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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   24939 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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How long before they come for Thomson's Gazelle?

They've aimed brickbats at Przewalski so I guess there's going to be a call to take his name off the horse too.

And of course the bloody article has a trigger warning for the exceptionally faint-hearted.

I read this (bolding mine) and immediately went "I bet the founders are all White":

First, most of the people currently in a traditionally accepted role of determining official common names are White. For White people to determine what actions were problematic enough to warrant a name change is completely inappropriate and perpetuates the very system that BN4B is working to change. White people simply do not have the perspective to decide what is or isn’t harmful.

No photos, but going by the names I'm going to take a guess that yep, white white whitey white. Which makes the irony of them determining what is or isn't harmful even more ironic:

Jordan E. Rutter (she/her) Initiative Co-founder

Gabriel Foley (he/him) Initiative Co-founder

Jessica “Jess” McLaughlin (she/they) Historical biographies project co-lead

Alex Holt (he/they) Historical biographies project co-lead

They even recognise this themselves, which must make the irony at least three layers deep?

Second, the core group of individuals behind BN4B (Jordan, Gabriel, Jess, and Alex) are White. As White folks, for us to say what the new names should be would be perpetuating the very system that we’re trying to raise awareness about and change.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerutter

BA from Oberlin, then a conservation biology MS from University of Minnesota. Entire professional experience has been as a twitter manager for non-profits: "digital communications for other bird organizations (American Ornithological Society, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Effort) and international events (NAOC 2016, Earth Optimism 2018) has aided in her science communications skills and outreach ability to non-technical audiences."
She eventually worked her way up to "director of communications" at the American Bird Conservancy. Here's their 990 disclosure for anyone who wants to see the grant slush fund in action.

It's like a portrait study.

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