Liberals and the mainstream media are collectively looking to distort Christmas and the holiday season. We've highlighted examples from The Washington Post, but there's also now Vox, which on Tuesday tweeted out its video from December 21 claiming that people are renaming the poinsettia.
As the approximately seven-minute video begins by pointing out, the poinsettia has numerous other names, including the cuetlaxochitl, "one of its oldest names," from the Aztec, but also a particularly hard-to-pronounce word. When it comes to how the plant came here, it has to do with what Vox refers to as "the controversial legacy" of Joel Poinsett.
Besides its centuries-old use and difficult-to-pronounce name, cuetlaxochitl is even less necessary a name to use, given that Mexicans, who live in the region where the plant is native, started going with their own new name. After Spanish friars used the poinsettia plant to decorate nativity scenes, Spanish-speaking Mexicans started calling it la flor de nochebuena, translated to "the flower of Christmas Eve."
Joel Poinsett, who in 1825 was appointed as the minister of Mexico, is the one responsible for making the plant known more around the world, sent back home to be shared with fellow botanists. They were debuted at an 1829 flower show in Philadelphia, the video explains. "The name poinsettia stuck, as a way to celebrate Joel Poinsett's legacy," who would also become the U.S. Secretary of War and was elected to Congress. He was also a founding member of what would become the Smithsonian.
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Poinsett supposedly has a "tainted" legacy because during his time as minister he "aggressively attempted to increase American influence" there and expand the American border until he was recalled to the United States at the request of the Mexican president. He, like many other people of his time, thought less of those he referred to as "aboriginals" and, as a South Carolina native, owned slaves. Mexicans used the term poinsettisimo as an insult.
It was Poinsett's role as Secretary of War and involvement in the Trail of Tears that, according to the Trail of Tears video, "that cemented Poinsett's place in history" as "a man who believed in American expansion, at all costs."
To Vox's ire, no doubt, Poinsett's legacy remains not just with the poinsettia plant, but with state parks, highways, and statutes in his home state of South Carolina.
The plant has been engineered further in the United States to become more full and compact, and is an industry worth $170 million in this country. The video laments how "importantly, it's a market the U.S. has cornered while shutting Mexico out" and that "the vast majority of plants we see in the U.S. are grown here."
Worth pointing out is that the video also mentions how the Mexican version of the plant was more likely to wither, which is why it was originally named cuetlaxochitl.
It isn't until about the last moments of the video that the claim is made that people are actually going about renaming the plant. "In recent years, many have found a different, small way to honor this plant's history," which is supposedly "by rejecting the name poinsettia, and using its Aztec name, cuetlaxochitl," which Vox shares is "a name that hopefully reminds people of the true origins of the plant of the season." There's no mention of just how many people "many" includes.
Why people are rejecting the name poinsettia in favor of the plant’s Native name, cuetlaxochitl https://t.co/Cg617RZfvv
— Vox (@voxdotcom) December 27, 2022
If Twitter users have anything to say, it's likely not that many at all.
The tweeted video has nearly 250 replies of people mocking it. Of the 102 retweets, 88 are quoted retweets also taking issue.
Who are the people doing this? I’d like to know so I can avoid them. https://t.co/Xj2tF8OlFb
— Jeremy / anti-partisan (@Moderateleft) December 28, 2022
No one is doing this
— Spike Cohen (@RealSpikeCohen) December 28, 2022
In Mexico, they refer to them as nochebuena or flor de nochebuena (flower of Christmas Eve).
Here, we call them poinsettias.
Because people in different countries have different names for things.
no one is doing this. stfu.
— kaitlin (@thefactualprep) December 27, 2022
No one is doing that.
— Milkbone (@clarksthockey) December 27, 2022
This could be a @TheBabylonBee headline without changing a single word
— Peter Garrett (@TheUnrealPeterG) December 27, 2022
Nobody is actually doing this except for the weirdos with too much time on their hands in academia and at vox apparently.
— ArchLobster 🇪🇨 🇺🇸 (@ArchLobster) December 27, 2022
When it comes to the supposed controversy of Poinsett, other outlets taking issue include The Washington Post in 2019 and a Medium post from 2012, which may tell you all you need to know.
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