10 Times Star Trek Went Woke

Let That Be Your Last Battlefield is often the first example that comes to mind of Star Trek discussing racism. Bele and Lokai, deliberately designed to be almost identical, fester a hatred based on nothing other than perceived racial and biological inequalities. 

This episode is an easy choice when one is asked - when did Star Trek go 'woke'? Though, as discussed in the introduction, the term originated with a far different meaning than when it is used in the pejorative, Battlefield is the quickest response. The final design of Bele and Lokai was an adaptation from the initial script, which had called for an Angelic and a Demonic pairing. This switches the comment to Racial, rather than Religious, strife.

Bele's indignant argument against Lokai's equality elicits confusion from Kirk and Spock, who stand in for the audience here. Armin Shimmerman would recall that this episode affected him enormously as a young man, though Harlan Ellison had harsher words regarding not just this episode but Gene Roddenberry himself.

In the February 1997 edition of Vibe magazine, he accused the plot of being too simplistic and heavy-handed, proceeding to direct some personal accusations towards Roddenberry in terms of the latter's liberalism. Battlefield certainly could be a stronger episode overall and suffered from the budgetary issues that plagued the show's third season.

It did take one of the most direct approaches toward commenting on the futility of racism and total war - another reference to the ongoing Vietnam War.