This was the expression hurled at many of us on a local birding listserv. The ironic thing is, we didn’t start the conversation. We simply intervened.
The original topic was bird names – the proposal to change the names of birds named after people. The reactions by many of the anti-change proponents have created a toxic environment, exemplifying why changes are needed in the birding world. I’ve written earlier how birding can save the world, but we need a whole lot more people connected and involved.
The listserv was Washington state’s Tweeters, a kind of generic statewide space for birders that has been around for decades. I’m not going to name names or go into great detail about who wrote what; you can look it up if you want. I’ll just use generic monikers from hereon.
This was not the first animated discussion on this topic at the Listserv. That happened back in the fall of 2023, when the AOS announced they would initiate a process to change all eponymous bird names. (For more on the details of that – and my posts on that topic – see below.) In November 2023, the Moderator eventually intervened with a clear statement, calling “a halt to this topic.”
That was the right call. Even if some don’t realize how offensive their statements are – and I’m being generous here – intentions don’t matter as much as impacts. The online comments were alienating to many new birders, young birders, and people of color. The Listserv was not a good forum for discussion.
But, over time, despite the ban, a steady trickle of anti-change emails occasionally appeared on the Listserv. In June 2024, several anti-change proponents began feeding off one another, supporting each other’s gripes and including bits of misinformation and inflammatory questions which had already been addressed in many public forums. One of them asked how they could get involved in the anti-change efforts.
This question, posted on the public Listserv rather than in a private backchannel, implied they could use this public space to plan their anti-change campaign, essentially asserting that the Listserv was their club house.
But it was not a private echo-chamber. Everybody could see what they wrote, and they surely knew that. Seeing no intervention by the Moderator, I stepped in, reminding them that this topic was out of bounds and explaining how what they were doing was “gate keeping” – a pubic action that was intended to preserve the status quo and drive certain others away.
I quickly received dozens of mostly private emails thanking me for stepping in.
At the Listserv, a dam kind of broke loose and, using a sports referee term, the game was out of control. As the flame war raged, one person used the racist-tainted trope, “Shut up and bird” – a phrase that openly declares that the Listserv is a safe space for white rage, where non-compliant others can be disregarded or put in their place. This person received no condemnation by the Moderator (at least not a public one). In the end, the only person sanctioned was one of the people against whom that taunt was leveled.
The whole episode, which has been repeated in various ways across dozens of other social forums in the past year, sent a message to new birders, younger birders, and birders of color: You are welcome as long as you keep your mouth shut and act like everyone else – everyone else being the older white birders who, historically, made up over 90% of the birding community. This is “whitewashed diversity” – you are welcome at the table if you don’t upset the status quo.
In the so-called culture wars regarding race – which have existed in this land since Bartolomé de Las Casas took on Christoper Columbus, Eastern whites rallied against Indian genocide, and abolitionists fought slavery – white liberals (WLs) have welcomed people of color at the table while conservatives have not wanted them anywhere near the house. But that welcome has not always been comprehensive – many WLs supported ethnic cleansing and the creation of Indian “reservations” because it was better than genocide; and some abolitionists, including Abraham Lincoln, favored shipping Blacks back to Africa.
Birders are mostly WLs. But let’s look at what is happening at the birding table today. Imagine a literal table, a sumptuous banquet laid out, with gallant lords and ladies at the feast. Their wealth, of course, was obtained over generations through the ethnic cleansing and enslavement of the Others. But now, generations later, they welcome the Others at the table. They call it diversity.
Now imagine the Others consider themselves equals at the table. They begin to voice their opinions, suggesting changes to the menu, the décor, and etiquette of the feast. Here the WLs bristle:
“What benefit would that make?”
“I don’t think more people will come if we make these changes.”
“Oh my god, what will they want to change next?”
“These changes will do nothing.”
“Where is the cost/benefit analysis of this?”
As the discussion heats up, the WLs have one final retort: “These requests have only created division.” As if the Others started the conflict.
If you look closer, it often turns out that the most outspoken voices against the Others are the chef, who is widely renown, the interior decorator, who everyone knows, and the master of ceremonies, who has held their position for forty-two years. (At the Listserv described above, the Moderator had close connections to such people.) They make the rules and exert their outsized influence on any potential implementation or rejection of proposed changes. They also control the conversation, make the rules about who talks when, and intervene when necessary. Or not.
Diversity is only real when voices are heard and respected, and where power is shared. Otherwise, the Others are just tokens of whitewashed diversity. It is no wonder they are bailing established Listservs, Audubon societies, and other historical structures for their own social forums and affinity groups.
We’ll still bird. And we’re building our own tables.
Some other posts on bird names:
Honorific bird names facts and figures
The trials of John P. McCown: Why the case-by-case approach is already dead (the backstory of the bird names proposal and 24 year history of conflict between the AOS and the NACC)
The Cottonwood Post 