Why, birders might ask, this curmudgeonly reception to a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusivity in intersectional spaces in the birding community? The reason is that this relabeling movement betrays a Jacobin zealotry for politicizing something inherently unpolitical, in the process demanding the affirmation of the latest Very Important Thing. Maybe that’s why influential birder Kenn Kaufman initially opposed the decision but then, per NPR, “has come around.” It seems clear that what we have here is not something that is going to benefit avian conservation and not something that is going to do much of anything for American race relations or for a single human being; it seems instead to be a trend that, like so many others in times of social tension, amounts to a tribal insistence on political conformity.

Because of this, the movement to make bird names “about birds” is really making them about politics—not about birds—and the politics are not especially well-informed. Read more»

Bill Reddinger | “Bird Names And Ornithologistas” | March 8, 2025

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Post authored by:

• Bill Reddinger

  

  Bill Reddinger serves as Associate Professor of Government at Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA. Since 2010, he has taught courses there in American politics and the history of political philosophy. He was educated at Northern Illinois University (PhD, MA) and Grove City College (BA). He and his family are members of a PCA congregation.

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