Go ahead and host your Belle Haven Kwanza feast, but keep your poinsettias off the banquet table
/No more Poinsettia, now it should be referred to by its Nahuatl name, “cuetlaxochitl” — “the flower that withers” (feel free to ask your newly imported Mexican housemaid how to pronounce that in Indian talk, although she might not know how — there are only 12 Nahautls left on this mortal coil, and they speak only Urdu. ).
Pulitzer Prize Nomination – ASSOCIATED PRESS
Your choice of a decorative Christmas flower is very problematic!
Yes, the poor old plant’s been around these parts since 1828, but it’s never too late to discover racism and all that other good stuff that keeps the grievance industry perking along. In this case, a Mr. Poinsetta found the plant south of what was once our border and shipped it north to colleagues, thereby establishing slavery and intolerance for the first time in the history of the world and condemning sixteen generations of Africans to squalid lives of servitude.
Worse, according to one Lindsay Schakenbach Regle, “Because Poinsett belonged to learned societies, contributed to botanists’ collections, and purchased art from Europe, he could more readily justify the expulsion of Natives from their homes,” she writes.
Well! We certainly don’t want no stinkin’ European art collectors ‘round here, so it’s long past time to dump the Poinsettia and give the Aztecs a place at the table. The world will be a better place for it.