Roy Exum: The Birds Are Racist?

  • Thursday, June 17, 2021
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum
There are growing signs the ‘woke’ culture is awakening more and more conservatives to its outlandish agenda but now comes a sign from the liberal bastion of journalism the Apocalypse may well be upon us.
 
About two weeks ago the Post printed an extensive report under the headline, “The Racist Legacy Many Birds Carry.” I kid you not. As one hysterical Twitter user quickly cited, “It’s almost as through the WaPo editorial team gathered to ask, ‘What is racist today?’ and someone thumbed through a dictionary to gleefully announce, ‘It’s birds!”

 

As a barn owl might offer: ‘Is this a hoot or what?’
 
The conservative website, dailywire.com, pounced, since such blatant absurdity is comical at best.
Zeek Arkham, a black police officer who hosts a podcast called “Reasonable Suspicion,” could hardly contain his mirth. “A bird pooped on my car the other day … I thought it was because I parked under a telephone line, but it was white supremacy the whole time. I am so tired of this oppression!”
 
Seth Dillion of the Babylon bee website, wasn’t as jovial as much as he was truthful, “If you want to know how far we’ve come in terms of putting racism behind us, just look at how far we have to reach to find it now.”
 
Post reporter Daryl Fears claims there is currently a squabble among to Audubon Society that –quote -- “the names of species connected to enslavers, supremacists and grave robbers.” Fears then details a number of birds named after historical figures who owned slaves or used racist terms. In particular, he points out that British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who “frequently used the n-word,” had six different bird species named after him.”
 
Among other feathered creatures Fears names as problematic because they “bear the names of men who fought for the Southern cause, stole skulls from Indian graves for pseudoscientific studies that were later debunked, and bought and sold black people,” are Bachman’s sparrow and Wallace’s fruit dove.
 
Fears quotes a number of experts to bolster his premise that bird names are a problem worthy of the attention of Post readers. Black ornithologist and Clemson professor J. Drew Lanham told him, “Conservation has been driven by white patriarchy. This whole idea of calling something a wilderness after you move people off it or exterminate them and that you get to take ownership.”
 
More from the dailywire.com: “Asian American ornithologist Olivia Wang shared similar thoughts, saying “(The birds’ names) are a reminder that this field that I work in was primarily developed and shaped by people not like me, who probably would have viewed me as lesser. They are also a reminder of how Western ornithology, and natural exploration in general, was often tied to a colonialist mind-set of conquering and exploiting and claiming ownership of things rather than learning from the humans who were already part of the ecosystem and had been living alongside these birds for lifetimes.”
 
Corina Newsome, another black ornithologist, told Fears she has felt traumatized in the past when she wore a work shirt bearing Audubon’s name. “I felt like I was wearing the name of an oppressor, the name of someone who enslaved my ancestors,” she said.
 
So sayeth a gaggle of geese, or an exaltation of larks, a head of pheasants, a herd of cranes, curlew or wrens, a kit of pigeons flying together, a murmuration of starlings, a muster of peacocks, a paddling of ducks on the water, a rookery of penguins, a parliament of owls, or anything else that squawks.
 
* * *
 
NOTED: “We’ve watched with growing concern the Left’s efforts to infiltrate corporate boardrooms and use that power to force their agenda on Americans everywhere,” said Justin Danhof, General Counsel, National Center for Public Policy Research, and Director of the Free Enterprise Project. “We are drawing a line. It’s time to hold corporate America accountable for canceling conservatives. We seek to restore a healthy understanding of, and respect for, liberty, free enterprise, and American culture, all of which is being corrupted by corporate oligarchs.”
 
* * *
 
NOTED: Steve Soukup, author of the ‘Dictatorship of Woke Capital’, said, “Whether under the guise of ‘ESG’ (environmental, social and governance), ‘wokeness’ or ‘stakeholder capitalism,’ make no mistake, all these terms are just cover for liberals weaponizing big business to achieve their radical, political goals.”
 
* * *
 
NOTED: Andrew Guttmann, a New York City parent who has been speaking out against schools' push for critical race theory, said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom" on Wednesday that the cancel culture curriculum "is going to destroy our country" if it's not reversed. In a new piece for The Hill, he argued that the campaign for wokeness will only hurt the progressives spearheading it. "There appears to be widespread belief that opposition to critical race theory is a view held solely by the political right," he wrote. "This perception is wrong. It is certainly true that the conservative media has almost exclusively embraced viewpoints unfavorable to critical race theory while the liberal-oriented media has been overwhelmingly approving. But our polarized media does not seem to accurately reflect the view of most Americans."
 
* * *
 
NOTED: “Can you make a good comedy movie anymore, or have they made it so dangerous in terms of being canceled, that comedy movies are no longer something you can do?” comedian Joe Rogan asked. “You can never be woke enough, that’s the problem,” he proclaimed. “It keeps going. It keeps going further and further and further down the line, and if you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, it’ll eventually get to - straight white men are not allowed to talk. Because it’s your privilege to express yourself when other people of color have been silenced throughout history.”
 
* * *
 
NOTED: A team from NBC News claims that the fight over critical race theory in schools is not due to grassroots action by parents, but is being fueled by conservative special interest groups and dark money. That parents have formed networks, obtained support, and are working together to try to fight racist indoctrination in schools is an issue, apparently.
 
For NBC News, these parents wouldn't have a leg to stand on if it weren't for the corporate influence of "seasoned GOP activists" who seek to do battle with school boards. They slammed those who are working hard to make sure kids aren't taught to hate themselves and their country.
 
The tone is one of simple surprise, "how could anyone be against antiracism?" This fabricated stupor is the common refrain from those seeking to uphold this divisive ideology.
 
Authors Brandy Zadrozny, Tyler Kingkade, and Ben Collins cite 165 parents groups that have grown over the past year to take on everything from remote school, to masking restrictions, to critical race and gender theory, and they seem to think parental involvement and various levels of support is a bad thing.
 
What's really happening here is that the forms of grassroots civic action that have bolstered leftist causes for years upon years are now being taken up by conservatives, and the left doesn't like it one bit. In fact, they seek to discredit this work, saying that it's being fueled by dark monied interests, and not being pushed forward by concerned parents furious over the decline of American education and fearful for their kids.
 
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