[pryce]

The original Star Trek had a good (though contested) claim to be the first (Black and White) interracial kiss on US public television[1]; Compare that with the Pew study "Intermarriage in the US 50 years since Loving v Virginia", showing that in 1990, about 63% of non-Blacks would be very or somewhat opposed to a close relative marrying a Black person[2] Pew. Imagine what that figure looked like in 1968.

If we don't see the original Star Trek as staking as many firm moral positions on issues where popular opinions are mixed, it says more about who we have become today, and how popular morality has adjusted, than about what was or wasn't radical or confronting at the time.

There doesn't seem to me to be any plausible claim that earlier Trek was previously less "confrontational" or deliberate in promoting its chosen morality.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_interracial_kiss_on_tele...

[2] https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/05/18/2-public-views-on...