The United State of Birding - After a racist encounter in the field, a birder reflects
Last edited Thu Dec 21, 2017, 02:14 PM - Edit history (1)
After a racist encounter in the field, a birder reflects on the disturbing incident and the community that helped lift him back up.
J Drew Latham is a professor of Wildlife at Clemson University - this is his story.
http://www.audubon.org/news/the-united-state-birding
A recent unpleasant experience with a farmer whose land, not so far from my southern Piedmont homeplace, harbors breeding Barn Owls and a flock of wintering White-crowned Sparrows acted as a kind of birding reset for me. On an overcast autumn Sunday morning, as I stood on a public road admiring the sweet song of a gorgeous male White-crowned skulking in a hedgerow, an elderly man approached me in a pickup truck. He seemed suspicious, and I quickly and politely introduced myself as one of the local birders who admired his farm and its birds. Thinking it would be a bridge to some commonality, the old man seemed initially pleasant but then launched into a recounting of “the good old days” of cotton farming when “niggers picked the cotton” and “everyone knew their place.”
The whistled songs of the sparrow soured in the racist revelation. If there were any doubt beyond the racial epithets about his disdain for me and wishfulness for the ways of the past, his casual mentioning of the gun in his truck sealed it. I was shocked, frightened, and angry.
I have a few hobbies that take me to places that most do go - highpointing (seeking out the highest point in a state. county, etc), and birding. Both hobbies bring me in contact with a large swath of the public.
One of my "White Privileges" is that I can feel comfortable most anywhere - whether it is knocking on a rural door asking to climb the hill behind their house, or asking to watch a feeder, etc. and not worry about the reaction I will get from the landowner. Not all are so lucky.
= new reply since forum marked as read
