Also, it probably helped kneecap the popularity of Tolkien-style “Always Chaotic Evil” (TV Tropes page) races/species, by virtue of making the racialised elements much more difficult to ignore.

As TV Tropes’ analysis page notes, however, there are a fair few ways to make Evil Minions^tm without throwing any racial baggage into the mix - ways that have let the base trope survive the change in political climate, even as its original version fell out of favour.