Racism In Star Trek

In the Star Trek episode “Devil in the Dark”, issues such as racism, xenophobia, and the topic of communication with others are addressed throughout the episode. There is also media and television to help educate and enlighten people about issues around the world in the present day; as well as the contradicting belief from others that media doesn’t accomplish the goals of educating the people with correct facts or they may have biased viewpoints. Both racism and xenophobia were indeed shown in the episode and Star Trek effectively addressed the topic well and that visibly and morally showed that the way to settle one's differences and to come to a compromise was to simply communication.
The issue of racism was shown in the episode but in a
The episode expressed the issue of xenophobia well by distinctly showing the hatred of mankind to an unknown creature on a planet, considering that the planet didn’t even belong to the humans. Xenophobia is the hatred of a different race or species, which both the miners and the Horta showed to each other during the episode. This was subtly portrayed in the episode as there were obvious negative feelings towards both parties and how they were both trying to get what they wanted although in violent way. The humans feared the Horta since it was a species that was able to kill humans and go through rocks via the acid that it expels. That struck fear into humans and made them want to go after the Horta, trying to kill it so that it wouldn’t kill anymore of their people as well as attempting to kill it out of the fear of a different species with the powers to kill. The same can go for the Horta as it was living on the planet alone, protecting its offspring when humans came onto the planet and unknowingly killed its young while looking for resources. The Horta feared the humans due to their deed, as well as looking nothing like the Horta which raised wariness and fear; having an unknown race kill its offspring could have struck aggressiveness into the Horta and triggered its instinct to kill the humans in an effort to protect its young and itself.
The episode very effectively addressed that the need to communicate between two parties was effective to prevent both the “waging of war” and the violent reactions between the two, since the ongoing tactics to induce harm between each other weren’t effective at all. What both the people and the Horta did at first was to react violently, such as the people hunting down the Horta and the Horta killing the miners. Both were actions that weren’t thought of thoroughly and had bad consequences, such as enraging the Horta even further and killing off the miners and enraging the humans as well. Both were unfavorable outcomes given what the Horta and miners had to go through. The episode also showed how ineffective that tactic was and how it only caused more harm than good to both the Horta and the people. It very clearly showed how after Spock, Kirk, and the Horta managed to communicate and understand each other better, they soon realized how they both didn’t mean harm but only wanted to peacefully conduct their own business. Spock and Kirk realized that the miners have been killing off the Horta’s offspring without realizing so and that the Horta only killed the humans to prevent them from harming her offspring even further. Without communicating, Spock and Kirk would have never been able to address that issue and apologize for their actions as well as make up for