hundred, it really will be a pretty minor issue. Especially with globalization expanding.

Some of us just assumed he came into the picture after she was born... The apparent explanation.

Great concluding sentences, Charles. Cool.