Failing the Flip Test

An elephant dies in  Gonarezhou National Park, Zimbabwe.  From The Daily Mail.

Bigotry come in many forms. 

Most of it is not very subtle, but some is less obvious than others.  For those cases, syndicated columnist and cultural critic Stanley Crouch invented "the Flip Test."

The first time I heard Crouch explain the Flip Test, was during the O.J. Simpson murder trial.

Flip it around, said Stanley. 

"What if Woody Allen were accused of murdering Mia Farrow and a friend, and the cop who searched Allen's apartment turned out to be a rabid anti-Semitic who had said he'd plant evidence on a New York Jew if he had half a chance.  At trial, the prosecution portrays the cop -- its star witness -- as Captain Whitebread, but Allen's lawyer learns of his attitude towards Jews and uses it. Would he be accused of waving the bloody shirt of Anti-Semitism? I'm sorry, but the case would go down! And when the nine Jews on the jury voted to acquit, it wouldn't be because they were crazy, it would be because the prosecution embraced a scumbag and got caught!"

Okay... an interesting exercise.  But Crouch is black, so maybe this was simply a convenient reach to get to a pre-ordained pro-O.J. conclusion? 

But no, Crouch says the "Flip Test" works in both directions:

"Black kids who dress like gangsters complain that they get bad service at restaurants and stores. They say, 'Hey, we aren't thugs, we just dress that way.' Well, let's flip it over. Let's say a white guy comes into a store wearing a K.K.K. outfit, and everybody is horrified. And he says, 'I'm not really a Klansman, I just like the look.' Now, with ninety-nine percent of those black kids it is only style, but we just don't have time to go around interviewing them. 'Excuse me, young man, are you actually carrying a 9-mm pistol or is your outfit just a cultural signifier.'"

Flip it around says Crouch.  Once you do that, you can see if you are running on principles -- or something else.

I bring up Stanley Crouch's Flip Test because I gave the flip test to Roger Harris, a self-described "species saver" who was upset about a video of GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons culling a crop-eating elephant in Zimbabwe.   I directed Harris to a little information about elephant demographics and habitat destruction, and then I asked:

Suppose Bob Parsons was a rich white guy with an elephant preserve that was waaaaay over-subscribed with elephants, and the elephants were going outside his preserve, and the poor black folks outside the refuge wanted to shoot the overage of elephants for food. Is that a problem? Or is that what you allow when you want the local folks to benefit from having elephants around?

Of course, what I’ve described is exactly the case here — the only difference is who is pulling the trigger, which does not matter a whit to the elephants or all the rest of the wildlife that depend on habitat that is quickly degraded when there are too many elephants on the ground.

And what was the answer?  Harris responded:

If Bob had handed a local one of his guns and had the villager shoot the elephant, that would have been easier to swallow. You see, it’s not the killing of an elephant that’s the real wrong here (read my lips). It’s not about elephant management. (I did not claim to be an expert.) It’s the demeaning and disgusting way Parsons used the killing and the butchering to promote his company. That’s the problem.

That's the problem?  What?  What's the problem?  Genuinely confused,  I wrote:

Really? This is your concern — whether this video was a good promotional tool for GoDaddy? Wow. OK. But why do you care?  Do you own stock in GoDaddy? I don’t. I could care less how GoDaddy wants to promote itself. The fact that you have retreated to this position suggests how little thought and information went into your initial reaction to Bob Parsons’ shooting of an elephant in Zimbabwe.

The response back:

Yes, my concern is the way in which a person used his wealth and privilege to demean and humiliate the very people who he claims to help. As you know, conservation requires people to work together. By shooting an elephant and glamorizing it, Parsons sends a message that it’s okay to kill wildlife. I’m not interested in parsing out the minutiae of the situation. It’s the whole package. The killing, the humiliation of locals, the promotion of his company that are painful. You focus on the elephant and their plight, that’s fine. Hey, I love elephants too. Here, though, my concern is of man’s relationship to wildlife. That’s the bigger (and to my mind more important) issue.

Never mind the elephants?  Never mind the biology and demographics of elephants?  What's import is "man's relationship to wildlife," and telling people that it's never okay to kill wildlife?  What's wrong is not the killing of an elephant but showing the local people butchering the elephant while wearing free hats and T-shirts?

I wrote back:

... you have lost me.  You means it’s not okay to kill wildlife, EVER?

Please tell the wildlife, which kills each other every day.

Please tell the duck hunters at Ducks Unlimited who work tirelessly to protect wetlands, and whose numbers dwarf that of the Sierra Club.

Please tell the folks at the Wild Turkey Federation, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and Trout Unlimited whose members do more to support public lands conservation than all the other green groups combined.

And, above all, please tell the people of Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa who have hunted wildlife for millennia.

Tell them that you — a rich white man from America — disapprove of their hunting history, and their hunting and agricultural lifestyle and values.

You say your objection to Bob Parsons’ elephant hunt is that he somehow “demeaned and humiliated” the people of Zimbabwe.

How?

Are you (perhaps) confusing ethics and aesthetics? These are very different things!

Most people have never butchered an animal, but I have, and I assure you there is nothing demeaning or humiliating about it. It is certainly less demeaning than hunger, even if it is less aesthetic than getting your cow delivered to you in small quarter-pound bits wrapped in wax paper!

Have you have never worn a “gimme” hat or a T-shirt from a sport team, rock band, or company? I have, and I assure it does not demean or humiliate the wearer — it is an entirely voluntary experience, even if it is less aesthetic than a polo shirt or an L.L. Bean button-down!

What I found most interesting, however, was that this "species saver" had suddenly abandoned the elephants and appointed himself a "dignity savior" for the rural people of Zimbabwe.  I would never have guessed this conversation would have headed down that road!  I challenged his thinking here -- did he not see that he was being a bit presumptuous to speak for the local people of Zimbabwe?

You mean to say you represent the people of Zimbabwe and their dignity, values and honor?

I think not.

Everyone represents themselves, every day, and no one needs anyone else to speak for them — and certainly not a rich, white man they have never met in a country far away, and who no one in Zimbabwe ever elected!

Of course that was the end of that conversation!   By holding up a mirror, I had suddenly gotten "too personal."   Of course, it was not personal when this fellow trashed Bob Parsons without doing a lick of research into elephant populations in Zimbabwe! 

Ah well, another case of someone failing to do their homework when it comes to wildlife, only this time it's someone on the political Left rather than the political Right. 

Rather than fight on soft ground with weak knees, this "species savior" decided to cry foul when presented with the facts, and stormed off the field.  A good thing too, as the next round of facts were not going to go his way either.

You see, hunting licenses are a major funder of the CAMPFIRE program in Zimbabwe, which is considered one of the most important and successful wildlife management initiatives in Africa. 

As this editorial on the web site of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation notes:

"...there is a place for hunting in Africa. In a continent where people struggle to survive, the wildlife has to earn its living.

In the 1990s the population of elephants in Zimbabwe was growing at a rate that was unable to be supported by their habitat. In many areas where the CAMPFIRE program operated controlled hunting took place. Together with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management, the communities set sustainable quotas for the various species that hunters were allowed to hunt....The communal landowners were paid excellent money by the hunters who wanted to bag good trophies for their clients....

Once the people adopted CAMPFIRE they began to see the wildlife as their cattle....CAMPFIRE has proven to be a unique, thoughtful and successful program of sustainable wildlife management: a way to secure biodiversity and sustainability of resources for future generations."

And, of course, the same is true in the United States, where hunting licenses help pay the salaries of the best game managers in the world, and dedicated taxes on bullets, guns, bows, arrows, and camping gear, help pay for millions of acres of land that are set aside for wildlife management purposes under the Pittman-Robertson Act.

Now, to be clear, I am not for indiscriminate elephant hunting anywhere, and I do want any culling that does occur to be science-based and well-regulated.

Having said that, am I all for the "exploitation" of rich white men who are willing to pay huge sums to hunt wildlife so that these sums can be reinvested into wildlife conservation programs?

You bet!

Am I also for making sure that the money, elephant meat, and elephant hide are used locally by the native people in Zimbabwe so they have a reason to like the local elephants which occasionally kill people, destroy houses, wreck vehicles, take down electrical wires, destroy crops, and pull down garden trees?

You bet!

Do I care about the race, gender, politics, education, dress code, religion, or accent of the person who is doing the elephant shooting?  Nope.  Not a bit.  All I care about is their cash and their shooting accuracy.  Do I care a whit about their corporate marketing programs (including their marketing blunders)?  Nope.  And why would I?

All I care about is what the people of Zimbabwe care about:  that the hunter stays within the law, kills cleanly, and spends as much money as possible locally so that the wildlife is seen as an economic asset to be kept and preserved for generations to come.

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A village butchers an elephant that died of unknown causes in Gonarezhou National Park, Zimbabwe.   Gonarezhou National Park is part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, created in 2000, which joins with the Kruger National Park in South Africa, and the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique.  Animals can move freely between the three sanctuaries.

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