Saturday 11 March 2023

Identity Politics Is For The Birds...

A prestigious US wildlife conservation group is facing new pressure to distance itself from its namesake’s racist past after two Audubon Society chapters and its employees’ union announced they were dropping his name from their titles.
*sighs*
The society at a national level has been mulling for more than two years how to handle its association with John James Audubon, a prominent 19th-century artist, naturalist and slave owner whose detailed, colourful paintings in the book The Birds of America set the gold standard for generations of ornithologists.
Now, amid a wider racial justice reckoning following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, chapters in Portland and Chicago, and the staff union formerly known as Audubon for All, are acting unilaterally to sever the name of the white supremacist with a shameful record of buying and selling slaves.
Audubon's paintings are beautiful. Nothing will ever erase that. What next, demanding the abolishment of the phrase 'birds of a feather flock together'..? 

Oh, I probably shouldn't give them ideas, should I?

4 comments:

The Jannie said...

I think I'll write a book: Bandwaggoning: the easy way to confirm that you're an idiot with no imagination.

Macheath said...

I think Prince Harry got there before you...

Anonymous said...

They will (in a flurry of woke fervour)change their name and 'distance themselves' but ... I guarantee that they wont stop using his research, paintings and associations for their continued profit.

I completely disagree wit their politically correct decision (pushed by woke, rich, white women and profiteering minorities) but also support their right to do so ... with their own products and institutions.

So, let's insist that they divest themselves of every penny earned by using his name, paintings, etc. (including the buildings and bank-accounts), and completely remove all use and reference to his works, as irredeemably tainted (by their own claimed perspective). But they'd never do that, would they?

This is what women do (look to the make-up of the board clamouring for this). Live comfortably off the sweat and earnings of a man, then decide they'll demonise him and ... keep everything he earned without repercussions. They've been getting away with for so long, they think they can do it in every sphere now. Let women and minorities parachute into institutions and organisations built by men and ... this is what you 'always' get. Always!

JuliaM said...

"I think I'll write a book: Bandwaggoning: the easy way to confirm that you're an idiot with no imagination."

It'll sell like hot cakes...

"I think Prince Harry got there before you..."

😂

"...but ... I guarantee that they wont stop using his research, paintings and associations for their continued profit."

Oh, of course not! That never happens.