They could just change the name to the title of his most famous book; Birds of America.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight and I don’t care what the Audubon society changes their name to. I would like a more realistic assessment of America’s past, but I think renaming so many things will do the opposite. We’re just burying our hands and ignoring the complex truth that sometimes people who made very good contributions to our culture also made very bad contributions.
I felt the same way when the World Wrestling Federation becamse World Wrestling Entertainment. Twenty years later I still think of it as the WWF.
I suppose they could change it to “The Society Formerly Known As Audubon.”
For pity’s sake. No it doesn’t. There are a bajillion things they could change their name to that would be much clearer, e.g., “The Seattle Birders Association.”
No. fussing about renaming stuff makes Dems/Liberals look bad. And I think many liberals agree wtih me but they don’t speak up for fear that they might be branded woke or a social justice warrior.
The objections to this are so silly.
I feel that not renaming is burying the truth. When we rename, we confront the past and choose who and what we wish to honor.
This group that would have a hissy fit if the Audubon Society changed its name- Is it the same group that is having a hissy fit because the NAACP isn’t changing its name?
Indeed. This simple act of renaming has given more folks an education into Audubon’s enslaving ways than the last century of not renaming has done.
That’s not clearer to anyone to whom the name “Audubon Society” already means something. I don’t know what “The Seattle Birders Association” is, but it sounds like it could be an association of random dithering amateurs who run around outside with binoculars around their necks, though there’s a slight chance it could be a business association for people in the Seattle area who breed and sell canaries and parakeets.
I think that @Bootb has a legitimately good argument here. An organization or company with a reasonably well-known name has much of its reputation and credibility tied up with that name. Change the name and you forfeit that reputation, and people no longer know who you are (unless maybe you got lots of publicity about the name change).
It’s a legitimately good argument in general against a company or organization changing its name. But it’s not a conclusive argument. There may be arguments for a name change as well, and in some cases (including quite possibly this one) those arguments could outweigh the arguments against.
I also think it seems quite timely in light of the raised awareness as of about two years ago concerning the hazards of “birding while black”.
It’s not that we can’t or shouldn’t still admire Audubon’s work and his accomplishments. I have a secondhand copy of a Birds of America coffee-table volume on my bookshelf and I’m not getting rid of it, for example. But I’m also not going to get upset if the Audubon society or any subset thereof decides it would rather not be identified by the guy’s name any more.
I don’t really agree that many people know what “Audubon” means but don’t know what “birder” means. And I don’t agree that many people know what “Audubon” means any more specifically than “an association of random dithering amateurs who run around outside with binoculars around their necks”. I think you’re vastly exaggerating the problem here.
I think it’s more likely to build social capital. It creates a buzz that makes people think about the issue.
And what important and urgent problems does the Seattle Audubon Society have that the trustees ought to be addressing first? My guess is none.
And almost nothing is zero sum.
I may be more invested in the Audubon name than many of you. I spent most of my childhood summers at Audubon camps. And no, they weren’t birding camps, although that was an offered activity. I guess i could call them nature camps.
Anyway, i am not an Audubon society trustee. I’m not going to expend my energy changing the name. But I’m curious to see where they go with it.
I do believe in updating names. I maintain a file that I’ve renamed to remove the word “master” from it. I think that use of “master” has been deprecated. And as an added bonus, my file name is now shorter and more descriptive of what’s actually in the file, because i spent some shower time thinking about what might be a better name. I did not spend time and energy on it that i should have spent doing something more important. (I do spend time and energy reading the SDMB that i probably ought to spend on more important stuff…i may have a bit of an internet addiction…)
So i hope they come up with a really good name.
A friend of ours owns an Audubon Store. High end bird feeders, baths, binoculars, books, etc. I wonder how any rebranding will impact him.
I was surprised to read about this a little while ago. I hadn’t realized that Audubon was a racist, but it’s pretty undeniable.
On one hand, I’m glad this sort of thing is coming out, and that things are being renamed. Here in Boston Dudley Square (and the subway stop named after it) is now Nubian Square. Thomas Dudley was not only a slave holder, but one of the colony’s leading lights when it sanctioned slaveholding.
John Muir, the icon of the Sierra Club, is now seen as a racist (although some are pushing back against it). H.P. Lovecraft, it was clear from his writing, was racist, although I didn’t realize how racist until I came across that poem. The HBO series Lovecraft Country really made that clear.
That link near the start of this thread to the Wikipedia page on slaveholders isn’t, to me, the most eye-opening. The White House website has a number of pages on the slaveholding activities of the presidents that’s definitely worth reading. I always thought of the Adamses as the ideals of non-racist presidents in an era where that was practically impossible – they didn’t hold slaves, and Abigail was famous for teaching a black servant to read. But even they had trouble maintaining these standards, especially when living in the new White House in Washington DC, where using black slaves was built into the economy and virtually assumed and expected
I recall the line Benjamin Franklin speaks in the musical 1776 about starting the first anti-slavery group in the continent. But the line is anachronistic – he did so much later than 1776. and Franklin had, himself, been a slaveholder. he also ran advertisements for the return of runaway slaves in his newspaper
https://pennandslaveryproject.org/exhibits/show/slaveownership/earlytrustees/benfrank
Did Jefferson do anything while president to outlaw slavery? I don’t think he did .
Several things
He didn’t do anything about getting rid of slavery or ameliorating the lives of slaves in the existing states, though
And he didn’t free most of his slaves when he died – just a few that were probably his own kids or relatives. Jefferson is definitely one of the most complex and frustrating of the Founders. Wrote well, and wrote movingly about the virtues of freedom while continuing to own and exploit slaves his entire life. Inventor and philosopher and scholar who owned and used people. I have read many of his writings and love them, but deplore his lifestyle.
The top quote from here
Jefferson's Antislavery Actions | Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.
Jefferson, in 1776, says that he has resolved to free his slaves, though of course he never did. Ironically, John Dickinson, the musical’s “villain” (or as close to a villain as you could have in that story), did free his slaves just a year later.
Really? All uses, in all contexts, because the bosses of slaves used to be called masters?
Did you notice that i used the phrase “that use”? I realize i make a lot of swypos, but my language there was careful and precise.
I think the word is sensitive enough that all uses should be considered. Does the word “master” improve the accuracy or clarity of an expression? Is there a better word, or a way to recast the expression that would be as good or better?
In this case, my file not only used the word “master”, it also had a long, unwieldy name that was only partially descriptive. And “summary” better captured the purpose of the file than “master”.