Star Trek was originally a show to address racism and not just science fiction! It might take a reminder from a baby-boomer to realize what it meant for a black woman, Russian, Japanese, Scottish characters to all share the same bridge in close quarters in 1968! Then we can't forget all of the aliens, strange encounters with other cultures, etc...
Interesting that "Spock" uses a lot of emotional language -- "prejudice", "lonely", "happiness", "frightening", "feel best about himself" -- contrary to the popular conception of Vulcans as an emotionless, logic-above-all race.<p>Certainly, modern conceptions of Vulcans are a lot more nuanced e.g. they are privately strongly emotional or otherwise have to strongly suppress their emotions. See for example Star Trek (2009) which deals with Spock as a young boy in Vulcan culture, which is eerily reminiscent of this article. Wonder whether Orci, Kurtzman or Abrams read this article before conceiving the 2009 incarnation of Spock?
The fact that he wrote this in 1968 is really amazing. How many people in 1968 would not have felt compelled to respond to the girl in a compassionate way?