Ramsey County, Minnesota,
has evicted the cuetlaxochitl, or red
poinsettia, from the courthouse in St. Paul.
County Manager Paul Kirkwold decided, in light
of space considerations (i.e., new metal
detectors) and the complaints of "humanists" in
earlier years, to discontinue the symbol of
(very different) Aztec and Christian sacrifices.
[Poinsettia
ban at courthouse has some seeing red Star
Tribune (Minneapolis) Dec 5 2001]
This is far from the most
outrageous attack on Christmas this year, but it does
deserve several medals for irony:
Irony # 1:
Poinsettias are a folk tradition borrowed from
Mexicans who themselves took it from aboriginals. Yet
not even the most rabid American xenophobes object to
them. So why are they gone?
Irony # 2: Multiculturalism has
been trumped in one of the few places it could be said
to belong, sort of. St. Paul has been multicultural
since the seedy Gallic trapper
Pig's Eye Parrant tussled with Major Talliaferro of
Fort Snelling over boozing up the local Indians. Long an
Irish dot in a Nordic sea, it welcomed those rejected
elsewhere, from Al Capone at times to Jews excluded by
Minneapolis covenants to tens of thousands of
Indochinese refugees. (St. Paul is 10% Hmong now, and
Ramsey the most Asian county east of California.) We've
hosted one of the country's largest multi-ethnic
festivals * since 1932.
The courthouse itself is
multicultural. Outside, it could pass for the phone
company, were the real phone company not right next
door. But once inside (by the way,
Jared Taylor made a rare error in
Paved With Good Intentions: one cannot "burn
the flag on the steps of the
St. Paul courthouse", as there are none), one is
enveloped in an almost Oriental hall lined with black
Belgian marble, leading to the world's largest onyx
sculpture -- Mexican onyx. The work of the pacifist
Swedish sculptor Carl Milles and local stonecarver
Giovanni Garatti, "Vision of Peace"
depicts five American Indians smoking a peace pipe.
(Er…isn't that a religious ceremony?)
Irony # 3: In the summer of 2000,
St. Paul honored the late hometown hero Charles M.
Schulz with a hundred or so decorated Snoopys in
prominent places around town. The courthouse's own
statue was entitled "Snoopy Goes to Day of the Dead"-- a
Mexican religious observance.
Irony # 4: Though the County
Manager relented somewhat and placed poinsettias on
"Vision of Peace" itself, they were of the much less
popular white variety. [Anyone tell the NAACP?]
That
means the only splotch of forbidden festive red in
Memorial Hall is now the red plastic sign, posted years
ago, which informs us in equally-sized English, Hmong
and Spanish that weapons are prohibited in the building.
Irony # 5: Saint Paul is named for
an evangelist.
The evangelist. (By tradition the city's pro sports
teams were even called the Saints or Apostles.)
If the city's name isn't a problem,
how can a little flower be?
VDARE.COM
comments: The name’s next!
December 10, 2001
