Got thinking about this after seeing the coverage of the riots in the UK a couple weeks back. I couldn't help but notice the ease with which the commentary around the rioters linked 'being working class' with 'being racist', as though there were some kind of correlation there. There's a mountain of evidence showing the middle classes do it just as well, but the boring systemic racism they employ just isn't as exciting as the geyser from Bolton what started a fire in a brown neighbourhood. Anywho, without a segue,
Miles is a fascinating character to me because he only makes sense from an out-of-universe perspective: the wild shifts in his career, skillset, and rank can be explained by the fact that Colm Meaney was the actor attached to that character, and I think we'd all rather keep him around than lose him, continuity be damned. The Memory Alpha page has a whole section focussed on his rank, which thankfully doesn't attempt to find some canon explanation for how an ensign at conn becomes a LaForge-level engineer becomes a transporter chief becomes the chief of operations for an entire space station, or how a Starfleet lieutenant suddenly becomes a non-graduate petty officer. Also noted is his history as a military hero, saving the day at Setlik III, and his proud family history of real farmers and union leaders, and his own wife and children, all just dropped in as needed to help out whatever story demanded Colm's acting chops that week.
The range of manual labour jobs and surprisingly-rare-for-Trek family, plus the bonus points granted from Colm's being Irish, cemented O'Brien as the "working class everyman" to whom everyone would of course relate (yeah, I know, what a surprise that the relatable character is once again a white guy). Trek fans and writers all buy into the idea, as they create comics about his monotonous career in Transporter Room 3 and write episodes to satisfy the yearly "O'Brien must suffer" quota (if someone's gonna suffer, best it be the relatable guy).
I'm more interested in a retcon made to O'Brien's, like, 'person'. In TNG's 'The Wounded' he talks to a Cardassian for presumably the first time in a while and announces "it's not you I hate, Cardassian; I hate what I became because of you". It's a nice little end to the C plot of whether O'Brien's got all racist prejudices from his past, and I like that it feels real, or at least possible, unlike some other less believable 'TNG optimisms'.
Anywho DS9 Series 2 retconned that and had him deliver the line "'gentle' was bred out of these Cardassians a long time ago" in a discussion about a child raised on Bajor (episode 'Cardassians'), and Keiko called him out on it (great scene, woo). Other episodes in this series have him voicing all kinds of crap like 'The Cardies can't be trusted' and 'We can't let the Cardies have the wormhole', all while Keiko stares with one of those faces that implies she's more disappointed than surprised. There's also that "Sir, have you ever served with any Bajoran women?" line he says in the pilot, which, I shit you not, is loudly asked as a Bajoran woman walks right past him. Like, no my guy, that's not appropriate! Of course, the shot then pans right so we can see Kira chewing some guy's head off, so I guess it's okay after all.
As in general, this change for O'Brien would be very surprising in-universe, but out of universe we know that Colm Meaney and Rosalind Chao are playing the only married couple with any history and both actors got the chops, so who else is going to be able to pull off the drama?
I don't really fault anyone for this because I can see how it would 'just happen' given the setup, but it's a shame that the 'put-upon relatable working class everyman nice guy' is the one main character who just so happens to have a bit of a racism problem (excluding Quark I guess). I don't like that the stars aligned this way, and I think I'd rather have had Dax or Bashir (or Ben?) be the character under the spotlight here, if only because they're not working-class-coded.