{"id":564252,"date":"2021-06-15T10:36:48","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T14:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=564252"},"modified":"2021-06-15T10:36:51","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T14:36:51","slug":"so-whats-racist-today-washington-post-story-on-racist-birds-goes-viral-widely-mocked-on-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/so-whats-racist-today-washington-post-story-on-racist-birds-goes-viral-widely-mocked-on-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018So What\u2019s Racist Today?\u2019: Washington Post Story On \u2018Racist Birds\u2019 Goes Viral, Widely Mocked On Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">34<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fso-whats-racist-today-washington-post-story-on-racist-birds-goes-viral-widely-mocked-on-social-media%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=564252&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/The-Washington-Post.jpg?w=1200&#038;h=800&#038;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p><span>The Washington Post found itself widely mocked on Twitter Monday for an extensive report titled, \u201cThe racist legacy many birds carry.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Though the Post published the story on June 5, the headline didn\u2019t become widely shared until June 14 when an account by the name of @LauraWhitt32 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LauraWhitt32\/status\/1404324827050225665?s=20\"><span>posted<\/span><\/a><span> a photo of the headline with the comment, \u201cI give up.\u201d At that point, a number of Twitter users shared her post with jokes about the newspaper\u2019s process of publishing the article, including <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dbledford13\/status\/1404460846714175489?s=20\"><span>guesses<\/span><\/a><span> about how the story assignment came about: \u201cDaily WaPo meeting: \u2018so what\u2019s racist today?\u2019 *blindly flips through encyclopedia* it\u2019s birds!\u201d<\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Black police officer and host of the podcast \u201cReasonable Suspicion,\u201d Zeek Arkham, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ZeekArkham\/status\/1404541445495742470?s=20\"><span>quipped<\/span><\/a><span>, \u201cA bird pooped on my car the other day. I thought that it was because I parked near a telephone line, but it was white supremacy all this time. I\u2019m so tired of all this oppression.\u201d<\/span><span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Many comments turned serious, like Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SethDillon\/status\/1404441718024462336?s=20\"><span>observation<\/span><\/a><span>, \u201cIf you want evidence of just how far we\u2019ve come in terms of putting racism behind us, just look at how far we have to reach to find it now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In the story, reporter Darryl Fears explores a debate he says is raging within the Audubon Society about \u201cthe names of species connected to enslavers, supremacists and grave robbers.\u201d 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 \u201cfrequently used the n-word,\u201d had six different bird species named after him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Among other feathered creatures Fears names as problematic because they \u201cbear 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,\u201d are Bachman\u2019s sparrow and Wallace\u2019s fruit dove.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>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. <\/span><span>Drew Lanham<\/span><span> told him, \u201c<\/span><span>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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Asian American ornithologist Olivia Wang shared similar thoughts, saying \u201c[The birds\u2019 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Corina Newsome, another black ornithologist, told Fears she has felt traumatized in the past when she wore a work shirt bearing Audubon\u2019s name. <\/span><span>\u201cI felt like I was wearing the name of an oppressor, the name of someone who enslaved my ancestors,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>member<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Washington Post found itself widely mocked on Twitter Monday for an extensive report titled, \u201cThe racist legacy many birds carry.\u201dThough the Post published the story on June 5, the &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2280310,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/The-Washington-Post.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"\u2018So What\u2019s Racist Today?\u2019: Washington Post Story On \u2018Racist Birds\u2019 Goes Viral, Widely Mocked On Social Media","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-564252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/The-Washington-Post.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"\u2018So What\u2019s Racist Today?\u2019: Washington Post Story On \u2018Racist Birds\u2019 Goes Viral, Widely Mocked On Social Media","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2280310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}