Editing Kazon (section)

=== Racial and political analysis ===
The representation of the Kazon as antagonists has been criticized by genre commentators and academics as an example of racism in the ''Star Trek'' franchise. Christina Niculescu and Yonit Nemtzeanu were critical of the dark-skinned Kazon being treated as more aggressive than the more diplomatic, fair-skinned alien species. They determined that the representation of the Kazon was implicitly racist, writing that the species was shown as embodying negative stereotypes. Niculescu and Nemtzeanu followed this up by saying that the Kazon were written only to be "criminals and savages" and seen as "primitive".<ref name="Academic1" /> In his 2016 ''The Politics of Star Trek'', the [[political scientist]] George A. Gonzalez agreed the skin tone and hair style designed for the Kazon as carrying explicit racial connotations, and felt that it was made more apparent during their conflict with the lighter-skinned Ocampa.<ref name="DevelopingWorld3">[[Kazon#gonazalez2015|Gonazalez (2015)]]: p. 179–180</ref> Zach of [[Bitch Media]] placed the Kazon as one example of ''Star Trek''{{'}}s uneven treatment of race. He compared the Kazon to the Klingons and Ferengi, writing that "aliens-of-color [are] used as proxies to represent the worst aspects of human behavior".<ref name="Racism2">{{cite web|url=https://bitchmedia.org/post/star-trek-into-feminism-three-ways-the-sci-fi-series-needs-to-change|title=Star Trek Into Feminism: Three Ways the Sci-Fi Series Needs to Change|last=Zach|date=May 22, 2013|publisher=[[Bitch Media]]|archive-url=https://archive.today/20170114185729/https://bitchmedia.org/post/star-trek-into-feminism-three-ways-the-sci-fi-series-needs-to-change|archive-date=January 14, 2017|url-status=live}}</ref>

The Kazon have been interpreted as a sociopolitical commentary on [[Developing country|developing countries]]. George A. Gonzalez presented the Kazon as a pessimistic feature of the Delta Quadrant, which he read as a metaphor for the developing world. Emphasizing the Kazon's mistreatment of the Ocampa, plans to steal from ''Voyager''{{'}}s more developed technology, and inability to form lasting alliances, Gonzalez describes the series as interpreting race relations in developing countries as "inherently contentious and inevitably destabilizing". He concluded by saying that the Kazon storylines were in line with "neoconservative biases/reasoning".<ref name="DevelopingWorld2">[[Kazon#gonazalez2015|Gonazalez (2015)]]: p. 183</ref> For a 2015 retrospective review of the ''Star Trek'' franchise, [[Moviepilot|MoviePilot]]'s David Trudel wrote that he was disappointed in the breakdown of the alliance between the Kazon and the Trabe in the episode "Alliances". He felt that the series should have featured the formation of a new Federation starting with these two alien species. Some critics viewed the episode as "the moment Trek died intellectually", though Trudel disagreed with this assessment as "fairly dramatic".<ref name="MoviePilot">{{cite web |url=https://moviepilot.com/posts/3651901 |title=Top 6 Missed Opportunities in Star Trek |last=Trudel |first=David |date=November 27, 2015 |publisher=[[Moviepilot|MoviePilot]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170826031916/https://moviepilot.com/posts/3651901 |archive-date=August 26, 2017 |df=mdy-all |access-date=August 25, 2017 }}</ref> In 1996, ''[[The New York Times]]''{{'}} [[Jon Pareles]] offered a less critical assessment of ''Star Trek''{{'}}s development of alien species, describing them as enacting "exaggerated human tendencies". Pareles identified the Kazon's rebellion against their previous captors in particular as comparable to the political situations in Somalia or Rwanda at the time of his writing.<ref name="Pareles">{{cite news|last=Pareles |first=Jon |date=May 26, 1996 |title=Television view; When aliens start to look a lot like us |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/26/arts/television-view-when-aliens-start-to-look-a-lot-like-us.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |page=26 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20170114201711/http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/26/arts/television-view-when-aliens-start-to-look-a-lot-like-us.html |archive-date=January 14, 2017 |url-status=dead }}</ref>