Cowbirds R Us
Whose nest have you feathered?
It’s funny, some of the things that stick in our heads. It’s safe to assume that we remember the things that are most significant to us, and forget a lot of the rest. While I have trouble remembering what capital goes with what state, I somehow remember being taught about the Cowbird. Specifically, I remember that the Cowbird lays its eggs in other birds’ nests, leaving that other bird to raise their children.
I thought I would check that out a little more closely, and it turns out that there are various birds that do this. And their techniques vary. Some of these ‘brood parasites’, as they are known, will push the existing eggs out of the nest, and then lay their own. Thus, the authentic mother and father have no children of their own and dedicate their energy to raising the parasitic bird’s children. Others ‘brood parasites’ simply add to the eggs that are already there. One specie lays only one egg in each of multiple nests, perhaps better assuring survival of both her own and the hosts’ babies.
Here is a paragraph from AZAnimals.com concerning the Cuckoo. The full page is linked below.
Over the course of the breeding season, a female cuckoo may lay eggs in dozens of different nests. Sometimes, a common cuckoo female will target certain hosts whose eggs appear similar to her own. This increases the chances of the host bird not rejecting the cuckoo’s eggs or abandoning the nest. Once cuckoo offspring hatch, they will typically push the host’s eggs out of the nest. Likewise, if the host’s eggs hatch first, cuckoo chicks will similarly push the host’s young out of the nest. By eliminating the competition, the cuckoo chick ensures it monopolizes all of the food it needs to grow.
To know me is to know that I’m not disseminating this information for the sake of nature education. You may already have an idea what I’m up to. So, here it is:
To what extent do we have brood parasites among us humans? Before you read my thoughts, what are yours? Have you ever thought about it? Let’s think about it. This has nothing to do with voluntary raising of others’ children. There are adoptive parents, foster parents, and stepparents. These are people, including my wife and me, who have willingly chosen to participate in raising someone else’s children.
The rest of this essay may upset some people. Tough. The conversation has been one-sided for too long.
We are told that whites are responsible for the poverty of blacks. Why? We are expected to see to the proper raising of black children, and then make it a point to educate them and hire them, even to the exclusion of educating and hiring our own children. Why? Because there was slavery over 150 years ago? But very few whites owned slaves, and indeed some of those slaves were owned by other blacks. In his book, “Black Rednecks and White Liberals”, Thomas Sowell cites pesky statistics that show that, by the end of the nineteenth century, blacks had largely overcome the disadvantages of their slave ancestry. And remember that not all black people were slaves. Add to that the copious amount of immigration of blacks from Africa, SUBSEQUENT to the civil war. For that matter, a huge number of whites have no American ancestry going back as far as the civil war. So, who do we blame? Why blame anybody, at this point? Both the enslavers and the people who freed the slaves, in the deadliest war this country has ever fought, are dead. Those of my ancestors who had any involvement in the war fought to FREE the slaves. But I won’t take credit for what they did. And I certainly won’t take the blame for what slave owners did.
No, that was then, this is now. But now, blacks are still suffering the vestiges of their enslavement, etc. Right? Wrong. As I mentioned, Sowell, a black man who has lived it, establishes that blacks did better in the Jim Crow era than they are doing now. How can that be? Let’s consider.
Fifty years ago, blacks raised their own children. Two parent black families were as prevalent, if not more so, than two parent white families. Yes, there was Jim Crow, but there were two dedicated parents to teach their children how to deal with it. Now, Jim Crow is gone, but so is the two parent family. That is largely also the case for whites. And, if there is one statistic staring us in the face, that everyone tries to ignore, it is that one parent families predominate among the poor; black, white, or any other race. Single parenthood is the one greatest predictor of poverty, yet we pretend that it isn’t.
We pretend that poverty is essentially a racial problem, when it isn’t. To what end? Why? If we really want to solve the problem, then why do we ignore the cause and effect of the problem?
Now, let’s get back to those ‘brood parasites. In my lifetime I’ve seen the social mantra do a 180, from “Your life is your responsibility”, to “Your life is someone else’s responsibility.” If you don’t have a good education, it’s not that you didn’t apply yourself as a student, it’s that the ‘system’ didn’t ‘give’ you a proper education. If you don’t have a good paying job, it’s not that you aren’t worth a better pay check, it’s that the employer is a racist, capitalist pig. Figuratively, some people expect someone else to take care of their kids. They even teach their own kids that, to the extent that they aren’t having their needs met, it’s somebody else’s fault.
How do you suppose that works out? When you teach kids that they are supposed to be taken care of by someone else’s parents, and then those kids have kids, what is the result? What are the chances that we will end up with employees who recognize that they have as much responsibility to their employer, as their employer has to them? Will they recognize that learning is far more the responsibility of the student than the teacher? No. Instead, you end up with entire cultures of people squatting in somebody else’s nest and expecting to be taken care of.
No, it’s not just black. Whites are in the same boat; they just don’t get the press. And it’s certainly not the case with all blacks and whites. Those children, black and white, who have been raised to be responsible almost invariably grow up to be responsible. Those that weren’t, don’t.
But this country isn’t entirely black and white. There’s brown and Asian, for instance. They seem to be in a better boat, at least to an extent. Asians especially stress family and individual responsibility. For that, we penalize them. How DARE they get ahead as a result of being the best educated and most dedicated to their careers?! No, we must have DEI (which I’ve recently seen described as Didn’t Earn It) to make sure that those who don’t wish to compete can still pretend that they have succeeded. The best get good jobs, regardless of race. That’s just a plain fact. That’s a plain fact that some choose to ignore. It’s safe to say that those who choose to ignore it are not the best. They are the excuse-makers. Yes, we’re all like that, to a degree. When the job you wanted goes to someone else, how likely are you to say, “I just wasn’t good enough; I just didn’t make the effort”? It’s much more satisfying to say, “I should have had that job, but they discriminated against me.”
Henry Ford was white. So was Thomas Edison. They and many white men created businesses that became huge. No, they didn’t start off huge, they GREW huge as a result of relentless effort, and smarts. That’s what it takes. Few succeed like that. Not one white person in a thousand succeeds like that, yet we are led to believe that us white folk all get what we want, just by being white. Yeah, right.
Where a person who has worked hard, and smart, and taken risks, and succeeded, we have figurative Cuckoos who want to lay their eggs in that nest. Why don’t those Cuckoos just build their own nest and raise their own chicks? Do they even know how? Perhaps not. Perhaps it’s time they learned. But who will they learn from, when they’re being taught to lay their eggs in someone else’s nest?
This isn’t just my idea, and it isn’t a new development. Here’s Eddie Murphy’s take, from 1984.
Comments?
Weirdly had a job where I helped PhD candidates gas cowbirds for their doctoral work on a National Wildlife Refuge. The problem was the little warblers whose nests they laid their eggs in were "protected".
When I asked why they said because they were native. When I asked native to which moment in history, they got quiet. Love the analogy and the Eddie Murphy.
"Didn't Earn It" - I like that. Also like DIE.