My self-perceived “weirdness” played heavily in my college application process. I wrote essays about my “edgy” love of comic books (it was 2005, and I was still “not like other girls”); my second grade obsession with World War 2; and the harrowing customer service adventure I had with eBay after the bootleg, regionless “Star Trek: Deep Space 9” DVDs I’d special ordered from Singapore failed to arrive in my high school’s mail room. “Deep Space 9” was my favorite “Star Trek” series, and at that point, full season DVDs still cost upwards of $55 — the approximate price of a college application fee.

I perceived my lost shipment as a tragedy worthy of a school-requested supplemental essay detailing a “challenge I had overcome in life.” And so the schools that refused to just take my Common Application essay about attempting to read “Mein Kamf” as an 8-year-old also had the pleasure of receiving a detailed explanation of my “Star Trek” fandom.

It was 2005, and I was still “not like other girls."

“Star Trek” was a constant in my house, something both of my parents enjoyed. And four months after Captain Picard’s crew had their encounter with Q at Farpoint in 1987 on “The Next Generation,” I joined in on the obsession. But it wasn’t until 1993’s “Star Trek: Deep Space 9” that I found my home in the “Trek” franchise. It was my point of first contact.

The quick attachment I formed with “DS9” hinted at the things that would be essential to my enjoyment of television later in life. It was my first taste of a fully fleshed out, multi-season story arc; the seven season show spends five seasons taking viewers through the complicated politics that eventually lead to war between the Federation and the Dominion. While I didn’t understand it then, the women of this “Trek” series were also fleshed out to a degree that was unusual for the time — especially in science-fiction — and there were many of them, allowing the show to offer broad spectrums of womanhood. And, of course, there was the show’s diversity, showcased in its lead protagonist: Commander Benjamin Sisko. The character, played by Avery Brooks, was many things throughout “DS9”’s run: a captain, a war hero, a 1950s science-fiction writer, a baseball enthusiast, even a god. But before any of that, we learn one thing: Sisko is a single black father.

In my college essays, I waxed poetic about how much Ben Sisko and, by proxy, Brooks, meant to me as a sci-fi loving black kid. He and his teenage son, Jake, were some of the very few bits of representation I had in the genre I loved, and are still the best examples of fleshed out black characters from that time. They meant the world to me. When I couldn’t afford the official, licensed DVDs of my favorite seasons (five and seven, FYI), I turned to Singapore via eBay. Not receiving them wasn’t an option.

Despite hinging my chances at an adequate secondary education on being a Trekkie, I was accepted to most of the fifteen schools I applied to. Over time, I narrowed my choice to two: Pitzer and Oberlin.

Both colleges had the slightly wacky, liberal arts feel I wanted after three years at a gated, New England prep school. I’d been offered two excellent financial aid packages — but neither covered travel costs, and so my parents were pushing for Oberlin. The small school was only an eight hour drive from our home in New Jersey, but I was tired of dealing with harsh winters and thought I heard Los Angeles calling my name. I decided to throw together a decent list of Pitzer’s pros to stand against Oberlin’s obvious cons (“Oberlin,” I noted, ”is in Ohio.”) in order to secure my college of choice.

I visited Wikipedia for the first time in the spring of 2006, scrolling through the Oberlin College page looking for dirt. What I wasn’t prepared to see was a familiar name under the section marked”‘Notable Alumni”: Avery Brooks, ‘70.

It wasn’t more than ten minutes after that that I alerted both my parents and my college counselor that I would be attending Oberlin College for my undergraduate degree, the first student to do so from my high school in over a decade. If Commander Benjamin Sisko went there, then it was surely good enough for me — winters be damned. I would freeze for Avery Brooks. Besides, I reasoned with myself with all the logic of a teenager ingratiated in fandom, maybe if I go to Oberlin, he’ll come back and do something on campus and I’ll get to meet him.

If Commander Benjamin Sisko went there, then it was surely good enough for me.

Yes: The possibility of meeting Brooks was how I decided where I would spend the next four years of my life. Luckily, I liked Oberlin, and why I’d ended up there was quickly forgotten as I made friends, became very involved in anthropology, and helped my freshman year boyfriend care for his pet cayman. Even better, my original logic ultimately paid off.

Avery Brooks returned to campus my junior year to do a staged reading of “Death of a Salesman.” The raw sadness of Brooks’ Willy Loman left an open wound that each member of the audience had to care for long after we’d left the makeshift science center theater. His performance has stayed with me for years. Some students attended for the love of live theater, some came simply to see Avery Brooks, but all of us were moved. The “Star Trek” fans were obvious — as a number of us waited in line to meet him after the show. Seeing so many of my fellow students clutching scripts, DVDs, commemorative plates, and other bits of memorabilia, I remember second guessing my decision not to bring anything with me. My friend Dan, a fellow Trekkie, stood next to me in line, and we kept nervously assuring each other that we just needed to talk to him.

The student in front of us (holding a binder that seemed to contain every “Star Trek” DVD and insert ever made) walked away, and we found ourselves standing in front of Benjamin Sisko. I immediately burst into tears.

It quickly became one of those terrible moments that everyone fears having with someone they’ve admired for so long. You’re overcome by emotion, sobs, and a phlegmy substance that seems to coat your throat from out of nowhere. Every speech you’ve considered making immediately flies from your head. You can’t form words, and what is at most a 45 second interaction feels like it’s lasted for three hours.

I don’t remember what I said. I’m sure I began trying to explain how my family had loved “DS9” so much that we would break the “no TV at dinner” rule on Saturday nights and watch it together as a family in the kitchen. That my parents were so invested in the ongoing Dominion War, that even if I’d lost my TV privileges that week, they’d make me eat dinner backwards from the table so that they could still watch the newest episode (peak black parenting). I know I began trying to explain what seeing Commander Sisko on television meant to me, as a black kid. How amazing it was to have “Deep Space 9” be the first science-fiction show I ever really glommed onto, because it meant that from a young age, seeing black people as main protagonists in sci-fi and fantasy was normal to me. There was no question that these were the characters I should demand, and that these were the stories I should be writing, because “Deep Space 9” laid the groundwork for me at age five. “Deep Space 9” was my first contact with myself in the science-fiction genre, and so it gave my imagination permission to blossom. It gave me permission to center myself and others who looked like me.

Brooks was patient as I explained some version of this through snot and tears. The only reason I know I was somewhat coherent was because of his eventual response.

“I know,” he said. “That’s why I did it. So that you could watch.”

I cried some more and we headed back to our dorm. The entire interaction likely lasted less than a minute.

DS9 gave me permission to center myself and others who looked like me.

In a conversation with a theater and film professor at Oberlin, Brooks would later elaborate on what he’d said. Why had the idea of doing “Star Trek” intrigued him? “Because brown children must be able to participate in contemporary mythology,” he said . In other words, all kids need to see themselves in popular media, have action figures to buy that look like them, characters to argue over on the recess playground when it comes time to choose who gets to be who in a game of pretend. Brooks did that for me. There are so many more characters for brown children to look up to now — so many more points of first contact for a nerdy brown kid who dreams in the language of warp cores and stardust. But for me, he was the first — and when someone has that much of a profound effect on you at a young age, it stays with you. My college choice process was impulsive, yes, but I doubt I’m alone, and I doubt I’ll be the last one. So when your now 5-year-old tells you, seemingly out of nowhere, that they are going to the University of Alabama in 2027, just accept it. They probably just want the chance to meet “notable alum” Sonequa Martin-Green, and thank her for “Star Trek: Discovery” their own point of first contact.

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