#The One Thing LeVar Burton Would Change About His Star Trek Character

In the sit-down with Rolling Stone, Burton was asked if he would want anything to be different about Geordi if the series were airing now. “Yeah,” Burton answered succinctly, “He’d get laid.”

The actor goes on to explain that the white writers’ room for “Star Trek: The Next Generation” clearly had unconscious biases that played out in the plots that actors of color received. Even android Data (Brent Spiner) saw more action than Geordi. Burton quotes his wife, who often says that there’s “a lid for every pot,” to illustrate how disappointing it was that Geordi wasn’t given a significant romantic arc like his peers.

“The idea that Geordi never found a lid for his pot is ludicrous,” Burton said. “It’s preposterous, and it’s insulting.” When the interviewer points out that Geordi’s limited interactions with potential love interests didn’t always come across well, Burton expresses that this is an extension of the same problem among writers who didn’t know how to handle characters of color. “In their attempts to be cute,” he pointed out, “they inadvertently created an aspect of Geordi’s character that is very uncomfortable.”