Words have power

It's been an interesting week since I returned from Dublin.  The diversity issues I was talking about last week have taken an interesting turn in the last few days since the con ended.  Jeanette Ng's speech at the Hugo awards was hard-hitting.  "John W Campbell, for whom this award is named, was a fascist," she said. "Through his editorial control of Astounding Science Fiction, he is responsible for setting a tone of science fiction that still haunts the genre today.  Sterile.  Male.  White.  Exalting in the ambitions of imperialists and colonisers..." 

Now, just a week since Jeanette said those words, the editor of Analog Magazine (the successor to Astounding Science Fiction) has announced that the award will be renamed the Astounding Award for best new writer.  That official statement, on the Analog blog, recognized that "Campbell's provocative editorials on race, slavery, and other matters often reflected positions that went beyond just the mores of his time..."  More powerful words.

I'm a member of the British Science Fiction Association, and my latest magazine mailing includes a whole issue dedicated to African and Afrodiasporic science fiction.  Even that title itself reflects how varied and connected the world is.  'Diaspora' describes people with a certain heritage who have since moved to places all over the world.

And their words are changing the world.  Darcie Little Badger, a Lipan Apache woman who moderated one of my panels, will be publishing a young adult novel in 2020 with an asexual main character.  Jeanette Ng was born in Hong Kong, but now lives in England.  Nnedi Okorafor is a Nigerian-American writer who lives in America who writes richly detailed books steeped in her African heritage.

My words on panels relating to asexuality and older writers and characters also had power, with both rooms packed with eager listeners to my words.  It was clear from the feedback we received from those panels that people felt validated by them.  My - and the other panelists' - words held power.

I came home from Dublin buoyed up by the idea that literature, that the stories we tell, really can change the world.  Jeanette Ng told her story, from the viewpoint of the oppressed, and the world has changed in response.

Truly, words do have great power.