Taxacom: botanical names with racist history

Tue Jul 23 14:18:10 CDT 2024

'... the "alleged" aversion to use these terms by contemporary people...'.
It definitely is extremely offensive.
'Kaffir' is the most offensive racial term in southern Africa -  in South
Africa it's illegal, and people have been jailed for using it.

On Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 3:42 AM alberto ballerio via Taxacom <
taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:

>  What makes the whole matter particularly worrying is the poor background
> of the application by Smith and Figueiredo.
> Their rationale is indicated as such:
> "the epithets in question have the root caf[f][e]r- and derive from an
> Arabic word meaning “infidel” that was used in the toponym of a region in
> southern Africa and for its inhabitants. Although, when initially
> published, the epithets may not have been intended to offend,in present-day
> society they have taken on a decidedly negative connotation because the
> noun from which they derive is a racial slur in languages such as English,
> Afrikaans, Spanish and Portuguese. Aversion to using these epithets
> arguably applies more to plant scientists and other users of scientific
> plant names from Africa or of African heritage, but increasingly also to a
> larger user community."
>
> They do not provide any proof or evidence of such claims, i.e. which are
> the words involved in common language in contemporary English, Afrikaan,
> Spanish and Portuguese (Keffir? Caffer?), how many times those words are
> still used in contemporary language, etc. Nothing is written about these
> important points. They also do not provide any evidence of the "alleged"
> aversion to use these terms by contemporary people (apart from themselves)
> and finally, they do not explain why a parochial alleged problem which
> seems to affect a small fraction of world people, requires to change names
> purported to be used internationally.
> If we follow the same rationale of this reasoning, then also the latin
> adjective "niger" should have the same fate, simply because it recalls the
> term "nigger" used as an insult in current English language. Once again, do
> you really think that the whole world must follow the parochial problems of
> a single language or of a single culture and change hundreds of names, none
> of them used to offend black people but rather used to denote a
> morphological character of a species?
> Perhaps the key-point that shows the weakness of their argument is "in
> present-day society they have taken on a decidedly negative connotation":
> this questionable statement (and probably not only questionable but also
> applicable only to a limited number of languages and of people), if applied
> as a general rule would make nomenclature a provisional business, which
> will depend on the ever-changing  ideological, political, and religious
> views of the bodies in charge of changing the names. Basically the
> beginning of the end of a 250 years old tradition, which will become mainly
> a political business.
> I am pretty convinced that if what we read in The Guardian's scoop is
> true, then the botanists made a big mistake (and took a decision based on
> very superficial grounds).
> Best regards,
> Alberto
> P.S. by the way: the etymology of Africa and afer/afra is controversial
> but according to some students it means "colony", so, let's wait for the
> next application asking to change afer/afra too because they have an
> embarrassing etymology!
>
>
>
>
>
>     Il martedì 23 luglio 2024 alle ore 10:31:47 CEST, Stephen Thorpe via
> Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu> ha scritto:
>
>
> There are two rather different cases to consider. The first is names which
> are based on words that have become a racial (or other kind of) slur.
> Somehow though, we seem to be able to still refer to a female dog as a
> bitch and a bastard file, etc., without causing offence! Why can't we do
> the same with taxonomic names? I guess because bitches and bastards aren't
> racial or homophobic slurs. A faggot in the sense of food doesn't seem to
> be used very often these days, but that might just be because the food it
> denotes isn't very popular. Do people still refer to raccoons as coons? Can
> that be done without offending black people? Who knows! Anyway, the other
> case is names based on people who were colonialists or otherwise persona
> non grata according to wokie ideology. Does mention of their very name
> cause offence? Should we care? I'm not offended by the name Hitler, even
> though the Nazis bombed my great grandma! Are we going to let
> oversensitivity and/or virtue signaling destroy biological nomenclature?
> Stephen    On Tuesday, 23 July 2024 at 07:51:45 pm NZST, Paul van
> Rijckevorsel via Taxacom <taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
>
>  On 23/07/2024 03:06, David Campbell via Taxacom wrote:
>
> [...] Given that the taxonomic usage seems to be based on an
>      old geographic term, faulting the taxonomic names for later
>      derogatory use seems excessive. A note that these names reflect
>      the geography and not the racism would seem more in order, [...]
>
> First, these are not necessarily based on an old geographic term,
> forexample, /caffraria/ will be geographic, but /caffrorum/ isn’t, at
> least not grammatically. Secondly, the argument would seem to fit best
> in cases of names based on Rhodesia versus names based on Cecil Rhodes,
> that is, cases of names based on formal names (of countries, etc) that
> are now obsolete. For informal designations, this would seem to quickly
> become very iffy. Paul
> _______________________________________________
> Taxacom Mailing List
>
> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
> For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
> https://lists.ku.edu/listinfo/taxacom
> You can reach the person managing the list at: taxacom-owner at lists.ku.edu
>
> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity for about 37 years, 1987-2024.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Taxacom Mailing List
>
> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
> For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
> https://lists.ku.edu/listinfo/taxacom
> You can reach the person managing the list at: taxacom-owner at lists.ku.edu
>
> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity for about 37 years, 1987-2024.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Taxacom Mailing List
>
> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
> For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
> https://lists.ku.edu/listinfo/taxacom
> You can reach the person managing the list at: taxacom-owner at lists.ku.edu
>
> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity for about 37 years, 1987-2024.
>
>
>

-- 
Dunedin, New Zealand.

My books:

*Biogeography and evolution in New Zealand. *Taylor and Francis/CRC, Boca
Raton FL. 2017.
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.routledge.com%2FBiogeography-and-Evolution-in-New-Zealand%2FHeads%2Fp%2Fbook%2F9781498751872&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cf8e6de9e8ea74a97b66d08dcab4c388f%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638573591065874126%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=p8rlsSqH2tnqA2zO6fCwYRfz9cw1I6dBpSnx7sDD%2BEA%3D&reserved=0

*Biogeography of Australasia:  A molecular analysis*. Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge. 2014. https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cambridge.org%2F9781107041028&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cf8e6de9e8ea74a97b66d08dcab4c388f%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638573591065874126%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=NE4lIpMwHxxIuz4wNse4j1L4ZN1uGOeVcmaFSuMJX6Y%3D&reserved=0

*Molecular panbiogeography of the tropics. *University of California Press,
Berkeley. 2012. https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ucpress.edu%2Fbook.php%3Fisbn%3D9780520271968&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cf8e6de9e8ea74a97b66d08dcab4c388f%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638573591065874126%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2Fx%2FgDFHJLGcQhUZw0nSE4bn3b7SRuSK%2BkMA4J0omI8E%3D&reserved=0

*Panbiogeography: Tracking the history of life*. Oxford University Press,
New York. 1999. (With R. Craw and J. Grehan).
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.co.nz%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DBm0_QQ3Z6GUC&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cf8e6de9e8ea74a97b66d08dcab4c388f%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638573591065874126%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=7ZleOBlS8VFRsmvRQ67QYdISaHSURg6yiR8NtoxXZPA%3D&reserved=0
<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.co.nz%2Fbooks%3Fid%3DBm0_QQ3Z6GUC%26dq%3Dpanbiogeography%26source%3Dgbs_navlinks_s&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Cf8e6de9e8ea74a97b66d08dcab4c388f%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638573591065874126%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=zLahJ4CiiAPKiMD2OsNJs723EmMlPuRVKSKoaSZLiSg%3D&reserved=0>