My level of despair just keeps growing the more I see this complete nonsense going on.
Stop the world this is where I get off ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Is it so bad to want to change the name of a plant from a racial slur to something else?
They go on and on about a slur “affra” that I’ve literally never heard used. But it’s supposedly “super common”. Like, aren’t there literally plants called “removed heads”?
From inaturalist.org: “Enneapogon nigricans, known by the common names blackheads,[1] bottle washers, pappus grass,[1] purpletop grass,[1] and removedheads,[3] is a perennial Australian grass.”
It feels like the article is doing a lot of reaching when more obvious examples are RIGHT THERE.
Instead it’s going “well this person was bad so this discovery doesn’t count anymore even though it’s the standard we applied to everything else”.
It’s pointless nitpicking and virtue signalling. Naming a plant after something doesn’t suddenly make everyone who encounters it racist. It makes you racist if that’s your first thought instead of “well that’s a stupid name but it’s just a name”.
Edit: Lemmy edited out the n-word, even when used in a scientific name. Funny that affra stayed…
But really, who is hurt by changing the name of a plant from a racial slur to something else? Why are you upset?
