For those of you not wanting to be white supremacists, rejoice at a new method of moral improvement.

A University of California, Davis report offers your next rung on the ladder to racist-free rule.

People of privilege, I’m talking about the way you treat fish.

Specifically, you’re on the hook for the violence of your words.

According to a Fisheries Magazine-published report — Goodbye to “Rough Fish”: Paradigm Shift in the Conservation of Native Fishes — the racist patriarchy’s had a lot of gill gall:

Perspectives of white males have overwhelmingly dominated fisheries science and management in the USA.

The scorned and scaly can’t de-fin themselves. Though they don’t understand language, they’re being “othered” by English.

Fish have feelings, too, and we’re “rough(ing)” ’em up:

[White dominance] is exemplified by bias against “rough fish” — a pejorative ascribing low-to-zero value for countless native fishes.

The nautical name-calling is sad:

Sadly, fishers and resource management agencies continue to perpetuate [the term’s] use.

Behold the hate speech:

Related pejoratives include “trash fish,” “dirt fish,” “other fish,” “coarse fish”…

Also employed — that most vile of all invectives, the U-word:

“underused fish”

On top of being over-insulted, native fishes are under-conserved.

And that’s fishy: The native species “deliver critical ecosystem services,” and “many” are “long-lived and vulnerable to over-fishing.”

The study was authored, in part, by Dr. Andrew L. Rypel.

Speaking to UC Davis, he waxed on the great white whales of wickedness:

“When you trace the history of the problem, you quickly realize it’s because the field was shaped by white men, excluding other points of view. Sometimes you have to look at that history honestly to figure out what to do.”

As for calling native fish “rough,” Andrew’s had it up to here:

“That has bothered me for a long time.”

Andrew ought to be elated — fish are getting bathed in an ocean of love as of late.

Sea for yourself:

 

 

Congratulations to the researchers and their tenderness toward aquatic life.