Yeah I guess DS9 does have a lot of The Message with the Bajoran/Cardassian stuff. It's harder to notice these things when I'm watching an episode every two weeks over ten years.
I never felt particularly preached at by it, in any case. Only thing I'm not crazy about is Kira's general rage towards the Cardassians, and the show kinda-sorta implying that terrorism is ok if you're a "freedom fighter" via her.
The Cardassians also never struck me as "the white man". Mainly because they're grey and strike me more as an allegory for imperialists in general. The Bajorans are whiter than they are, and strike me more as an allegory for invaded/conquered nations in general rather than specifically American slavery.
Quite frankly if I were to compare the conflict to anything, it'd be England's domination over Scotland and Ireland. There are a zillion other examples throughout history as well.
Speaking of messages and metaphors, am I understanding right that they butchered Picard's speech from The Drumhead on the latest episode? Was it because of incompetence or was it intentional? Heard something about how they took out a line about breaking chains because the current ideology of the writers is more about creating the chains.
Either way, bonkers that TNG's speech about censorship...was censored by these hacks.
