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Botanists vote to remove racist reference from plants’ scientific names Offensive term to be replaced as first step towards more changes in unprecedented reform of nomenclature rules Scientists have voted to eliminate the names of certain plants that are deemed to be racially offensive. The decision to remove a label that contains such a slur was taken last week after a gruelling six-day session attended by more than 100 researchers, as part of the International Botanical Congress, which officially opens on Sunday in Madrid.

The effect of the vote will be that all plants, fungi and algae names that contain the word caffra, which originates in insults made against Black people, will be replaced by the word affra to denote their African origins. More than 200 species will be affected, including the coast coral tree, which will be known as Erythrina affra instead of Erythrina caffra.

The scientists attending the nomenclature session also agreed to create a special committee which would rule on names given to newly discovered plants, fungi and algae. These are usually named by those who first describe them in the scientific literature. However, the names could now be overruled by the committee if they are deemed to be derogatory to a group or race.

A more general move to rule on other controversial historical labels was not agreed by botanists. Nevertheless, the changes agreed last week are the first rule alterations that taxonomists have officially agreed to the naming of species, and were welcomed by the botanist Sandy Knapp of the Natural History Museum in London, who presided over the six-day nomenclature session.

“This is an absolutely monumental first step in addressing an issue that has become a real problem in botany and also in other biological sciences,” she told the Observer. “It is a very important start.”
The change to remove the word caffra from species names was proposed by the plant taxonomist Prof Gideon Smith of Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, and his colleague Prof Estrela Figueiredo. They have campaigned for years for changes to be made to the international system for giving scientific names to plants and animals in order to permit the deletion and substitution of past names deemed objectionable.

“We are very pleased with the retroactive and permanent eradication of a racial slur from botanical nomenclature,” Smith told the Observer. “It is most encouraging that more than 60% of our international colleagues supported this proposal.”

And the Australian plant taxonomist Kevin Thiele – who had originally pressed for historical past names to be subject to changes as well as future names – told Nature that last week’s moves were “at least a sliver of recognition of the issue”.

Plant names are only a part of the taxonomic controversy, however. Naming animals after racists, fascists and other controversial figures cause just as many headaches as those posed by plants, say scientists. Examples include a brown, eyeless beetle which has been named after Adolf Hitler. Nor is Anophthalmus hitleri alone. Many other species’ names recall individuals that offend, such as the moth Hypopta mussolinii.

The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) has so far refused to consider changing its rules to allow the removal of racist or fascist references. Renaming would be disruptive, while replacement names could one day be seen as offensive “as attitudes change in the future”, it announced in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society last year. Nevertheless, many researchers have acknowledged that some changes will have to be made to zoological nomenclature rules in the near future.

Knapp said: “The decision by botanists should make it clear to the scientific community that is involved in naming organisms that they need to open up conversations and to become more aware and respectful of what names should be permitted.

“We have taken a baby step, no more than that. We need to make more changes to the rulebook. However, you never get anywhere until you start taking steps, and we have done that at last.”

This article was amended on 21 July 2024. The name change of Erythrina caffra to Erythrina affra will take effect by the end of this month, not “from 2026” as an earlier version said.

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Dozens of birds, including ones named after white supremacists, are being renamed

Dozens of bird species in the United States and Canada will get "imaginative" new names that reflect their traits and habitats rather than the names of people, the American Ornithological Society announced Wednesday.

The society plans to remove all human names from the common names for birds within its jurisdiction, to create a more inclusive environment for people of diverse backgrounds interested in bird-watching and ornithology. The public process, yet to be fully defined, will include 70 to 80 birds in the U.S. and Canada, the society stated.

Following years of controversy over bird names linked to people with racist and genocidal histories, the society's decision thrills ornithologists and scientists who supported a campaign to name birds for themselves.

"I'm really excited about this change," said Corina Newsome, an ornithologist who was among a group of dozens of Black outdoor enthusiasts that launched the first Black Birders Week in May 2020.

"It’s a major change in how we think about bird names," said Sushma Reddy, secretary of the society and the Breckenridge Chair of Ornithology at the University of Minnesota. "We came to the decision that we really want bird names to be about birds."

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The Movement to Rename Species

The common names of some species have not aged well. These scientists want to change them.

For Stephen Carr Hampton, the Scott’s oriole is a beautiful bird with an ugly name—so ugly, in fact, that he won’t say it out loud.

Hampton, who recently retired from a career at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, is an avid birdwatcher and enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation—he has traced his ancestry all the way back to the Cherokees’ Constitutional Convention in 1827. After the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and a series of violent raids, Hampton’s forebears were driven out of their homeland in Georgia by the U.S. military. Hampton’s great-great-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Parks, then 17 years old, drove a wagon that carried his own people to an Oklahoma reservation—part of what would become known as the Trail of Tears. The architect of that cruel process was General Winfield Scott, who had also played a role in the U.S. military effort to push the Seminole out of Florida. Under orders from President Martin Van Buren in 1838, Scott oversaw the brutal campaign to force around 60,000 members of the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw nations from their ancestral homes to lands west of the Mississippi. The forced march and relocation killed thousands, and many more faced starvation, exposure, exhaustion and disease after their arrival.

In 1854, a U.S. Army officer named Darius Couch observed a striking black-and-yellow desert oriole. The bird already had a scientific name: Icterus parisorum. But it had no common name—the name most people use informally to refer to a species—so Couch called the bird “Scott’s oriole,” after his commander, Winfield Scott. Three decades later, when the American Ornithological Union published its first checklist of common English bird names, Scott’s oriole became official.

Today, Hampton can’t stomach the name. “There are other Indian-killer bird names, such as Abert’s towhee, Clark’s nutcracker and Couch’s kingbird, or Indian-skull collector names like Townsend’s warbler and Townsend’s solitaire,” Hampton wrote in a blog post in 2021. “It’s hard to be a Native birder in the West and not run into these. But nothing irks me like Scott.” He wants that name changed. And many others agree with him.

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Originally posted by BrandonP:

It is still a rather bigoted name though. Changing these scientific names to be less offensive might seem minor, but I can't see it doing harm either.

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https://theconversation.com/jail-time-for-south-african-woman-using-racist-slur-sets-new-precedent-94179

Jail time for South African woman using racist slur sets new precedent
Published: March 29, 2018

A South African estate agent Vicky Momberg was caught on video verbally abusing a black policeman. She used the word ‘kaffirs’ repeatedly during her tirade against men who were trying to assist. The word is deeply offensive and considered the most racist in South Africa. The state brought a case of crimen injuria against Momberg and a court has sentenced her to three years in jail (one suspended). This makes her the first person in the country to be jailed for this offence.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger

Early use
The variants neger and negar derive from various Romance words for 'black', including the Spanish and Portuguese word negro ('black') and the now-pejorative French nègre. Etymologically, negro, noir, nègre, and nigger ultimately derive from nigrum, the stem of the Latin niger ('black').

In its original English-language usage, nigger (also spelled niger) was a word for a dark-skinned individual. The earliest known published use of the term dates from 1574, in a work alluding to "the Nigers of Aethiop, bearing witnes".[8] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first derogatory usage of the term nigger was recorded two centuries later, in 1775.[9]

In the colonial America of 1619, John Rolfe used negars in describing the African slaves shipped to the Virginia colony.[10] Later American English spellings, neger and neggar, prevailed in New York under the Dutch and in metropolitan Philadelphia's Moravian and Pennsylvania Dutch communities; the African Burial Ground in New York City originally was known by the Dutch name Begraafplaats van de Neger (Cemetery of the Negro). An early occurrence of neger in American English dates from 1625 in Rhode Island.[11] Lexicographer Noah Webster suggested the neger spelling in place of negro in his 1806 dictionary.

18th- and 19th-century United States

Lyrics for the song "Run, Nigger, Run", about a fugitive slave escaping from a slave patrol, printed in 1851
During the late 18th and early 19th century, the word "nigger" also described an actual labor category, which African American laborers adopted for themselves as a social identity, and thus white people used the descriptor word as a distancing or derogatory epithet, as if "quoting black people" and their non-standard language.[13] During the early 1800s to the late 1840s fur trade in the Western United States, the word was spelled "niggur", and is often recorded in the literature of the time. George Fredrick Ruxton used it in his "mountain man" lexicon, without pejorative connotation. "Niggur" was evidently similar to the modern use of "dude" or "guy". This passage from Ruxton's Life in the Far West illustrates the word in spoken form—the speaker here referring to himself: "Travler, marm, this niggur's no travler; I ar' a trapper, marm, a mountain-man, wagh!"[14] It was not used as a term exclusively for blacks among mountain men during this period, as Indians, Mexicans, and Frenchmen and Anglos alike could be a "niggur".[15] "The noun slipped back and forth from derogatory to endearing."[16]

By 1859 the term was clearly used to offend, in an attack on abolitionist John Brown.[17]

The term "colored" or "negro" became a respectful alternative. In 1851, the Boston Vigilance Committee, an abolitionist organization, posted warnings to the Colored People of Boston and vicinity. Writing in 1904, journalist Clifton Johnson documented the "opprobrious" character of the word nigger, emphasizing that it was chosen in the South precisely because it was more offensive than "colored" or "negro".[18] By the turn of the century, "colored" had become sufficiently mainstream that it was chosen as the racial self-identifier for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 2008 Carla Sims, its communications director, said "the term 'colored' is not derogatory, [the NAACP] chose the word 'colored' because it was the most positive description commonly used [in 1909, when the association was founded]. It's outdated and antiquated but not offensive."[19]

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ That's one of many reasons why racism is nonsensical. Kaffir was a religious slur against non-Muslims. So what if a black Muslim from East Africa were to call a white Afrikaaner a 'kaffir'. Would he be penalized for using the word in its original context??

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Historical Dictionary of the British Empire.

KAFFIRS
The term 'kaffir' (sometimes spelled 'caffre') was derived from the Arabic word meaning 'unbeliever' or 'infidel' and applied as a general term to non-Muslims. When asked by the newly arrived Portuguese in the 16th century, the Islamic Arab/Swahili people in the coastal east African cities replied, perhaps dismissively, that the negroid African people in the interior were 'Kaffirs'. Kaffirs became a general term used by the Portuguese to refer to all Bantu-speaking Africans of eastern and southern Africa. This usage was picked up by the Dutch as they supplanted the Portuguese in the 17th century and brought to South Africa with the founding of Cape Town in 1652.

The nearest Bantu-speaking people, the southern Nguni-the Xhosa especially (see Xhosa)-were about 600-700 miles eastwards in the eastern part of the modem Cape Province and Transkei. By the end of the 18th century, contacts and conflict began to increase in the eastern Cape Colony between the westward migrating Xhosa and the eastward migrating white Trekboers. 'Kaffir' in the 19th century acquired a more specific meaning and referred especially to the Xhosa proper to distinguish them from other southern Nguni groups such as the Thembu, Mfengu and Mpondo. It was not meant as an insult and was capitalized; many Xhosa used the term in this way in referring to themselves. It was with this meaning referring to the Xhosa that it was used in such terms as Kaffir Wars, Kaffirland and British Kaffraria.

However, especially among the Trekboers, the term had always been used in a generalized way to refer to Bantu-speaking Africans; as racism grew, so did the pejorative connotations of the term. By the end of the 19th century, the term had similar connotations and uses as the term "ni**er" had. As a result, the term became unacceptable both to the Xhosa (as well as other Africans) and to the more polite among whites. Thus, it disappeared from official and polite use. Today, only the very offensive, pejorative connotations and uses of the term remain in South Africa.

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KAFFIRS ARE LIVELY
Being some backstage impressions of the South African Democracy
By: OLIVER WALKER
1949

The real dynamics of the white-black struggle in South Africa did not reveal
themselves until after the occupation of the Gape by the British in 1795.
By that time the white frontiersmen had pushed their authority north-eastwards and
were in contact with the downward-pressing Bantu tribes—”Kaffirs” or “unbelievers”, as
they were called—the naked, brown, spear-throwing men of Palo, Galeika, Rarabe and
lesser chiefs of the great Xhosa-sp caking nation.

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CHAPTER II
NOT ALL NATIVES ARE ZULUS

“Nothing but forced Christianity or civilization will spoil the Zulus.”— JOHN DUNN,
White Zulu Chief, 1879.
NOT ALL South Africa’s 7,750,000 Native peoples are Zulus. Not all of them like
dancing half-naked, waving spears and chanting war-songs. Not all of them are strictly
black, round-headed and answering to the generic names of “John”, “Mary”, “Jim” or
“Annie”. Newcomers to the country are apt to complain that the black people all look
alike. Yet physically there is as much, if not more diversity among them as in the nations
classed as European.
The larger section of South Africa’s 2,300,000 white population—i.e., the 1,500,000
who are Afrikaans-speaking and of mixed Holland-French-German stock, the balance
being mainly English-descended—does not wish to call its black fellow-countrymen
“Africans”. It complains that when translated into Afrikaans the word “African” becomes
“Afrikaner”, and must lead to confusion with themselves. Officially, therefore, the black
people are “Natives”, the old label “Kaffir” having been discarded, although it is still
commonly used in the “Bible Belt” or Platteland (Flat land) which is predominantly
Afrikaans-speaking. “Kaffir” has too many contemptuous connotations for official use,
despite its pseudo-historical background. It is, in fact, an adjective of contempt in
ordinary speech of the South African when he speaks of a “Kaffir” trick, or “Kaffir”
work. The Zulus themselves at the peak of their fighting greatness in the middle days of
the last century used the word hi this fashion to brand their black neighbours (many of
them exiles from Zululand) on the other side of the Tugela River in Natal.

----

The Urban Areas Act prevents Africans buying property or leasing it. They only rent
places, (Even in the Reserves—the only place where any normal transactions are
allowed—the acquisition of an arable plot requires the consent of the Native
Commissioner.) Africans born in urban areas have no right to demand accommodation
from the local authority. With anyone else not black his right to occupy premises depends
on his economic ability to pay. African “rights” depend on official discretion. According
to Mr. Molteno, who is a lawyer as well as a Parliamentarian, it would require in law a
Cabinet decision for an African to be permitted to buy land in an urban area. As for
trading, there is a part of the Act which enables licences to be refused on racial grounds,
even for Africans in African locations.

----

Apart from Fort Hare a few Africans and non-white students are admitted to the
Universities of Cape Town and the Wit-watersrand. The Universities of Stellenbosch,
Pretoria and Potchefstroom—all predominantly Afrikaans-speaking—pride themselves
on keeping the black man out. Nor do the colleges of the Free State and Eastern Cape
admit non-whites. When challenged they talk about a separate African university from
which the students when qualified will be able to work as professors, doctors, lawyers,
architects and the like in some vague segregated areas never properly defined, where a
kind of self-government for Africans will be allowed so long as the working classes come
and do the heavy work for the white man. These Afrikaans universities
are forcinghouses for racialism. The outlook of the teaching staff is
such that the courses are guaranteed to stimulate anti-Native, anti-Indian, anti-coloured feeling. Their attitude and the
attitude of the Dutch Reformed Church through its pulpits are a guarantee that a
repressive race policy towards Africans will never lack blind devotees among white
South Africans.
Anti-colour feeling is as sanctified in these seats of learning as it is in the religion of
the Afrikaner people. This is the nation’s insurance policy against the onset of the liberal
spirit. This is the eleventh commandment, the Law of Self-Preservation, and the holiest of
all laws for white South Africa. And this is the law which holds in it the seeds of certain
conflict.

https://vidyaonline.org/dl/kafir.pdf

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Also in Sweden, there have been discussions about birds with racist-sounding names, and in several cases one has chosen to change their names. The Indian (as in Native American) silktail has become the tuja silktail, kaffir sailer are now called white-rumped sailer and negro finches are today called nigrits.

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When the world's birds recently received new Swedish names, the Taxonomy Committee's ambition was to remove offensive species names. A total of ten species that previously contained words such as "negro", "gypsy", "kaffer" and "hottentot" have therefore been given new names. However, bird names containing "lapp" have been retained because the word may refer to the landscape of Lapland.

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The Language Council: Therefore, is kaffir sailer an inappropriate name


The palmetto sparrow, which in English is called Bachman's sparrow after John Bachman who made racist statements about black people, is one of the bird species proposed to be renamed in the United States.
 

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Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
Translated from a Swedish News article:

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Also in Sweden, there have been discussions about birds with racist-sounding names, and in several cases one has chosen to change their names. The Indian (as in Native American) silktail has become the tuja silktail, kaffir sailer are now called white-rumped sailer and negro finches are today called nigrits.

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Hundreds of birds get new names in Sweden

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The word for black in Swedish as you know is svart. Is the article rereferring to the terms in Swedish language?

"negro finches are today called nigrits."

I have a pay wall ( or something) to read that Swedish article, can you please post the non-translated version of this sentence

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wikipedia:

Nigrita (bird)

The nigritas, formerly called negrofinches, are small passerine birds belonging to the genus Nigrita in the estrildid finch family Estrildidae. There are four species which occur in forest, secondary growth and scrubland in West, Central and East Africa.

The colour of the plumage varies but all have a dark tail. The upperparts are grey or brown and the underparts are black, grey, white or reddish brown.


Grey-headed Nigrita, Tanzania

Grey-headed Nigrita, Uganda
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"Negra" is the feminine form of "Negro" and is used non-offensively in Spanish although has come to be offensive in English probably due to the similarity to the N word and having been replaced by "Black"



This word Nigrita still refers to black people and we can see it used here in 1869 for the scientific name for the also called "negro finch".
The similar word "Negrita"

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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/spanish-word-negrita-stirs-debate-term-endearment-racist-legacy-rcna138821

The word 'negrita' stirs debate: term of endearment or veiled racism?

The term "negrita" or "negrito," from the word "negro," or Black, is commonly used in Spanish-speaking countries. But is it just a term of endearment and who gets to use it?

Feb. 15, 2024, 9:46 AM EST
By Maya Brown
Generations of Latinos have grown up hearing a family member call a relative or friend "negrita" or "negrito" — which translates to a diminutive of Black.

While many Latinos use the Spanish word as a term of endearment — with some even referring to white family members as "negrita" or "negrito" — in the U.S. there's an ongoing debate over who gets to use the term and to whom, and whether defending its use obscures Latin America's racist past.

Many in the Black and Afro Latino community feel offended when the term is used to describe them.

In 2020, when Jennifer Lopez sang, “Yo siempre seré tu negrita del Bronx” (I will always be your little Black girl from the Bronx), in a song with Colombia singer Maluma, she was met with pushback by some who pointed out that she has never claimed Black ancestry or identified herself as an Afro Latina, while others defended Lopez, saying it was a common term of affection used by different races.

Tally Joyce, a 27-year-old content creator on TikTok, first began making videos to share her Afro Latina experience and make others feel seen. Since moving from Honduras seven years ago, she has gained over 100,000 followers and recently went to the platform to talk about why she has a problem with other people using “negrita” and “morena” (which means brown) to replace “negra," or Black.

She believes it isn’t always necessary to make the word “cuter” or dumb down the word because the word “negra” describes a part of who she is — Black.

In recent years, more Afro Latinos in the U.S. have embraced the Spanish word for Black, including the Afro Latina singer Amara La Negra, who takes pride in the word.

Understanding the word's past
Tanya Katerí Hernández, author of “Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias” and a Fordham University School of Law professor, said context is vital when the word is used, as she’s heard it used as a term of endearment and in a way that can be considered problematic — when someone who’s white presenting or identifying uses the word to belittle someone.

She said it’s important to point out the diminutive suffix attached to the word — “ita,” which translates to “little.”

People often forget how using this term is a tie to the paternalism of slavery’s past, Hernández said, where it can feel like the person is saying “my Black person” since the “ita” creates a sense of intimacy.

“This sense of intimacy that it’s meant to conjure pays a compliment that a person is within your networks, while at the same time, it is the only way that some people can find Blackness somewhat relational and acceptable — if it’s hierarchical,” Hernández said.

She explained how using the word is only sometimes without harm to the person who is the target of the word.

“The problem is that this way of showing love comes with historical baggage both referencing people’s racial appearance and also putting them in their place,” Hernández said.

The word “negrita,” Hernández points out, reflects the discomfort of Blackness often found within Latino communities.

“It still represents the way in which, within Latin America and the Caribbean, Blackness is an issue, meaning we aren’t a sort of racial utopia free of any racial discord,” Hernández said.

When JLo used the term in her song, Twitter users labeled the word as a derogatory term and went on to say it was a “literal slap in the face for every Black woman.”

Joyce agreed with this sentiment, viewing the pop star's use of the term as cultural appropriation and insensitivity to the Afro Latino and Black communities.

However, some social media users showed support for JLo.

“Everybody in Puerto Rico has been using negrita for a long time,” one user tweeted. “This cancel stuff is ridiculous. It’s never being a derogatory term for us Puerto Ricans, All Puerto Ricans come from interracial Parents.”

Growing up in Puerto Rico, Isabel Molina-Guzman, a professor in Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said the term wasn’t always necessarily directly about skin color for her family, but was frequently used as a term of endearment with people of all shades.

While Molina-Guzman knows the term can have a loving meaning, she also recognizes there is a legacy of colonization and slavery rooted in the word. She said the history of the word also shows the social value being given to people with lighter skin.

“The fact that I was darker than the rest of my cousins meant something and not necessarily in a good way, as much as they wanted it to,” Molina-Guzman said.

Consistently being called "negrita" also made her conscious of her skin color and she said she feels there is an underlying meaning — "You’re so cute and we love you, but at the same time, don’t get too dark," she said.

“It’s like a double-edged sword,” Molina-Guzmán said. “Whiteness over Indigeneity or Blackness has always been privileged. It links to class and education in pretty much all countries in Latin America and in the Caribbean.”

Molina-Guzmán believes that although the term should mainly be used as a loving term from someone one knows or cares about, it's important to think about the critical history behind it.

“Negrita being a term of endearment doesn’t erase the racial legacy of the word,” she said.

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Here we see the word "Nigrita" discussed back in 1716

so despite not being spelled "Negrita" spelled with an "e" it still refers to black people according to this very old book

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The solution here is simple, call the bird a black finch, that is not a problem
Only use "negro' in Spanish prose context
such as "pinzón negro" (black finch).
The complexity here is word negro is inoffensive in Spanish but in recent times, in English speech context offensive.
I can understand that since it sounds partially like the N word

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unrelated, just interesting

Nigrita
(Greek: Νιγρίτα)

Nigrita is a town and center as the seat of the Municipality of Visaltia in the Regional Unit of Serres in Macedonia . Its permanent population according to the 2021 census is 4,892 inhabitants, while according to the 2011 census it was 4,947 inhabitants.

There are various explanations for the origin of the town's name. In old texts Nigrita is referred to as Igrita and as Negrita . The current name of Nigrita was derived from Igrita , according to the scheme: Igrita > Nigrita > Nigrita . According to a similar scheme, the starting point of the name Negrita must have been Egrita , but this did not prevail. The origins of the name Igrita and Egrita lead to the identical Turkish words, eğri, iğri which mean, among other things, "inclined", "sideways".

The location of Nigrita, without Surpa , at the foot of the mountain justifies the association. The syllables -de , -da , -ta , -te as second compounds in the Turkish language take the place of prepositions that specify place, in, on, over, in, etc. Consequently, egri-ta or igri-ta in free translation mean "in the sloping place".

Near today's Nigrita, various sites of ancient settlements of the Hellenistic and Roman era have been marked. Earlier researchers even placed the ancient Vergi here . However, it seems more likely that the site of the ancient city of Visaltias , capital of the Visalti , known to us from Stefanos Byzantios , is near Nigrita . This speculation is strengthened even more by the possible identification of the ancient Visaltis river with the nearby "Megalo Rema", which flows next to the present-day village of Therma . [ 4 ] Finally, another indication is provided by the fact that Nigrita was in recent years the largest settlement in the province of Visaltia.

Newer times
Processing
The settlement of Nigrita was created, according to the most likely view, in the middle of the 16th century by inhabitants of mountainous regions and the population gradually increased until the beginning of the 20th century , when it reached 4,300 inhabitants
 

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Originally posted by the lioness,:

I have a pay wall ( or something) to read that Swedish article, can you please post the non-translated version of this sentence

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Hundratals fågelarter som är uppkallade efter personer kommer att få nya namn i Sverige. USA beslutade nyligen att göra samma sak för att undvika associationer till personer med rasistisk anknytning.

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I några fall har namnen ändrats eftersom de nuvarande anses kränkande. Negerfinken, zigenarfågeln och kafferseglaren är några exempel på fåglar som numera flyger runt med nya svenska namn.

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Även i Sverige har det diskuterats om fåglar med rasistiskt klingande namn och i flera fall har man valt att byta namn. Indian-sidensvansen har blivit tuja-silkessvansen, kafferseglare kallas numera vitgumpseglare och negerfinkar kallas idag nigrita.

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Palmettosparven, som på engelska heter Bachman's sparrow efter John Bachman som gjort rasistiska uttalanden om svarta personer, är en av fågelarterna som föreslås få byta namn i USA.

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Språkrådet: Därför är kafferseglare ett olämpligt namn

När världens fåglar nyligen fick nya svenska namn hade Taxonomikommittén som ambition att ta bort kränkande artnamn. Sammanlagt tio arter som tidigare innehöll ord som “neger”, “zigenare”, “kaffer” och “hottentott” har därför fått nya namn. Fågelnamn som innehåller “lapp” har dock behållits eftersom ordet kan syfta på landskapet Lappland.

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Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
[QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by the lioness,:

I have a pay wall ( or something) to read that Swedish article, can you please post the non-translated version of this sentence

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Även i Sverige har det diskuterats om fåglar med rasistiskt klingande namn och i flera fall har man valt att byta namn. Indian-sidensvansen har blivit tuja-silkessvansen, kafferseglare kallas numera vitgumpseglare och negerfinkar kallas idag nigrita.

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Even in Sweden, there has been discussion about birds with racist-sounding names, and in several cases they have chosen to change their names. The Indian silktail has become the tuja silktail, kaffir seals are now called white-rumped seals and black finches are today called nigrita.

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https://www.etymonline.com/word/Niger

etymology online

Niger

African nation, named for the river Niger, mentioned by that name 1520s (Leo Africanus), probably an alteration (by influence of Latin niger "black") of a local Tuareg name, egereou n-igereouen, from egereou "big river, sea" + n-igereouen, plural of that word. Translated in Arabic as nahr al-anhur "river of rivers."

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wiktionary

Niger

Etymology
Commonly linked by folk etymology to Latin niger (“black”), which likely influenced the modern spelling.

Some sources give the term to Tuareg roots, deriving it from a claimed gher n-gheren or egereou n-igereouen (“river of rivers”).[1][2] Compare Tarifit iɣzar-n-iɣezran.

Older sources derive Niger, via a series of mistranslations and geographic misplacements by Greek, Roman and Arab geographers, from Ptolemy's descriptions of the wadi Gir (in modern Algeria) and the "Lower Gir" (or "Ni-Gir") to the south.[3]

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Acts 13:1-4
King James Version
13 Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.

2 As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.

3 And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.

4 So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus.

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Strong's Exhaustive Bible Concordance

Niger

NAS Exhaustive Concordance
Word Origin
of Latin origin (dark in color)
Definition
Niger, a Christian
NASB Translation
Niger (1).

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US ornithological society says dozens of birds will be renamed

Several bird species in the US and Canada will receive new names based on their habitats and traits rather than people's names, the American Ornithological Society has announced.

After years of controversy, the society will remove all human names for bird species, including those linked to people with racist histories.
Their goal is to create a more inclusive environment for bird-watching fans.
Seventy to 80 birds will be renamed.

"Exclusionary naming conventions developed in the 1800s, clouded by racism and misogyny, don't work for us today, and the time has come for us to transform this process and redirect the focus to the birds, where it belongs," the society's CEO, Judith Scarl, said in a statement.
Birds that will be renamed include Wilson's warbler and Wilson's snipe, both named after 19th Century naturalist Alexander Wilson.
In 2020, the American Ornithological Society (AOS) renamed a bird named after a Confederate Army general, John P McCown, as the thick-billed longspur.

The AOS said it will create a new committee to oversee the assignment of the new bird names.
"This committee will broaden participation by including a diverse representation of individuals with expertise in the social sciences, communications, ornithology, and taxonomy," the AOS said in its statement.
The public will also be involved in the process, it added.
The organisation said these "momentous decisions" were made to change harmful and exclusionary English bird names.
Earlier this year the National Audubon Society, a bird conservation organisation, decided to retain its name despite a push for a change.
James John Audubon, a famous American naturalist and wildlife illustrator, also owned slaves and held "harmful attitudes toward Black and Indigenous people", the NAS has acknowledged.
The decision was taken "after a lengthy process to examine its name in light of the personal history of its namesake", the society said in a March statement.
"The name has come to represent so much more than the work of one person, but a broader love of birds and nature, and a non-partisan approach to conservation,"  Susan Bell, who is on the society's board, said.

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Originally posted by Archeopteryx:


Shall we remove all names of historical people who acted or spoke in ways which today are considered wrong? A similar debate has also taken place regarding streets, schools and other facilities named after historical persons. Also statues of certain persons have been contested.

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Originally posted by Archeopteryx:
[QB] When the waves of BLM reached Sweden, some came to question certain Swedish historical figures as well. One of those who was criticized was Carl von Linné and his division of man into four different variants:

1 – Europeus albus – (white European)
2 - Americanus rubescens – (red American)
3 - Asiaticus fuscus – (brown Asian)
4 – Africanus niger – (black African)

He also gave the different varieties different characteristics.

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Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming organisms. He is known as the "father of modern taxonomy". Many of his writings were in Latin; his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus and, after his 1761 ennoblement, as Carolus a Linné.


https://magazine.brighamandwomens.org/departments/bad-ideas-great-minds

In 1758, Swedish physician and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus published the 10th edition of his classic work, “Systema Naturae,” hierarchically ranking and describing four varieties of the human species. While Linnaeus’ racial groups were based on geography, he also assigned them distinct personality traits, skills, and behaviors:

The Europeanus: white, sanguine, browny; with abundant, long hair; blue eyes; gentle, acute, inventive; covered with close vestments; and governed by laws.

The Americanus: red, choleric, righteous; black, straight, thick hair; stubborn, zealous, free; painting himself with red lines; and regulated by customs.

The Asiaticus: yellow, melancholic, stiff; black hair, dark eyes; severe, haughty, greedy; covered with loose clothing; and ruled by opinions.

The Afer or Africanus: black, phlegmatic, relaxed; black, frizzled hair; silky skin, flat nose, tumid lips; females without shame; mammary glands give milk abundantly; crafty, sly, lazy, cunning, lustful, careless; anoints himself with grease; and governed by caprice.

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In the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae (1758) Linnaeus made substantial changes to his earlier taxonomy of humans.

Within a decade after Linnaeus’s death Blumenbach would propose a racial classification
which was largely built on Linnaeus’s earlier scheme: four main races were proposed,
one of which was named the Caucasian. In 1795, Blumenbach introduced an additional
fifth human race, the Malay...

Linnaeus’s 1735 division of humankind into varieties was not new. In the 1680s the
French traveller and writer François Bernier had proposed four main varieties, or
“races,” of humans. The first included the inhabitants of Europe, North Africa, Egypt,
India, and certain parts of Southeast Asia.

stereotypes of Africans which emerged in the beginning of the eighteenth century, and had
been reinforced by travel literature generated by the Dutch presence in the Cape.

Skott, C. (2019). Human Taxonomies: Carl Linnaeus, Swedish Travel in Asia and the Classification of Man. Itinerario, 43(02), 218–242. doi:10.1017/s016511531900024x 

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Carl von Linné Monument
Chicago, Hyde Park


Statue of Carl von Linné, Stockholm


Statue of Carl von Linné in Lund (Sweden)



Statue of Carl von Linné
The University of Uppsala Botanical Garden, Sweden
 

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Statement on the decision to drop "Audubon" by the Board of Directors | March 2023

After a rigorous assessment, the board of directors of NYC Audubon (now known as NYC Bird Alliance) voted on March 20, 2023, to change the organization’s name, dropping “Audubon” and beginning a process to develop a new name that represents what we do, embodies our organizational values, and is inclusive and welcoming to all New Yorkers.

While we value John James Audubon’s contributions to art and ornithology, and the foundation he laid for an appreciation of nature and a conservation ethos in this country, we recognize that his views and actions towards people of color and Indigenous people were harmful and offensive—and that the harm continues today, presenting a barrier to people who might otherwise become involved in or support our work. We acknowledge that the use of "Audubon" in our name affects our ability to retain and attract staff, board members, supporters, volunteers, and organization members.

At a time when birds are threatened by climate change, habitat loss, and the risks of built infrastructure in urban environments, it is more vital than ever that we enlist support from allies, partners, and the public. The more people who hear our message and help us help bird populations, the better. The protection of birds depends on work and support from all the communities across our City.

We are committed to continuing our work to create a more sustainable city for wildlife and people, and we believe that dropping “Audubon” from our name is an important step towards achieving that goal.

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National Audubon Society Announces Decision to Retain Current Name

Organization commits to new $25 million fund to expand Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging work, a decision that follows a thorough and inclusive process to examine the legacy of its namesake.

New York, NY – The Board of Directors of the National Audubon Society (NAS) today announced that it has decided to retain the name of the organization, after a lengthy process to examine its name in light of the personal history of its namesake, John James Audubon. The decision was made taking into consideration many factors, including the complexity of John James Audubon’s legacy and how the decision would impact NAS’s mission to protect birds and the places they need long into the future. The organization will continue its non-partisan commitment to habitat conservation and climate action, its agenda-setting policy work, and community-building efforts to advance its mission.

 As the organization looks to maximize its impact and live its values, NAS announced a new $25 million commitment to fund the expansion of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (EDIB) specific work in both internal and conservation initiatives over the next five years. NAS recognizes that its most critical EDIB work lies in empowering and resourcing work to actualize our values of equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging. The Board’s decision enables the organization to focus its time, resources, and capacity on the organization’s new Strategic Plan and putting its EDIB commitments into action.

The Board’s naming decision follows a robust and inclusive evaluation process, which spanned more than 12 months and included input from more than 2,300 people from across the NAS network and beyond—including survey responses from more than 1,700 NAS staff, members, volunteers, donors, chapters, campus chapter members, and partners and more than 600 people across the country with a focus on reaching people of color and younger people. NAS also commissioned historical research that examined John James Audubon’s life, views, and how they did—and did not—reflect his time.

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John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin, April 26, 1785 – January 27, 1851) was a French-American self-trained artist, naturalist, and ornithologist. His combined interests in art and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictorial record of all the bird species of North America. He was notable for his extensive studies documenting all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations, which depicted the birds in their natural habitats. His major work, a color-plate book titled The Birds of America (1827–1839), is considered one of the finest ornithological works ever completed. Audubon is also known for identifying 25 new species. He is the eponym of the National Audubon Society, and his name adorns a large number of towns, neighborhoods, and streets across the United States. Dozens of scientific names first published by Audubon are still in use by the scientific community.

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The Audubon family owned several slaves while he was in Henderson, until they needed money at which point they were sold. Audubon was condemned contemporaneously by abolitionists. Audubon was dismissive of abolitionists in both the US and the United Kingdom.

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John James Audubon


John James Audubon 1826

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Reflecting on Audubon: Addressing His Racist Practices
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It has been well documented that Audubon held white supremacist views and enslaved at least nine people during his lifetime.

John James Audubon was born in Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) in the late 1700s. While many scholars have speculated about his heritage, research argues that Audubon was born to a plantation owner and a woman of Creole/African descent (Nobles 2017, John James Audubon: The Nature of the American Woodsman). At a young age, Audubon was sent to France to live with his father’s wife, Anne, where he developed an interest in nature, drawing, and the study of birds. At the age of 18, Audubon moved to a family-owned estate in Pennsylvania.
Although Audubon grew to be one of the world’s most celebrated artists and naturalists, he embraced white supremacist ideals and committed despicable racist acts throughout his lifetime. He bought and sold enslaved people, spoke out against emancipation, and unethically contributed to research to advance a white-dominant society. While messy and complex, it is necessary to address Audubon’s racist practices and critically examine his legacy when showcasing and discussing his work.

It is impossible to know if Audubon relied on Indigenous and local knowledge about flora and fauna to complete Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America (given most of the work for these volumes was actually done by his son), scholars have noted that Audubon relied on Indigenous and Black knowledge while completing his magnum opus, The Birds of America, as Native and Black peoples gave him information about where and how to find certain birds (Nobles 2017, John James Audubon: The Nature of the American Woodsman).

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