# Hollywood, give us some black professors/scientists/geeks
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [February 2, 2005, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067 "2005-02-02T23:03:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/21 "2005-02-03T00:44:33Z")
Well, there were black _Star Trek_ characters other than La Forge. Uhura seemed pretty bright, along with Sisko and Tuvok and there that’s helmsman on _Enterprise_. Tuvok especially fits the OP’s bill.
Would Sydney Poitier’s doctor character from _Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner_ count?
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/22 "2005-02-03T00:49:05Z")
Mayweather? Porthos, the captain’s dog, gets more lines than he does.
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### Author:  [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/23 "2005-02-03T00:53:40Z")
> [@Askia](#):
>
> Part of the problem with these scientist types is that a bunch of them DIE.
But at least Dr. Dyson dies heroically, saving our heroes. I’m always so sad when he blows up. (yeah, I watch that movie regularly 🙂 )
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### Author:  [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/24 "2005-02-03T00:56:34Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#):
>
> …Tuvok especially fits the OP’s bill.
>
> …
Well, not really. Although played by an African American actor the character of Tuvok was not “African raced” as per the OP…he wasn’t even human.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/25 "2005-02-03T00:58:16Z")
Just remembered, Joe Adams played a psychiatrist in _The Manchurian Candidate_ (1962). He gives Frank Sinatra some observations (as well as solitaire advice) about why Laurence Harvey’s character is so screwed up. He blames the mother.
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### Author:  [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/26 "2005-02-03T01:00:16Z")
> [@easy e](#):
>
> Samuel L. also played a violin expert in **The Red Violin**. While it may not fall under your criteria for scientist or inventor, in the course of the movie he had a lot of scientific tests (acoustics, varnish analysis, etc) done on the violin.
No that was a dissapointment the tests were allways carried out by the quite nerdy white friend of his (remember the lab scene when the nerd described the violin as accoustically perfect to Samuel L. Jackson) Jackson’s character was more of a historical detective, sertainly very bright, but not someone for a minority young Einstein to look up to as a role model.
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### Author:  [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/27 "2005-02-03T01:24:26Z")
Angela Bassett played a sharp, gutsy Chief Medical Officer in “Supernova.”
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### Author:  [@archmichael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/archmichael)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/28 "2005-02-03T01:44:50Z")
> [@monstro](#):
>
> Panthro in the Thunder Cats was an engineer/techie guy. But he was a purple cat, who’s blackness was rather implicit.
You sound just like my wife (who is black). I say it’s just as likely that he’s Asian.
Next thing you know you’ll be claiming Destro in GI Joe is black. 😃
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### Author:  [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/29 "2005-02-03T01:54:58Z")
Oh, yeah… Angela Basset also played one of the President’s scientific advisors in CONTACT.
N’Bushe Wright played Dr. Karen Jenson, the coroner who dabbled in making vampire-subsititute blood serums in BLADE.
And as a cerebrally enhanced Simon Phoenix in DEMOLITION MAN, Wesley Snipes emerges from suspended animation with new martial arts skills and cmputer interfacing abilities.
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### Author:  [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/30 "2005-02-03T02:06:01Z")
How about computer hackers? The hacker bad guy in \*\*Die Hard \*\* was black. Sure, he died eventually, but then all the bad guys did.
The “Jones” character from **The Hunt for Red October** was a serious geek, albeit on a sub – listening to classical music and ID’ing singing and silent caterpillar drives in the same shift…
And I’m sure there was a computer hacker bad guy in some flick about a ship that gets hijacked (sea-jacked?), but darned if I can remember what it was.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/31 "2005-02-03T02:25:59Z")
> [@The Scrivener](#):
>
> How about computer hackers? The hacker bad guy in \*\*Die Hard \*\* was black. Sure, he died eventually, but then all the bad guys did.
Actually, he didn’t and was the only bad guy known to survive (some of the others were shot, but their deaths are unconfirmed). He was punched out by the limo driver (also black, incidentally) while preparing an ambulance-driving getaway. How all 13 terrorists/theives were planning to escape in this one ambulance is unclear.
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### Author:  [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/32 "2005-02-03T02:46:23Z")
N’Bushe Wright was the haemotologist in **Blade**.
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### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/33 "2005-02-03T03:36:26Z")
> [@The Scrivener](#):
>
> How about computer hackers? The hacker bad guy in \*\*Die Hard \*\* was black. Sure, he died eventually, but then all the bad guys did.
That guy ([Theo](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0319739/))was _cool._
And…on the recent _Ninja Turtles_ revival cartoon, Baxter Stockman, an evil mad scientist, was black. And from what I saw—which wasn’t too much, admittedly—he wasn’t played for laughs.
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### Author:  [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/34 "2005-02-03T03:46:37Z")
Well, hey, in the original “Mission: Impossible” series, Greg Morris played Barney Collier, the ultimate technician.
In “Terminator 2,” the brilliant engineer who revolutionizes the world (and in the process, lays the foundation for machines to take over) is black.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/35 "2005-02-03T15:32:21Z")
Orlando Jones was a science professor (and women’s volleyball coach) in **Evolution**. Crappy film, but it counts.
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### Author:  [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/36 "2005-02-03T16:10:16Z")
The mathematician in Chrichton’s Sphere was black and they made a movie out of it.
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### Author:  [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/37 "2005-02-03T16:11:23Z")
…and the guy in The Core. Admittedly, people lambasted the movie, and he was presented as somewhat ridiculed, but he was right, and he really did build that stupid ship.
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### Author:  [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/38 "2005-02-03T16:17:57Z")
I’m a big Adult Swim geek.\* I have a **Sealab 2021** t-shirt, but I noticed every time I wore it in public, Black kids would come up to me and tell me they loved the show and wanted to know where I got the shirt\*\* Finally I figured out that the reason it was so popular was Dr Quinn. He’s the only smart character on the show, he’s banging the only hot chick on the show, and he’s Black.
\*Hell, I’m just a big geek period. But that’s beside the point. Hence the footnote.
\*\*Hot Topic. I’m not proud.
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### Author:  [@Trion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trion)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/39 "2005-02-03T16:31:28Z")
Valerie from the old Josie and the Pussycats cartoon was an uber-smart tech geek.
Well, she was.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hollywood-give-us-some-black-professors-scientists-geeks/288067/40 "2005-02-03T16:44:51Z")
I was just gonna mention Dr. Quinn, **vibrotronica**. Remember when he wrote the essay on why he should father Debbie’s child. Damn, son! 🆒
Also, in the same vein, Frylock is prettymuch a genius geek. He’s also a giant box of fries, but I think the blackness can be seen.
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