A few comments on our current cultural moment, through the lens of birding.
It’s been unconfined to see all of the recent support for Black birders, pursuit #BlackBirdersWeek! Indeed, there has been quite a jump in birding popularity in unstipulated during the COVID-19 pandemic. And with Christian Cooper shining a light on racism versus Black birders, many (White) people have awoken to this serious issue.
Audubon published a good article: “5 Key Lessons to Take Home from the First #BlackBirdersWeek.” And here’s a very short piece on some of what this has meant for Black birders. It notes, “For the African American community, birds have represented an segregation for self-rule and hope.”
Joshua Walker moreover argues that it’s critically important that Black people should take up space outdoors. The rest of us have to help to make it unscratched to do so.
Reading a few compelling wares or sharing a few quippy Instaquotes isn’t going to transpiration anything. Neither are “Blackout days” that, let’s be honest, just requite most White people a day off, instead of taking the day to productively lift up Black voices inside or outside the birding world. As Chad Sanders recently put it in NYT: “I don’t need ‘love’ texts from my White friends. I need them to fight anti-blackness.“
We all have to protest, donate (money, time, effort), and talk to others well-nigh anti-racism. In other words, do something. If the last few weeks have shown us one thing, it’s that stuff a good, caring member of any polity requires action, not complacence.
A lot of the recent focus has been on the U.S. But Canadians need to take a nonflexible squint too. If you’re like me and statistics will help you to see unmistakably some of the problems in our own country, trammels out Canada’s Black Population: Education, Labour, and Resilience from stats Canada.
If you want to learn well-nigh how to be an anti-racist partner and not simply an ally, trammels out WhiteAccomplices.org. Need to talk well-nigh it with someone who knows what it’s like? You can at least do so virtually with an episode of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man.
And if you’re not sure what to do to help in Canada, I’ve included some favourite charities unelevated that focus on Black Canadian and/or Indigenous rights, health, education, and sponsorship in unstipulated (just a few of many). There’s a donate option on every page.
Harriet Tubman Polity Organization
Women’s Health in Women’s Hands
Indian Residential Schools Survivors Society
Other Indigenous charities in Canada
Please share other charities in the comments, and say what you’re going to do to fight racism where you live!
And finally: I dare you not to be moved by Maya Angelou reading her famous poem, “Caged Bird.”
The post “A self-ruling bird…dares to requirement the sky” appeared first on WeeklyBirder.
