For being where no man/one has gone there sure are a lotta people hanging about

Okay, so, I've seen this Shatner versus University professor thing for a little bit. Thoughts. Judging historical works through the lens of modern mores is perfectly legit. Running these works of the cannon through the modern lens is EXACTLY how art works. You can't do otherwise.

Now, to say we should then "change" the works, I disagree with. I have a long history of watching neutered Warner Brothers cartoons because of Puritanical thoughts of the 70s, do not mess with it. That doesn't mean you can't bookend the works with modern statements pointing out the flaws. My DVD of wartime cartoons does this very well. Leonard Maltin states specifically that the cartoons have racism, agreement with such racism was expected from the contemporaneous audience, but this doesn't make it right, and they weren't going to whitewash it out.

So, you can still find Laura Ingalls Wilder books in your libraries and bookstores. They have the often cited addendum to one line, but are still filled with the casual racism of the author (and the intended audience). They are classics of American Literature, which does not impart some sort of Holiness and infallibility.

The question was should a current award for children's literature continue to carry Laura Ingalls Wilder's name given the current social mores? And the answer is an emphatic no, it should not.

As a writer of SF and Fantasy, our community continues to struggle with this question. It was only last year (or the year before, sorry, past 50 and they start to run together) the statue for the World Fantasy Awards was changed from a bust of HP Lovecraft (who was wildly racists, even in the times he lived in). There are still new words being fed into the ravenous maw of Cthulhu, the universe he created. But these new words are written from a different perspective, and while they may describe racism as practiced in the time the story is set, the works themselves are not racist (for the most part). This may be a fine hair to split, but it's one I think that can and should be split.

Our past is racist. Shit, our present is still fucking racists. But that doesn't mean that we, ourselves, have to be racists.

Oh, while Star Trek did tackle racism (and nationalism) and misogyny, and was considered "progressive" by the contemporaneous standards, it still exhibited a good deal of racism, misogyny, and unexamined privilege. I think Shatner understands this and is attempting to preserve his own space and importance. It could also be a little bit about the worry that those of use growing older have of becoming irrelevant.