Pretty good summary, Kate. I especially appreciated your summary (and link) to Julia's story of Nnedi Okorator's own World Fantasy Award.
Some things about the panel that stuck with me (which you omitted) were:
1) A common excuse for prejudices of people, especially those long-dead, is that they were "people of their time". Brandon correctly observed that this is no excuse; even people in 1950 knew that lynching was wrong. While this is true, others observed that (for example) Gene Roddenberry's prejudices against homosexuals were informed by his time's contemporary description of homosexuality as a "mental illness". Moreover, Roddenberry's works never denigrated nor advocated oppression, in great contrast with the more recent rants of Orson Scott Card.
2) I was the one who, very late in the panel, raised the issue of Tolkien's work having racism at its very core; it wasn't just a passing piece of imagery in Jackson's film adaptation. I did use, as illustration, the fact that Mussolini's fascist government hopped on "The Hobbit" as an excuse for creating "Hobbit camps" to train children and teens in the fascist racist philosophies. I did not mean to imply that "The Lord of the Rings" was somehow _less_ racist than "The Hobbit".
3) Brandon brought up a brilliant question early on: "What are our descendants going to think of _us?_"
no subject
Some things about the panel that stuck with me (which you omitted) were:
1) A common excuse for prejudices of people, especially those
long-dead, is that they were "people of their time". Brandon
correctly observed that this is no excuse; even people in 1950 knew that lynching was wrong. While this is true, others observed that (for example) Gene Roddenberry's prejudices against homosexuals were informed by his time's contemporary description of homosexuality as a "mental illness". Moreover, Roddenberry's works never denigrated nor advocated oppression, in great contrast with the more recent rants of Orson Scott Card.
2) I was the one who, very late in the panel, raised the issue of
Tolkien's work having racism at its very core; it wasn't just a
passing piece of imagery in Jackson's film adaptation. I did use, as illustration, the fact that Mussolini's fascist government hopped on "The Hobbit" as an excuse for creating "Hobbit camps" to train children and teens in the fascist racist philosophies. I did not mean to imply that "The Lord of the Rings" was somehow _less_ racist than "The Hobbit".
3) Brandon brought up a brilliant question early on: "What are our descendants going to think of _us?_"