Using the Programme Guide of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I" WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays… I’m not sure someone outside of DISCON III can actually see the program, but I’ll make an attempt to link it below. THIS YEAR FOR THE FIRST TIME, I have been attending VIRTUAL DISCON! So, I’ll be talking about sessions I have ACTUALLY attended! From that, I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the Program Guide! I hope the link provided below works for those who are not able to be there. Even so, I’ll be copying the event description and then dig into it!
"Welcome to the convention."
We will present the First Fandom and Big Heart awards, as well as remarks from the Chair.
Your Hosts will be: Ben Yalow, Mary Robinette Kowal, Nancy Kress, Sheree Renée Thomas, and Greykell Dutton
So, all in all, this was a very nice presentation. The evening host, Ben Yalow welcomed everyone, then read a proclamation from the Mayor of Washington, DC.
Then Mr. Yalow informed us that the land the WSF Convention was currently on landhad been taken from “…the Nacotchtank [who had] maintained settlements around the Anacostia River within the present-day District of Columbia. Conflicts with European colonists and neighboring tribes forced the relocation of the Piscataway people, some of whom established a new settlement in 1699 near Point of Rocks, Maryland.”
I confess I winced. I myself live on land stolen from the Dakota and the Ojibwe of Minnesota. But until I can travel through time, there's nothing I can do about it except educate myself and hope we can do better in the future. (I DO live in a state where all of the casino gambling was turned over to various tribes...you have NO idea how much some of the white people I know piss-and-moan about how it's not fair...(What -- it's not fair that the Mille Lacs Band of the Chippewa (= Ojibwe (Europeans mispronounced this name so that it became "Chippewa"), they are an Anishinaabe people) the White Man's money to build hospitals, schools, roads, water, electricity, buildings, homes and other infrastructure LONG neglected by the white government of this state of Minnesota...))
So, aware that they enjoyed the fruits of stolen land, the convention moved on to announcements. One of the announcements was the naming of a pair of important sponsors of DISCON III, one of which was Raytheon. Nothing else was said, so I’ll add my two bits.
My son is in the Army. He is a Patriot [the acronym of the missile’s technical name: Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept On Target] technician and has spent the majority of the past eight years maintaining a specific part of this surface-to-air missile. While it is ABSOLUTELY NOT DROPPED ON OR AIMED AT ANYTHING ON THE GROUND, it is designed to shoot down various kinds of missiles, including ballistic missiles (conceivably ICBMs). The Patriot is designed and made by the Raytheon Corporation. Knowing who some of the people are who attend these events made me wonder if anyone else caught the irony in this sponsorship.
Also, the Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts Show Choir performed several numbers. They were brilliant! There’s a preview here: https://discon3.org/news/duke-ellington-school-of-the-arts-show-choir-performs-during-opening-ceremonies-at-discon-iii/, and I can say that I enjoyed their music TREMENDOUSLY and it touched my heart.
However, knowing the kinds of people SF fans in Minnesota are from my experiences at the Minnesota Science Fiction Convention (MiniCon – event number 55 has been postponed twice due to COVID concerns, but there’s a good chance it will happen THIS Spring!), I was surprised at the music choices the Show Choir made…despite the fact that there are an ever-increasing number of Christmas – or should I substitute Xmas? – songs, THIS show choir chose NONE of them.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Cv8aJHFc2oQ/maxresdefault.jpg
No ”Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, no “White Christmas”, no “Jingle Bells” and certainly no “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” here! The music they did was all SACRED Christmas music – “O Holy Night”, “Silent Night”, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” (not sure about the last one). I have a friend who’s actually ON THE GROUND there. He reports that there wasn’t a single grumble or negative comment on the decidedly religious performance. None. No grousing, just rounds of endless applause! I find that curious, to say the least.
While I personally found the Opening Ceremonies inspiring and delightful, I’m simply curious about the unexpected non-response to the convention being bankrolled by a technology company that is heavily invested in military applications (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raytheon_Technologies). I don’t have anything against Raytheon Technologies – my son has a truly wonderful job because of them. They also continually hound him to join the company once he musters out of the Army, tempting him with astounding pay packages! – and that an African American show choir performed sacred Christmas music that reflected the actual “reason for the season” without even the mildest protest.
Or has there been a protest?
I don’t know.
So much for my curmudgeonly commentary on the Opening Ceremonies of the 79th World Science Fiction Convention! I'll get back to comments on the delightful sessions I've attended over the next few posts and weeks!
Program Book: https://discon3.org/schedule/
Image: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQY860vAI2izm2g2mUgxzT14fGVmoGh66B51g&usqp=CAU
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