“Look! Up in the sky!” “It’s a bird!” “It’s a plane!” No, it’s yet another set of inane controversies over words. In mid-August, the Washington Post reported that “the American Ornithological Society has changed the name of the McCown’s longspur to the thick-billed longspur. The original honored John Porter McCown, a Confederate general who also led campaigns against Native American tribes.” Now, I am more of a Sherman fan than a McCown man, so I am not attached to the traitorous loser. But the fact that it came up recalled a 2019 Word of the Week on the term “offense archaeology.” The Post quotes a supporter of changing the McCown name, who notes that “hardly anyone was aware of it until [an activist biology student] pointed it out.” Interesting.
So, why change it now? Because we’re in a moment of change. The ornithological time was ripe. The activist who has been pushing for it since 2018 was “inspired by an earlier version of the movement that’s now prompting the removal of Confederate statues nationwide and pressuring companies and sports organizations, including Washington’s football team, to reconsider their names or logos.” I can’t help but notice that name changers are having their moment — much more so than criminal justice reform advocates.
Elsewhere in skygazing: NASA is “examining its use of unofficial terminology for cosmic objects as part of its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” The agency notes that “certain cosmic nicknames are not only insensitive, but can be actively harmful.” So, NASA is cutting the names “Siamese Twins Galaxy” and “Eskimo Nebula” and “will be working with diversity, inclusion, and equity experts in the astronomical and physical sciences to provide guidance and recommendations for other nicknames and terms for review.” “Eskimo,” according to NASA, is “widely viewed as a colonial term with a racist history, imposed on the indigenous people of Arctic regions.” I have no developed view on the word, but my understanding is that as of a few years ago, “Eskimo” was mainly used as descriptive in the United States and lightly derisive in Canada. But I suppose that’s why this is left to such professionals as NASA’s “associate administrator for Diversity and Equal Opportunity.”
It can be interesting to look back to the same sorts of appeals a few short years ago, a less fertile moment for lexical revolution. In a 2014 Post article, Simon Waxman wrote that “even if the NFL and Redskins brass come to their senses and rename the team, a greater symbolic injustice would continue to afflict Indians — an injustice perpetuated not by a football club but by our federal government.” He’s talking about yet more flying objects: Apache and Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters, Gray Eagle drones, et cetera. I’m automatically struck by how, if this were written today, he’d never have said “Indians” for “indigenous people,” and he would have bothered to denounce the “tomahawk chop” hand gesture along with Raytheon’s Tomahawk missile.
The inevitable historical logic of progress and “moments” don’t determine these changes; people do. You can see because it’s so arbitrary. Somehow naming a bird after a Confederate general honors him, but naming a nebula or helicopter after a people group dishonors them. Some changes in norms may be good and some bad. Decide for yourself, I say. But people don’t really get to decide for themselves now. “The moment” is deciding for us.
