The Washington Post covered a controversy today concerning a long-dead fantasy icon whose legacy is being reconsidered due to racist opinions extreme even for his day—and no, this time I’m not talking about H.P. Lovecraft.

Lovecraft’s views, as you’ve already heard if you’ve visited here before, have been the cause of uncomfortable but very necessary conversations within the fantasy community. And now another community is being forced to have similar uncomfortable conversations.

Because it seems the Oneida Indian Nation is about to open a $20 million casino which will pay homage to a fantasy writer who, in addition to entertaining millions, also called for genocide.

L. Frank Baum.

That’s right. The author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Here’s what Baum wrote in 1890—

The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; it’s better that they should die than live the miserable wretches that they are.

And two weeks later, after the massacre of 300 Sioux at Wounded Knee, he doubled down, saying that the U.S. should “wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.” (A statement his descendants travelled to South Dakota to apologize for in 2006.)

As you might imagine, some Native Americans think these opinions make the idea of opening the Yellow Brick Road Casino in Baum’s hometown of Chittenango, N.Y. offensive. Ernestine Chasing Hawk, a descendant of the Wounded Knee victims, went so far as to ask, “Would the Jews build a casino to honor Hitler?”

With the Yellow Brick Road Casino set to open this spring, it seems unlikely that those who object will be able to get the project’s theme changed. But considering that many within the field of the fantastic are engaged in a somewhat similar mission of trying to convince the World Fantasy Convention board to come up with a new design for its trophy, I certainly understand their objections.

I hope those (like me) who wish to see the World Fantasy Award altered to remove the face of the man who once wrote “New York is no place for a white man to live” have better luck.