Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post
1. It's actually more common for Kirk (and sometimes others) to join in on mocking Spock. I'm sure the intention is for it to be good natured ribbing, but rewatching the show years later is really cringe inducing and it's hard to see it as anything other than racist, especially given that in TOS, non-human crew members are in an extreme minority.

2. Per the episodes aired so far, Mariner used to be an officer and has been busted down to ensign at least once (I get the implication from the show that it's happened more than once), and has also been implied to have been court-martialed and spent a good amount of time in the brig. The implication is that they can't pin enough on her to discharge her from the Starfleet, so they are doing what other captains on TNG have been shown to do and move a "problem" officer from one posting to another. I certainly wouldn't say she's evaded negative opinion or that the show portrays her in the right.
The implication I've gotten so far is that she hasn't been drummed out of Starfleet solely because of her parentage, though why she joined to begin with or hasn't quit yet is beyond me.