Birds suffer from classism, too
High SES (socioeconomic status) birds do better than low SES birds
I’ve always found bird names interesting. (Bear with me here for the next minute - non bird-lovers may not immediately understand why. And most of my current subscribers and readers are my friends, and not exactly bird geeks like I am!)
How do birds get their common names?
It’s not as if they are like Pokémon, and shout “Pikachu!” any time they please. No, wait actually, it turns out birds do do that, and sometimes they are named after the sounds they make after all!
The answer is that birds get their names from the researchers and naturalists that study them.
There are a few ways researchers give birds their common names.
Mostly, we have descriptors: e.g., a Yellow-backed Oriole. You can expect to see an Oriole (a type of bird) that has a yellow nape.
Next, we sometimes name birds after the way they sound. For example, the Common Koel is Singapore’s unofficial alarm clock due to to their ‘ko-oel!’ or ‘koo-ooh!’ call. On this list we also have the Cuckoo and the Kookaburra.
Birds can get their common names from the area they live in, like the Laysan Albatross, found on the Laysan Islands.
Birds can be named for their behaviour and feeding habits, such as the Kingfisher (a bird that fishes) or a Bee-eater (a bird that eats bees and other insects!)
Sometimes, birds get their names from the egalomaniacs that discovered them. These examples include the Wilson’s Warbler, Wilson’s Storm-Petrel, Wilson’s Snipe, Wilson’s… you get the drill.
But sometimes, birds are given sexist and/or classist common names - and it’s a reflection of the researcher, or the era, that named them.
Named after the godly ‘priest-class’
Ever heard of the Brahminy Kite, one of Singapore’s large birds-of-prey? It’s on our limited edition $500 note! It’s a gorgeous bird, with a beautiful pristine white head and a luxurious body of reddish-brown feathers. It is sometimes also referred to as the Red-backed Sea-eagle, especially in Australia.
The Brahminy Kite gets the first part of their name from the Indian Caste, the Brahmins.
Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests and religious teachers. Generally, it’s a good thing to be from this caste. India’s four principal classes, in descending order of prestige, are: the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas, the Vaishyas and the Shudras.
And when we zoom out from our view of the Brahminy Kite just a little, we see that this practice of naming birds is common throughout history.
In the world of birds-of-prey, we have birds such as falcons and hawks, which you guys may be more familiar with, and buzzards. The word ‘buzzard’ comes from the Old French word “buisart,” which referred to a hawk species that was not used for falconry. It seems that if we have no use for an animal, we generally regard it as inferior to one for which we have some use.
Being named after the highest caste in India though, comes with the good and bad.
In Tamil, the local name for the Brahminy Kite is 'Krishna Parundu', and refers to the Hindu God Krishna. Being named after a priestly class and God is great in terms of nature conservation, funding, and general love (villagers aren’t going to treat you like Shrek, for example, and come for you with pitchforks and fire anytime you step foot in their vicinity.) I mean, they’re even on Singapore’s $1000 note - they have status! Charisma!
But all this attention can be a bad thing for the birds. In 2009, a cigarette company in Indonesia filmed a huge commercial using the Brahminy Kite as their icon - which inadvertently instigated demand for this hapless bird as pets by private pet collectors. Such a practice is bad for the species, of course.
Femke Haas, founder of the Jakarta Animal Aid Network, talks about how the cigarette advertisement sparked local demand for the Brahminy Kite.
“There is a big commercial, and they are using this bird as their icon, and now many birds are being sought by private pet owners because they think it’s cool to have these birds, since it’s an icon for this big cigarette company. And actually you see this all over Jakarta and all over Indonesia, big pictures of this bird.”
A loser and a pariah - literally named Pariah Kite
Some other birds carry caste discriminating names. One example of ‘the bad’ is the Common Pariah Kite, also commonly found in India.
The pariah kite derives its name from the untouchable lower caste 'pariah'. These large dark brown birds with forked tail when in flight are excellent acrobatic flyers that feed on a variety of food items including insects, worms, mice, lizards, frogs, small birds.
In general, birds and other animals that have discriminatory names are not treated as well as their counterparts. Think of the ways humans treat mongrel dogs, compared to purebred dogs.
Genetically, there’s not much that separate the two. Yet people pay big bucks for a purebred husky, and are much more willing to ignore or even abuse a mongrel.
It’s the same for birds, of course. In reality, names preserve our opinion of a species. Those with names like the Brahmin Kite are treated better, while Pariah Kites are chased away. Less conversation money goes to these species, too. The word pariah is generally used to refer to social outcasts.
Interestingly, the word pariah has Tamil roots - coming into the English language only in 1613, from the root word ‘paraiyar’, which was a caste name to refer to ‘drummer’. I guess the Tamil people did not think highly of musicians!
Today, the word paraiyar has fallen out of favour in the Tamil language, and people prefer to use the Sankrit word ‘dalit’, meaning crushed and downtrodden.
It’s sad that outright caste discrimination exists in the world. If it’s bad for a bird, it’s much worse for a human.
Nobody can choose the circumstances of which they were born into. One of my wishes for this world is that we treat people the same, regardless of the way we look or which families we were born into.
Classism - like all the other ‘isms’ - is discriminatory and hurtful to people who cannot choose the circumstances they were born into! Because of societal messages around poverty and class, people are discriminated against , excluded , and ridiculed around perceived social class. Many workplaces, organizations, and education spaces are built on classist structures, making it difficult for lower socioeconomic (SES) people to navigate and succeed.
AND!! People who see themselves as being in a higher social class have an inflated sense of ego. According to the American Psychological Association, many of these people from higher social classes may tend to have an exaggerated belief that they are more adept than their equally capable lower-class counterparts - overconfident and entitled, perhaps?
Outright caste discrimination also makes it so, so much harder for people to break out of their poor socioeconomic statuses. The rest of the world may not have a caste system, but we do still discriminate…
Somebody born in the ‘dalit’ class may be born crushed and downtrodden. But that does not mean we should keep crushing and stepping down on them just because we can.
Thank you for reading to the end of today’s article, and I hope your takeaway would be to treat dogs and birds and animals the same no matter their name or caste!