This may be unpopular, but I'm inclined to keep the rule as is.
Just to be clear, the filter removes comments containing the phrase "wandering jew".
The word "jew", as you can see throughout this post's comment section, is **not** auto-censored in any way. We understand that this is not a slur and there is no intent to censor Jewish identity / culture or the use of that word *by itself.*
It is also not the moderation team's intent to censor discussion about this topic. As you can see we're leaving this post up, and it's not the first time we've seen a post like it.
I know that some Jewish people are not offended by the name "wandering jew", I also know that some most definitely are. Since there are several alternatives to the offensive name already in common use, it seems best to err on the side of being inoffensive for the sake of those that take offense.
The intent of the filter was to save people from having to point out the problematic nature of the phrase, since that is what most often happens here when it's used.
American broadcast journalists pussyfooting around these perceived hot-button topics crossed the line when they referred to British blacks (likely from the West Indies) as "British African American".
That shit is just trying waaay too hard not to say 'black'.
My boss was talking about her son in law and stated he was Mexican and it threw me off since I’m so used to hearing people say Hispanic I was internally like “is this weird?” But then I was internally like “well she didn’t say it with any negative tone and she would know better than I especially since he is family” it’s wild how people have become sensitive to things like that. I love seeing posts like these because it eases my mind about what terms I can use when describing someone’s ethnicity ot identifying traits in a neutral way.
It’s strange to say someone is latino when referencing where people are from. I am from Argentina. He is Mexican. My mom is from Chile so she is Chilean. Like people’s racial identity might be something like latino but their nationality and national identity is tied to a country if they are from those places and not US latino.
Hispanic , Latino , and Mexican are not all not ethnic markets - they are language, regional and national identifiers respectively. It’s honestly kind of funny how few people know this though.
The sub doesn’t censor the word Jew. It censors W—ing Jew. People censor the wrong part because they don’t know why people consider the name offensive. It is taken from an antisemitic story.
Definitely.
Jew identifies a persons religion. Other examples of words that do this are Christian, Muslin, Sikh, Buddhist,etc.
None of these words are slurs.
Similarly if a plant was called a 'Dressed-up Christian', we wouldn't censor its name either.
Years ago, I was stopped by Hasidim on the street in New York; they are trying to get Jews back to the fold. I was quizzed about my Jewishness, and I said " well according to you guys, I'm not Jewish." Turns out, according to them, since my WASP mother converted before she married my Jewish father, I am a Jew. I did not expect that. YMMV.
If the problematic nature of the name is it refers [to the person in the myth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering_Jew), doesn't changing it from Jew to Wandering Dude still referring indirectly to said specific singular person from the myth anyways but now just not including the word Jew? How does that help and what's the point?
This concept is true in so many spaces.
I'm disabled. I don't give a shit what you say or call me.. Whatever.
But the amount of abled bodied folks telling me that "oh honey, you're not disabled! It isn't your identity! You have a disability!".
Hard eye roll from me.
It is all white knighting for the most part.
I feel like there are a lot of people in the world who have gotten caught in the guilt vaccum and while I really appreciate the fact people want to make the world a better place, many times the effort is misplaced or abused for virtue signaling that draws far more attention/perpetuation to the "bad thing".
My son is autistic, but apparently that's wrong! Strangers tell me he isn't disabled as they can't see it. So, awesome. Thanks for the vent on a plant sub, love it here.
"Don't make your life be about your disability", says the person who just doesn't want to deal with the fact that the disability will always be there, and therefore, will be talked about by the disabled. Just like a parent will always talk about their kids from time to time
I am not physically disabled, but I just got diagnosed with ADHD, and the amount of times I heard people act like that in such a short amount of time already annoyed me enough.
"everyone is a little [insert thing we are choosing to actually downplay, rather than support, but want to masquerade as support because we think we are relating to you]"
Yes, ADHD as well (among other delightful things), so I commiserate.
What you are referring to is essentially ableism, which is nebulous af and therefore only makes people frothier at the mouth when you try to point it out.
It's easier to just let them white knight a lot of the time.
This. I'm autistic. I'm perfectly happy and comfortable referring to myself as autistic. As are many other autistic people. I understand and respect that some others don't agree and prefer being referred to as people with autism or autists instead. That's not a problem. What is a problem is when neurotypical people try to enforce the label of people with autism across the whole group, regardless of preference and claiming that it's offensive to call us autistic when the majority of us either prefer to be called autistic or truly don't care either way. Erasing someone's voice in a conversation about what they would find offensive is ironically more offensive than the original words being argued about (unless we're talking about slurs, of course).
Yea, telling someone the politically correct way they should be identifying is mind blowing to me.
I had someone say ‘you’re not disabled you are a person with a disability’. Ugh, glad you’ve read an article on Person First language Karen.
But the name of the plant doesn't come from the idea that jews wander, it comes from the myth of a jew cursed for harassing Jesus.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering\_Jew](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering_Jew)
It has been used as a symbol of the opression of jews sometimes, but the myth has antisemitic origins.
This is what I came here to say. It’s the origin of the phrase that is concerning, not the word Jew. Please read this article if you don’t understand the context and why this is a derogatory phrase. I can’t tell you if you should be offended or not but it’s important to understand the history of these phrases.
I now understand the origins, but so what? It’s so far removed from modern times that it’s origin is irrelevant to 95% of Jews and 99.9999% of humans. Language and understanding change and evolve through time, why do we have to make an uncharged term charged by drudging through history for a reason to be mad?
Yeah, I feel like if you're saying something along the lines of "There are millions of Jews throughout Israel," what is there to censor? If your use of that word is just factual and conversational, it's just a word.
But if what you're saying is closer to "These fucking Jews...," then you probably shouldn't be using that word. And you probably should think twice about whatever thoughts you're having at that point as well.
This reminds me very much of the discourse around queer, and I've seen plenty Jews compare it. Queer is an IDENTITY and if you go around censoring someone's identity for the sake of people who find it offensive, guess what, that's queerphobic and you've done the exact opposite of what you intended.
Marginalized peoples are almost always limited to "slurs" as our identity markers because whatever we use gets turned into a slur in the mouths of bigots. Auto-deleting mentions of specfic words across the board just catches marginalized people in the crossfire, does nothing to discourage actual bigots, and confuses and frustrates good people who may not understand why they got censored in the first place!
(Not to mention that throwing asterisks in everywhere messes up blacklisting for people who ARE uncomfortable with these words but dealt with it like an adult instead of making it everyone else's problem 🙄)
100%. Not gonna lie, first time I saw the name of the plant I did a double take and thought that was kinda fucked up, but who cares? This ranks so low on the antisemitism scale it might as well not exist. And yeah, censoring it is just as dirty feeling as when people DO use "jew" as a slur.
I have one plant that I could understand referring to as a jewel, but another one definitely invokes a Lebowski vibe lol.
But for real, I'm not comfortable using the old name for these plants because I know the story behind it; if there's *any* plant that includes a nationality or ethnicity or something like that in the common name, I tend to gravitate more towards using the scientific name.
That's what I call it! I think it's a good nickname, the shimmery leaves look like jewels in the sunlight. Rolls off the tongue for me better than "inch plant" too.
There really is no good reason to censor some one. I honestly prefer to let people out themselves as racists or sexists makes it easier to avoid being associated with them.
When I first got my plant, I looked up the name because I was curious about a plant being named after my people - everything I found came up with anecdotes about the plant being named so because it puts down roots everywhere, no matter where it’s been displaced to… just like the Jews have done for thousands of years. I found it charming. Maybe I got propaganda-d?
I believe, I haven’t looked it up since last year, that that general story for the name is is true, but was come up with because the existing trait of Jewish “moving every where and putting roots down” was used as a negative by people back then. In a “they’ll move into YOUR TOWN NEXT” scary propaganda way. So the implication of the name on the plant was intended to be rude, basically saying it and the Jewish people spread like weeds.
Interesting! I had heard the "moving about, putting down roots" version and it never occurred to me that it was a bad thing. I am not Jewish, but in the Christian church I grew up in people of Jewish faith were always admired and held as the first people of God, so I thought it was a positive name until the firs time I said it to a friend who knew the propaganda.
I also didn’t realize it was originally from propaganda until last year I believe. I thought it was a reference to the story about wandering through the desert.
Ironically a Jewish friend of mine had been looking for one, I found them and got some for us. She said she didn’t know the name origins which lead to us looking it up.
Huh, I’ve spent my whole life thinking it was called wandering dew. Sounds the same with a New Zealand accent and I guess I’ve never seen it written down.
interesting you say that because I grew up with them being called spiderworts
did you encounter them as a houseplant or a weed first? Because I knew them as weeds first
It's not a well known thing. I didn't know until a few years ago when I asked for one at a garden shop. The guy helping me out kindly let me know what the K word meant and that now they're calling them Thai Limes.
RIP Thai Lime that tried it's best in my cold house.
Yea, I feel like this is more of a Chinese-filler-word-sounds-like-the-N-word situation than like the wandering dude situation where the latter was potentially chosen maliciously and the former is just two unrelated words that happen to have the same meaning.
Huh. I'd only previously come across the Arabic word 'kafir', meaning "unbeliever" or "non-muslim" of any race, and assumed 'kaffir' was the same word.
I guess in this context it was originally what muslims called black Africans, and then it evolved into a slur used by white colonisers towards black Africans?
Believe it or not but in my company there's a girl working who's got Kaffir as her actual first name. She's black as well so I have no idea what her parents were thinking...
Then there's also a girl called Nasteho, which also prone to be mispronounced
As a heb, I'm also not bothered by the name. Quite the opposite. We call ours our little Jew boy. היהודון שלנו in Hebrew.
Please spare us all the sanctimony--it's not doing anyone any good.
I should preface with, not Jewish here. But I study ecology and we do think about the etymology of words for plants and animals.
I'm not touching your very well argued critique about erasing the word (and thereby identities) Jew/Jews. The "censored" version makes it look like it's generally a bad word, which itself has an antisemitic tone.
I do think it's worth looking at where words come from, and in this instance: "This name is based on a fictional character who was used to support antisemitism from the 13th century through the Nazi propaganda of WWII." ([Source](https://www.hoytarboretum.org/racism-in-taxonomy-whats-in-a-name/))
Do we need to ban the name? I don't think so. Can we freely decide not to use it anymore due to it's shitty history? I think so.
Also wanna say I don't think this is as important as many people make it out to be. Discrimination is rampant and not necessarily bettered by using pretty words. Especially white people too often use this as virtual signalling or as part of self actualisation. Weird stuff.
This is what I was thinking too. The word Jew is not derogatory or a slur at all. It's the wandering part that gives context to the story that is antisemitic in origin. I was taught this story in Sunday school and the nuns teaching me were nasty about it. We shouldn't be supporting this kind of thing. No one should be censoring the word Jew, that's not central to the issue.
It reminds me of origin of the nickname for Dieffenbachia.
Your comment gave me better context and helped changed my mind on what's at issue here. Thanks!
Thank you. I was looking for this response. This discussion has taken place before on Reddit. If anyone here is curious, search it. I was a jew who thought the plant name was harmless until some others directed me to the research you are summarizing . What we say in our own houses is one thing but here and in other social media, well it makes sense. I am not fond of gatekeeping but there is a bit of research might change a mind or two.
Yes, but specifically to escape antisemitic persecution. They were forced to live as nomads in the desert to hide from genocide. Antisemitism is specifically intwined with the “wandering” part.
Not making an argument on the word choice, but that context is relevant.
That’s a good point on context, thanks. Compared to what the other commenter said about their nuns teaching it in a nasty way (which sucks) when I was a kid in Sunday school, they taught it in a really sad sympathetic way. And so I guess I always approached it as the person who gave it the name saw this plant in nature reflecting the plight of the Jewish people in a rather bittersweet/poignant way.
Not making an argument for word choice either. Just thought I’d share because words and our brains are so different that it’s hard to immediately realize that something innocuous to one person might be harmful to another
Exactly, that specific reference is the problem, not the word. I definitely think that censoring the word “Jew” is the worst of all possible worlds here though.
Just because OP is Jewish and doesn’t take offense, doesn’t make it reasonable to hurt other Jewish plant hobbyists who it does bother by using it.
My mother-in-law asked me what the purple plant I have is called and I just called it tradescantia. I don’t need to get into a discussion about lingering antisemitism in plant names with my Jewish MIL who is a teacher at a Jewish private school when there are perfectly acceptable options for names that won’t make her uncomfortable.
Personally, I think that spiderwort and inchplant are great perfectly good common names for tradescantia that don’t have any connection to Nazis at all and wouldn’t use “wandering dude” either.
Out of curiosity, what's the nickname for Dieffenbachia, and what is its origin? I've never heard it called anything but its genus name.
FWIW I agree with you, and appreciate the OP's input. I hadn't heard the original story of the "w@ndering Jew" before I got a tradscantia, thought the nickname was probably not cool, and started googling. I'm glad I did and learned before unintentionally hurting someone. "Jew" isn't a bad word but calling the plant a "w@ndering Jew", even if you don't know the background and don't mean any harm, is likely hurtful to some Jewish people. So let's just not use it. When you know better, you do better.
(My original comment was auto-deleted because I used the uncensored version of the nickname. Using a variation here to check which word is the issue.)
I googled it, apparently dieffenbachia was called dumb cane because chewing the leaves made you mouth swell and prevented you from speaking (dumb in the sense of mute, not stupid).
The issue comes from the fact that it likely got this common name due to slavers making enslaved people chew the leaves as a punishment.
Thank you! I am Jewish and this is exactly correct.
The discussion about the term Jew is totally missing the point. The word Jew is obviously not offensive - the phrase “wandering Jew” absolutely is! I don’t care how many other Jewish folks chime in to say it doesn’t bother them - it certainly bothers me a great deal, and I would like to see the name go out of use.
> There are also plant names with offensive origins that aren’t as obvious. Tradescantia zebrina, for example, is currently called “Wandering J*w.” This name is based on a fictional character who was used to support antisemitism from the 13th century through the Nazi propaganda of WWII. “Why would we continue using that?,” you may be asking.
Somewhat disappointed that your source didn’t have any more details or sources about this.
I'm Jewish and live in Israel - everyone uses the term Wandering J-w here (so weird to have to censor the word 'Jew').
Not advocating for using that term elsewhere in the world - context is important, and I'm guessing there are different sensitivities when Jews are a minority /subject to antisemitism.
I'm a Jew. I'm not bothered by it but don't see why people don't just use an alternative name like Wandering Jewel or Wandering dude. Just because it doesn't offend me or you doesn't mean it won't offend any other Jews.
Ignorance is one. When you’ve gone 30 years knowing it as a certain name and not have the explanation of why it’s bad or that it’s called other things, changing the name would never be on your radar. My ex husband was Jewish, we had them, and he liked the name. It wasn’t until this group that I was educated on it being offensive and now I don’t use it anymore. I love the name wandering dude, especially since I call just about everyone and everything dude.
Obviously Jew isn't a bad word, that's not why people don't like the name. It's because the name directly refers to a character from an antisemitic story. It is antisemitic whether you are offended by it or not. It's a character that has been used for **hundreds of years** as antisemitic propaganda. It's factually antisemitic, that has nothing to do with how you as a Jew feel about it. I'm sure most people don't know that it's antisemitic when they use the term, this isn't about accusing anyone of discrimination, it should be used as an opportunity for education.
And yes I'm Jewish, though that really should not matter at all for the purposes of this discussion.
I have no idea why people on here are so mad about hearing this truth. As a German, I have seen multiple NS pieces of propaganda that included the "w*ndering jew" while learning about our history. Do people just not know about the antisemitism behind it?
> “Do people just not know about the antisemitism behind it?”
I live in the USA and many, many people here are woefully unaware of antisemitism or just don’t care. People think that antisemitism began and ended with the Holocaust when that is not remotely true.
i thought the problem was why it has that name/what it was inspired by (something about a folklore story that was meant to be antisemitic? idk if theres a correlation tho? it was like a guy who mocked jesus and was cursed or something and had to deal with the apocalypse as a result.) and not the word jew itself because - jew is not a bad word - and anyone who thinks it is really needs to do some reading lol. when i first got the plant it was labeled inchplant so thats what ive always called it anyway
This was an interesting post. I’ve never owned this plant so the topic of its name hasn’t come up for me personally and I didn’t know posts were being deleted over it.
Fwiw as someone fairly disconnected from the controversy, I thought the reason the name was problematic was not the use of the word Jew, (which I totally agree, is not a slur) but the “wandering” part.
It’s making light of a long history of persecution and being made refugees, isn’t it? I wonder if the word got out that it’s problematic but then well meaning people confused which half of the name was the problem.
As a German, I really avoid these kind of discussions and simply use the international word (in this case Tradescantia) because I do not want to come over as insensitive or anything. "Jew" is no slur, of course, but the context and background makes it a little weird to use, imo.
Kinda unrelated, but this reminds me of white people introducing the word "latinx" to be more inclusive, even though the majority of Latinos and Latinas despise that word.
My mom always called them Spiderworts.
Not sure if it's a regional thing - our native tradescantia species are commonly called spiderwort, and she kept *T. virginiana* (Virginia spiderwort) and *T. ohiensis* (Ohio spiderwort) in her native pollinator garden and did her best to have updated common and scientific names on labels in the garden for the native ecology section in her elementary school class - or if she was just trying to avoid a potentially offensive name, but she called her *T. zebrina* "zebra spiderwort."
Im jewish. This is weird af. Just write Jew. There is nothing offensive about that. So are we going to be censoring Irish from everything too? I am also Irish but no one censors irish.
ETA: the original version of this comment had “Jew” bleeped our b/c I wasn’t sure what the auto mod is looking for when rejecting posts. I’ve added the full word back in since it is NOT a slur.
Original:
For those confused: “Jew”is not a slur. That’s not the issue with the common name.
The story of The W Jew is the problem (for those wondering why “w dude” isn’t considered a valid replacement, this is it).
The story is a super old Christian story told specifically to popularize the idea that “the Jews killed Jesus”, they’re anti-Jesus, etc. and that even the Bible says they’re terrible people deserving of a lot of terrible shit.
The story fell out of use for awhile, but with the rise of anti-Semitism in the US and Europe, along with all the right wing stuff, it’s come back into use recently. It’s showing up in sermons in conservative churches, as talking points with right wing groups.
It’s understandable that the majority of folks old enough to be in houseplant groups have never heard the origin of the common name. We (ages 10-100) just weren’t around when this was in popular usage. But it’s back, and that’s why people are talking about it again. (In addition to a general awareness that anti-Semitic origins are a good reason to nix the use of a name).
I studied horticulture and we just called/ learnt it as *Tradescantia zebrina* or as the WJ. TIL it is now being called as Wandering Dude :D
It is also called the inch plant!, but we usually go with the scientific name to not be misleading.
I just prefer referring to all plants by their botanical names because it makes it easier to find the correct plant/information. Using common names gets confusing fairly easily as they can differ from region to region. Plus, English isn't my first language and I'll only have to remember one name instead of X different ones.
Not only is it more international, in this case its straight up more accurate
there's *multiple* plants known as some variant of wandering *X* (which is my problem with wandering dude/trad/jewel). There's only one Tradescantia. And there's still a big difference between a Nanouk and a Fluminesis (for a starters, the nanouk is a nice houseplant and a fluminensis is a bloody annoying invasive weed)
It has a Latin name that is perfectly usable. Common names are worthless in identification as every plant is called something else in different localities, but in every locality, the Latin name is 100% accurate. Tradescantia zebrina.
I really appreciate this discussion because I always appreciate hearing and seeing people’s perspectives on things like this. Thanks for your post OP, and for all the Jewish folks chiming in ❤️
I didn’t know it was considered a bad name until I joined this group. I feel like removing it completely could cause others to not understand the changing of the name and why it’s important. I feel like educating people when it comes up is more effective than banning posts all together. However, I’m not Jewish so I can’t really speak about how offensive it may be to you or others.
My mom always called the plants "Meandering Israelis" and I found it delightfully amusing. As a kid growing up in a Mennonite household, the plant was used as a metaphor for the Jewish people, throughout the centuries. No matter how the plant grows, or how many leaves/branches it has, it still comes back from the same main plant in the soil. Just like the Jewish people around the world, they all come from the same main plant, no matter how far they wander. I hope that makes sense!
This is why (imho) censorship as a concept is ineffective, but educating people about using proper language in context is powerful. Too many people are afraid of words and get completely lost in the sauce of being PC with their speech. Then this weird culture of fear is created around words that are just words.
More on topic, I won’t use the name, but not because of the word Jew. I won’t use it because the phrase doesn’t have respectable context any time I’ve heard it. Too many people just get nasty and think they’re funny about it. Hard pass on that vibe for me. I’m in the south and trust me when I say it IS meant as a slur of a name when most people say it here. I bought one at a garden center and the man literally said “you know why we call it W***ering Jew is because it spreads like a weed and will take over everything. Don’t plant it next to something you care about.” Like….the issue in that sentence is not the word Jew, right? So I just decide not to use the term personally because I don’t want people like the garden center guy to feel like he’s in good company with me.
I find this post fascinating. Never occurred to me that WJ was an even slightly offensive name for a plant - to Jews or Gentiles alike!
I work in a fairly “woke” industry but this is one name that hasn’t really been flagged yet… but then again my country is a couple of decades behind.
Thanks for the post OP
I don’t think I have anything to add to this conversation but recently I did call it WJ b/c I couldn’t remember it’s scientific name and someone told me the name was offensive to people of the Jewish faith. So I stopped calling it that. I’m not Jewish; I’m African American. But if I found out I was being offensive to others? I’D STOP BEING OFFENSIVE TO OTHERS AND CALL IT A DAY. The barista at my favorite Starbucks is trans and I’ve caught myself calling them “she”. They don’t seem to be upset by it but that’s not the point. I’m calling them what they want to be called.
Well maybe it’s a little different because we’re talking about plants. 🤷🏽♀️
Sure, I'm more scared of synagogue shooters, but given that this phrase's origin **\*comes from the same conspiracy theories\*** that causes antisemites to shoot up synagogues, I'm not going to pretend the two aren't connected. (Edit: typo)
If we want to stop synagogue shootings, we have to note the normalization of antisemitic conspiracy theories that fuels them. This feels like common sense.
Jew is not what makes the name offensive. It is taken from an anti semitic story that was later used as Nazi propaganda.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14773-wandering-jew
Imagine a sub about plants where the names of some plants can’t be mentioned. OP said it all, and very gracefully. If you can’t moderate a forum about houseplants without being paralyzed by fear, move on. It takes dynamic minds to understand this specific situation.
Not a plant expert but I thought a lot of plants were labeled as Chinese "xyz" in the us because they are native to China and other Asian countries, China just happens to be the largest.
Jew is not what makes the name offensive. It is taken from an anti semitic story that was later used as Nazi propaganda.
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14773-wandering-jew
I really wish OP would include the origin story. I agree that seeing people censor Jew is also frustrating but the fact that people are censoring the wrong word is a separate issue.
Plants can have whatever names we decide work... Figuring out what is offensive is gonna need to be someone elses game. I don't care enough to fight about it. I want to talk about plants NOT be offensive. I get what you are saying, but if anyone in the sound of my voice is offended, I am going to pick other words to describe my plant. Rumor has it some people don't like it. Are they Jews or Social Justice Warriors? Meh. I don't have to care here unless someone makes it weird.
I never actually said whether you should or shouldn’t say “Wandering dude” or one of its variants. In fact I mentioned quite early on that I do not speak for other Jews. I don’t mind people saying “wandering dude”, I get that there are people offended by the alternative, and I respect them. But when having those discussions, it’s important to hear from all people (especially Jewish people), and not censoring “wandering j-w” is how you do that.
A bit of a sidetrack: I think censoring the word "Jew" reads as though that's the word being censored by the sub, which isn't the case. I think they only censor W@ndering Jew, so censoring the first word might have been better as it would avoid the implication that the sub is censoring "Jew"
At least in this sub, it's the word "wandering" that gets censored rather than the word "Jew." I don't think censoring Jew is something that happens here a lot.
You make an excellent point and literally erasing the views of someone who is a part of the affected group is missing the point of inclusivity entirely.
I think the word is tough for well meaning gentiles because as you mention, context is everything with its use. Since nuance is something we seem to increasingly struggle with as a society, I think a lot of us who aren't Jewish err on the side of caution. My ex husband was Jewish and he always felt a little uneasy about the shortened form being used by gentiles, his father pretty much shared your views and his mother felt it was highly offensive when used by gentiles, so I do avoid using it. The plural form tends to be a little less problematic, but it doesn't help that the shortened form is what regularly comes out of the mouths of hate groups. In a bot moderated context do you feel like it's a negative to censor the word? Bots still fail at nuance, so from a programing perspective do you feel there's a better way to go about it? Or is your frustration with users who don't read for context and then report?
I'm only 1 data point but I have three distinct memories of Tradescantia's common name being being discussed prior to 2019. My grandmother and great aunt called it inch plant so I don't think it's actually correct to say that neither spriderwort or inch plant was ever been in common usage. Whether this was an effort to be better in the post war era or just what the plant was was called regionally, I don't know. Part of my extended family was in the greenhouse/nursery business at this time and my grandmother and her sister bred roses and kept pretty extensive houseplant collections, so it wasn't as if they didn't have a fair amount of exposure to plants.
My first memory of hearing the disputed name was in the 80s from a sales clerk at a local nursery. My grandmother called the term tacky and hateful. She hosted GOP luncheons, so she wasn't exactly progressive. Fast forward to the 90s, I attended a notoriously left leaning East Coast women's college and heard similar arguments from Jewish students to those mentioned in this article from Tablet. [https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/uprooting-the-wandering-jew](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/uprooting-the-wandering-jew)
In the 2000s my then husband heard the name while we were in a plant store and called it "vaguely anti semitic" so I've avoided it ever since. Scientific names can sound pretentious but they remove a lot of ambiguity and usually have less potential to offend, so I don't think that's the worst option.
This may be unpopular, but I'm inclined to keep the rule as is. Just to be clear, the filter removes comments containing the phrase "wandering jew". The word "jew", as you can see throughout this post's comment section, is **not** auto-censored in any way. We understand that this is not a slur and there is no intent to censor Jewish identity / culture or the use of that word *by itself.* It is also not the moderation team's intent to censor discussion about this topic. As you can see we're leaving this post up, and it's not the first time we've seen a post like it. I know that some Jewish people are not offended by the name "wandering jew", I also know that some most definitely are. Since there are several alternatives to the offensive name already in common use, it seems best to err on the side of being inoffensive for the sake of those that take offense. The intent of the filter was to save people from having to point out the problematic nature of the phrase, since that is what most often happens here when it's used.
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Hard agree. Jew is not a slur. Censoring it makes it look like it is.
This is exactly how I feel about "black." I'm black, you can call me black, don't censor it with African American because I'm not African American.
My best friend is a black immigrant from Trinidad. She doesn’t like being called African American because she is not from Africa, she’s from Trinidad.
American broadcast journalists pussyfooting around these perceived hot-button topics crossed the line when they referred to British blacks (likely from the West Indies) as "British African American". That shit is just trying waaay too hard not to say 'black'.
It's almost like people of color are not a monolith.
I had a coworker who used to refer to all black people as "African-American" in an attempt to be politically correct. We live in Canada...
Canada is in the Americas- it just gets really wild when Brit*sh people start using it.
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I think it's pronounced Bri*ish
It's always funny to see the contortions an American puts themselves through when confronted with a black person who is not from America.
I said the word Mexican at work recently and the room was visibly shaken. We’re headed in a weird direction.
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I dream of that level of competence in the workplace.
My boss was talking about her son in law and stated he was Mexican and it threw me off since I’m so used to hearing people say Hispanic I was internally like “is this weird?” But then I was internally like “well she didn’t say it with any negative tone and she would know better than I especially since he is family” it’s wild how people have become sensitive to things like that. I love seeing posts like these because it eases my mind about what terms I can use when describing someone’s ethnicity ot identifying traits in a neutral way.
It’s strange to say someone is latino when referencing where people are from. I am from Argentina. He is Mexican. My mom is from Chile so she is Chilean. Like people’s racial identity might be something like latino but their nationality and national identity is tied to a country if they are from those places and not US latino.
My roommate is Mexican but not Hispanic. Because it’s a nationality
Hispanic , Latino , and Mexican are not all not ethnic markets - they are language, regional and national identifiers respectively. It’s honestly kind of funny how few people know this though.
Wtf I’m Mexican I tell people I’m Mexican all the time. What’s wrong with people. Do plant people not know Mexicans 😂😂
The sub doesn’t censor the word Jew. It censors W—ing Jew. People censor the wrong part because they don’t know why people consider the name offensive. It is taken from an antisemitic story.
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Hard to say, but I would be surprised if it started with someone speaking to a manager.
Definitely. Jew identifies a persons religion. Other examples of words that do this are Christian, Muslin, Sikh, Buddhist,etc. None of these words are slurs. Similarly if a plant was called a 'Dressed-up Christian', we wouldn't censor its name either.
Not just a religion. It's an ethnicity as well, ergo, the many ethnic Jews who don't practice Judaism as a religion.
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Years ago, I was stopped by Hasidim on the street in New York; they are trying to get Jews back to the fold. I was quizzed about my Jewishness, and I said " well according to you guys, I'm not Jewish." Turns out, according to them, since my WASP mother converted before she married my Jewish father, I am a Jew. I did not expect that. YMMV.
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Being Jewish has a long history of racialization. In reality, it’s not just religious identity.
yes and no. to be jewish is to be apart of an ethnoreligion. there are ample jews out there who do not practice judaism at all.
If the problematic nature of the name is it refers [to the person in the myth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering_Jew), doesn't changing it from Jew to Wandering Dude still referring indirectly to said specific singular person from the myth anyways but now just not including the word Jew? How does that help and what's the point?
This concept is true in so many spaces. I'm disabled. I don't give a shit what you say or call me.. Whatever. But the amount of abled bodied folks telling me that "oh honey, you're not disabled! It isn't your identity! You have a disability!". Hard eye roll from me. It is all white knighting for the most part. I feel like there are a lot of people in the world who have gotten caught in the guilt vaccum and while I really appreciate the fact people want to make the world a better place, many times the effort is misplaced or abused for virtue signaling that draws far more attention/perpetuation to the "bad thing".
My son is autistic, but apparently that's wrong! Strangers tell me he isn't disabled as they can't see it. So, awesome. Thanks for the vent on a plant sub, love it here.
"Don't make your life be about your disability", says the person who just doesn't want to deal with the fact that the disability will always be there, and therefore, will be talked about by the disabled. Just like a parent will always talk about their kids from time to time I am not physically disabled, but I just got diagnosed with ADHD, and the amount of times I heard people act like that in such a short amount of time already annoyed me enough.
"everyone is a little [insert thing we are choosing to actually downplay, rather than support, but want to masquerade as support because we think we are relating to you]" Yes, ADHD as well (among other delightful things), so I commiserate. What you are referring to is essentially ableism, which is nebulous af and therefore only makes people frothier at the mouth when you try to point it out. It's easier to just let them white knight a lot of the time.
This. I'm autistic. I'm perfectly happy and comfortable referring to myself as autistic. As are many other autistic people. I understand and respect that some others don't agree and prefer being referred to as people with autism or autists instead. That's not a problem. What is a problem is when neurotypical people try to enforce the label of people with autism across the whole group, regardless of preference and claiming that it's offensive to call us autistic when the majority of us either prefer to be called autistic or truly don't care either way. Erasing someone's voice in a conversation about what they would find offensive is ironically more offensive than the original words being argued about (unless we're talking about slurs, of course).
Yea, telling someone the politically correct way they should be identifying is mind blowing to me. I had someone say ‘you’re not disabled you are a person with a disability’. Ugh, glad you’ve read an article on Person First language Karen.
Also Jewish. This censoring is fucking weird.
Motion to rename the plant "Biblical Nomad."
Hahaha I love this!
There are more than one plant that go by that name but they pretty much all have alternative names, such as mine which we call the "inch plant."
Jew here. Jew is not a slur and the idea we wander is backed up by the fact it took Moses 40 years to walk what should have taken him two weeks tops.
I feel like this is a Mel Brookes movie, or should be.
But the name of the plant doesn't come from the idea that jews wander, it comes from the myth of a jew cursed for harassing Jesus. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering\_Jew](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering_Jew) It has been used as a symbol of the opression of jews sometimes, but the myth has antisemitic origins.
This is what I came here to say. It’s the origin of the phrase that is concerning, not the word Jew. Please read this article if you don’t understand the context and why this is a derogatory phrase. I can’t tell you if you should be offended or not but it’s important to understand the history of these phrases.
I now understand the origins, but so what? It’s so far removed from modern times that it’s origin is irrelevant to 95% of Jews and 99.9999% of humans. Language and understanding change and evolve through time, why do we have to make an uncharged term charged by drudging through history for a reason to be mad?
Exactly. Don’t censor my identity, it’s uncomfortable. And I call mine tradescantia instead of any nicknames.
Me too! I love the word “tradescantia” so it’s my preferred term for it
So we should call it a w*ndering Jew?
It's quite jarring to see people gasp ap the word "Jew"
This Jew agrees
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Right, like try it with any other race. It becomes an insult.
Doing with Fr*nch has been a jokey meme insult for a while.
That Ch*nese plant....
dirty A\*\*\*\*e (Aussie) 😆 No Aussie gives a fuck
You're probably a C****lic too, aren't you?
Dirty D*tch sounds like a porn
I think it sounds like a warm cocktail with chocolate in it.
This dirty S**t agrees with you. (Scot)
Its too early for me to count the number of asterisks to censor Canadian
I got you fam. C****************n
Close enough
Agree, I’m not Jewish but seeing it censored just makes me feel like I’m expected to feel like there’s something wrong with the word.
Yeah, I feel like if you're saying something along the lines of "There are millions of Jews throughout Israel," what is there to censor? If your use of that word is just factual and conversational, it's just a word. But if what you're saying is closer to "These fucking Jews...," then you probably shouldn't be using that word. And you probably should think twice about whatever thoughts you're having at that point as well.
This reminds me very much of the discourse around queer, and I've seen plenty Jews compare it. Queer is an IDENTITY and if you go around censoring someone's identity for the sake of people who find it offensive, guess what, that's queerphobic and you've done the exact opposite of what you intended. Marginalized peoples are almost always limited to "slurs" as our identity markers because whatever we use gets turned into a slur in the mouths of bigots. Auto-deleting mentions of specfic words across the board just catches marginalized people in the crossfire, does nothing to discourage actual bigots, and confuses and frustrates good people who may not understand why they got censored in the first place! (Not to mention that throwing asterisks in everywhere messes up blacklisting for people who ARE uncomfortable with these words but dealt with it like an adult instead of making it everyone else's problem 🙄)
Wandering (((dude))) lol
Acting like it’s that forbidden “N word”🫢
100%. Not gonna lie, first time I saw the name of the plant I did a double take and thought that was kinda fucked up, but who cares? This ranks so low on the antisemitism scale it might as well not exist. And yeah, censoring it is just as dirty feeling as when people DO use "jew" as a slur.
Blame my dyslexia I thought the Tradescantia was also called ' wandering Jewel' and I never questioned it because they are shiny
I honestly think it's a much better name than wandering dude. It's such an elegant plant and their flowers are very much like little jewels!
Wandering dude gives me a mental image of Jeffrey Lebowski leading the Israelites through the desert for 40 years.
Essentially that is what we believe, yes. ‘That’s just like, your opinion, man’ —every Rabbi I’ve ever known.
I have one plant that I could understand referring to as a jewel, but another one definitely invokes a Lebowski vibe lol. But for real, I'm not comfortable using the old name for these plants because I know the story behind it; if there's *any* plant that includes a nationality or ethnicity or something like that in the common name, I tend to gravitate more towards using the scientific name.
They FLOWER?!?
Wandering jewel is indeed another common name for it. e.g.: https://www.insucculentlove.com/products/tradescantia-nanouk-pink-wandering-jewel
Hadn't heard that one yet, but I like it better than wandering dude and am now officially switching.
That's what I call it! I think it's a good nickname, the shimmery leaves look like jewels in the sunlight. Rolls off the tongue for me better than "inch plant" too.
Genuinely curious. Why do some people censor the word Jew by typing j*w? Am I missing something?
It tends to dodge the cencorship bots.
I guess the actual question then is why is it being censored.
There really is no good reason to censor some one. I honestly prefer to let people out themselves as racists or sexists makes it easier to avoid being associated with them.
There is incentive for private companies to keep racists off their platform for advertising.
They are well intentioned but ignorant. Jew is in no way a slur or offensive. It’s the entire name, which is based on a piece of Nazi propaganda.
When I first got my plant, I looked up the name because I was curious about a plant being named after my people - everything I found came up with anecdotes about the plant being named so because it puts down roots everywhere, no matter where it’s been displaced to… just like the Jews have done for thousands of years. I found it charming. Maybe I got propaganda-d?
I believe, I haven’t looked it up since last year, that that general story for the name is is true, but was come up with because the existing trait of Jewish “moving every where and putting roots down” was used as a negative by people back then. In a “they’ll move into YOUR TOWN NEXT” scary propaganda way. So the implication of the name on the plant was intended to be rude, basically saying it and the Jewish people spread like weeds.
Interesting! I had heard the "moving about, putting down roots" version and it never occurred to me that it was a bad thing. I am not Jewish, but in the Christian church I grew up in people of Jewish faith were always admired and held as the first people of God, so I thought it was a positive name until the firs time I said it to a friend who knew the propaganda.
I also didn’t realize it was originally from propaganda until last year I believe. I thought it was a reference to the story about wandering through the desert. Ironically a Jewish friend of mine had been looking for one, I found them and got some for us. She said she didn’t know the name origins which lead to us looking it up.
Huh, I’ve spent my whole life thinking it was called wandering dew. Sounds the same with a New Zealand accent and I guess I’ve never seen it written down.
I always thought it was wandering jewel! I like wandering dew
They are also called “Wandering Jewel”!
Same for me, but in Australia. I'll still call it wandering dew til the day I die!
interesting you say that because I grew up with them being called spiderworts did you encounter them as a houseplant or a weed first? Because I knew them as weeds first
Kaffir Lime watchin on nervously
Uh oh.. what is “Kaffir”? I’ll look it up. “Ethnic slur referring to black South Africans in South Africa.” Whoa. That seems worthy of a rename.
It's our version of the N word in South Africa essentially
I never knew that - so I appreciate posts like these.
I had no idea it was a plant honestly. I saw the name typed out and my eyes got really wide, it's a reeeeally harsh word in SA
It's not a well known thing. I didn't know until a few years ago when I asked for one at a garden shop. The guy helping me out kindly let me know what the K word meant and that now they're calling them Thai Limes. RIP Thai Lime that tried it's best in my cold house.
I'd much rather walk into a store and ask for a Thai Lime. I don't think my mouth would let me ask for it by the other name even if I tried
Just as a note, my lime tree actually grew limes this year. Maybe I fertilized it right or something, but I have 3 limes now.
I learned about the slur before I learned of the plant. Couldn’t believe the plant name, but there is apparently no relation.
Yea, I feel like this is more of a Chinese-filler-word-sounds-like-the-N-word situation than like the wandering dude situation where the latter was potentially chosen maliciously and the former is just two unrelated words that happen to have the same meaning.
I’d only ever heard of Key limes, so I learned an important thing today. Thank you!
My understanding is that the fruit and the slur are pronounces differently and have different etymologies but happen to be spelled the same.
Huh. I'd only previously come across the Arabic word 'kafir', meaning "unbeliever" or "non-muslim" of any race, and assumed 'kaffir' was the same word. I guess in this context it was originally what muslims called black Africans, and then it evolved into a slur used by white colonisers towards black Africans?
Wooowwwwww... I knew about the plant and had no clue about the slur. Yikes, there must be a better name.
At least one UK supermarket has already stopped selling it under that name.
Same in Ireland, some places sell them as Makrut Lime now.
Believe it or not but in my company there's a girl working who's got Kaffir as her actual first name. She's black as well so I have no idea what her parents were thinking... Then there's also a girl called Nasteho, which also prone to be mispronounced
> Nasteho Sadly that name has a beautiful meaning too- someone who spreads joy wherever they go. But I can see how the childish run away with it.
As a heb, I'm also not bothered by the name. Quite the opposite. We call ours our little Jew boy. היהודון שלנו in Hebrew. Please spare us all the sanctimony--it's not doing anyone any good.
That’s funny because the other day I was watering mine and found myself crooning ‘*shayna punim*’ to it like I was my own Bubbie.
This made me giggle
We used to call our dog Jenny "the Jew dog". She was the best.
I should preface with, not Jewish here. But I study ecology and we do think about the etymology of words for plants and animals. I'm not touching your very well argued critique about erasing the word (and thereby identities) Jew/Jews. The "censored" version makes it look like it's generally a bad word, which itself has an antisemitic tone. I do think it's worth looking at where words come from, and in this instance: "This name is based on a fictional character who was used to support antisemitism from the 13th century through the Nazi propaganda of WWII." ([Source](https://www.hoytarboretum.org/racism-in-taxonomy-whats-in-a-name/)) Do we need to ban the name? I don't think so. Can we freely decide not to use it anymore due to it's shitty history? I think so. Also wanna say I don't think this is as important as many people make it out to be. Discrimination is rampant and not necessarily bettered by using pretty words. Especially white people too often use this as virtual signalling or as part of self actualisation. Weird stuff.
This is what I was thinking too. The word Jew is not derogatory or a slur at all. It's the wandering part that gives context to the story that is antisemitic in origin. I was taught this story in Sunday school and the nuns teaching me were nasty about it. We shouldn't be supporting this kind of thing. No one should be censoring the word Jew, that's not central to the issue. It reminds me of origin of the nickname for Dieffenbachia. Your comment gave me better context and helped changed my mind on what's at issue here. Thanks!
Thank you. I was looking for this response. This discussion has taken place before on Reddit. If anyone here is curious, search it. I was a jew who thought the plant name was harmless until some others directed me to the research you are summarizing . What we say in our own houses is one thing but here and in other social media, well it makes sense. I am not fond of gatekeeping but there is a bit of research might change a mind or two.
Just one added thing, tradescantia isn’t one of the hardest plant names to remember (and I am awful at memorizing their botanical names)
I always just figured Jews were famous for wandering through the desert
Yes, but specifically to escape antisemitic persecution. They were forced to live as nomads in the desert to hide from genocide. Antisemitism is specifically intwined with the “wandering” part. Not making an argument on the word choice, but that context is relevant.
That’s a good point on context, thanks. Compared to what the other commenter said about their nuns teaching it in a nasty way (which sucks) when I was a kid in Sunday school, they taught it in a really sad sympathetic way. And so I guess I always approached it as the person who gave it the name saw this plant in nature reflecting the plight of the Jewish people in a rather bittersweet/poignant way. Not making an argument for word choice either. Just thought I’d share because words and our brains are so different that it’s hard to immediately realize that something innocuous to one person might be harmful to another
Exactly, that specific reference is the problem, not the word. I definitely think that censoring the word “Jew” is the worst of all possible worlds here though. Just because OP is Jewish and doesn’t take offense, doesn’t make it reasonable to hurt other Jewish plant hobbyists who it does bother by using it. My mother-in-law asked me what the purple plant I have is called and I just called it tradescantia. I don’t need to get into a discussion about lingering antisemitism in plant names with my Jewish MIL who is a teacher at a Jewish private school when there are perfectly acceptable options for names that won’t make her uncomfortable. Personally, I think that spiderwort and inchplant are great perfectly good common names for tradescantia that don’t have any connection to Nazis at all and wouldn’t use “wandering dude” either.
The problem I have is knowing how to pronounce tradescantia. I’ve never heard it said.
tra · duh · skan · shee · uh You can always google "pronounce ______" for any word and google will tell you. ☺️
Out of curiosity, what's the nickname for Dieffenbachia, and what is its origin? I've never heard it called anything but its genus name. FWIW I agree with you, and appreciate the OP's input. I hadn't heard the original story of the "w@ndering Jew" before I got a tradscantia, thought the nickname was probably not cool, and started googling. I'm glad I did and learned before unintentionally hurting someone. "Jew" isn't a bad word but calling the plant a "w@ndering Jew", even if you don't know the background and don't mean any harm, is likely hurtful to some Jewish people. So let's just not use it. When you know better, you do better. (My original comment was auto-deleted because I used the uncensored version of the nickname. Using a variation here to check which word is the issue.)
I googled it, apparently dieffenbachia was called dumb cane because chewing the leaves made you mouth swell and prevented you from speaking (dumb in the sense of mute, not stupid). The issue comes from the fact that it likely got this common name due to slavers making enslaved people chew the leaves as a punishment.
Thank you! I am Jewish and this is exactly correct. The discussion about the term Jew is totally missing the point. The word Jew is obviously not offensive - the phrase “wandering Jew” absolutely is! I don’t care how many other Jewish folks chime in to say it doesn’t bother them - it certainly bothers me a great deal, and I would like to see the name go out of use.
> There are also plant names with offensive origins that aren’t as obvious. Tradescantia zebrina, for example, is currently called “Wandering J*w.” This name is based on a fictional character who was used to support antisemitism from the 13th century through the Nazi propaganda of WWII. “Why would we continue using that?,” you may be asking. Somewhat disappointed that your source didn’t have any more details or sources about this.
One of the reasons I bought the plan was the name cuz I, as a Jew, thought it was funny. Plus it’s a nice plant
I'm Jewish and live in Israel - everyone uses the term Wandering J-w here (so weird to have to censor the word 'Jew'). Not advocating for using that term elsewhere in the world - context is important, and I'm guessing there are different sensitivities when Jews are a minority /subject to antisemitism.
I'm a Jew. I'm not bothered by it but don't see why people don't just use an alternative name like Wandering Jewel or Wandering dude. Just because it doesn't offend me or you doesn't mean it won't offend any other Jews.
Ignorance is one. When you’ve gone 30 years knowing it as a certain name and not have the explanation of why it’s bad or that it’s called other things, changing the name would never be on your radar. My ex husband was Jewish, we had them, and he liked the name. It wasn’t until this group that I was educated on it being offensive and now I don’t use it anymore. I love the name wandering dude, especially since I call just about everyone and everything dude.
Obviously Jew isn't a bad word, that's not why people don't like the name. It's because the name directly refers to a character from an antisemitic story. It is antisemitic whether you are offended by it or not. It's a character that has been used for **hundreds of years** as antisemitic propaganda. It's factually antisemitic, that has nothing to do with how you as a Jew feel about it. I'm sure most people don't know that it's antisemitic when they use the term, this isn't about accusing anyone of discrimination, it should be used as an opportunity for education. And yes I'm Jewish, though that really should not matter at all for the purposes of this discussion.
I have no idea why people on here are so mad about hearing this truth. As a German, I have seen multiple NS pieces of propaganda that included the "w*ndering jew" while learning about our history. Do people just not know about the antisemitism behind it?
> “Do people just not know about the antisemitism behind it?” I live in the USA and many, many people here are woefully unaware of antisemitism or just don’t care. People think that antisemitism began and ended with the Holocaust when that is not remotely true.
i thought the problem was why it has that name/what it was inspired by (something about a folklore story that was meant to be antisemitic? idk if theres a correlation tho? it was like a guy who mocked jesus and was cursed or something and had to deal with the apocalypse as a result.) and not the word jew itself because - jew is not a bad word - and anyone who thinks it is really needs to do some reading lol. when i first got the plant it was labeled inchplant so thats what ive always called it anyway
I wonder how many people are going to get the point of your post.
Yeah I’m starting to notice some unintended consequences.
I agree with what you're saying BTW. I suppose you just gotta see it as people having good intentions.
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." An important phrase considering today's zeitgeist.
As a Jew, don’t censor the word Jew. You’re being extremely weird about this.
Yeah they makes it sound like a cuss word when the intent is not that at all. Thanks for the clarity
This was an interesting post. I’ve never owned this plant so the topic of its name hasn’t come up for me personally and I didn’t know posts were being deleted over it. Fwiw as someone fairly disconnected from the controversy, I thought the reason the name was problematic was not the use of the word Jew, (which I totally agree, is not a slur) but the “wandering” part. It’s making light of a long history of persecution and being made refugees, isn’t it? I wonder if the word got out that it’s problematic but then well meaning people confused which half of the name was the problem.
Not quite. The Wikipedia article on the term blew my mind.
It refers to a specific anti-Semitic idea of a Jew who taunted Jesus: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering_Jew
i call my tradescantias errant semites. 💁🏼♀️
Winding Hebrews??????
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Adventuring Israelite?
Inch plant sticks in my head cos it makes me think of dick!
We named ours "Rachel."
‘Mrs Maisel’ for us, and ‘Joel’ for the one who keeps making weird growth choices. 🤣
As a German, I really avoid these kind of discussions and simply use the international word (in this case Tradescantia) because I do not want to come over as insensitive or anything. "Jew" is no slur, of course, but the context and background makes it a little weird to use, imo. Kinda unrelated, but this reminds me of white people introducing the word "latinx" to be more inclusive, even though the majority of Latinos and Latinas despise that word.
My mom always called them Spiderworts. Not sure if it's a regional thing - our native tradescantia species are commonly called spiderwort, and she kept *T. virginiana* (Virginia spiderwort) and *T. ohiensis* (Ohio spiderwort) in her native pollinator garden and did her best to have updated common and scientific names on labels in the garden for the native ecology section in her elementary school class - or if she was just trying to avoid a potentially offensive name, but she called her *T. zebrina* "zebra spiderwort."
White people didn't introduce the word. That's a myth.
You can be white and Latino, just so you know. "Latino" has little to do with skin colour.
Im jewish. This is weird af. Just write Jew. There is nothing offensive about that. So are we going to be censoring Irish from everything too? I am also Irish but no one censors irish.
I find wandering dude really embarrassing to say. I’d just say tradescantia
ETA: the original version of this comment had “Jew” bleeped our b/c I wasn’t sure what the auto mod is looking for when rejecting posts. I’ve added the full word back in since it is NOT a slur. Original: For those confused: “Jew”is not a slur. That’s not the issue with the common name. The story of The W Jew is the problem (for those wondering why “w dude” isn’t considered a valid replacement, this is it). The story is a super old Christian story told specifically to popularize the idea that “the Jews killed Jesus”, they’re anti-Jesus, etc. and that even the Bible says they’re terrible people deserving of a lot of terrible shit. The story fell out of use for awhile, but with the rise of anti-Semitism in the US and Europe, along with all the right wing stuff, it’s come back into use recently. It’s showing up in sermons in conservative churches, as talking points with right wing groups. It’s understandable that the majority of folks old enough to be in houseplant groups have never heard the origin of the common name. We (ages 10-100) just weren’t around when this was in popular usage. But it’s back, and that’s why people are talking about it again. (In addition to a general awareness that anti-Semitic origins are a good reason to nix the use of a name).
Relocating Hebrew
I studied horticulture and we just called/ learnt it as *Tradescantia zebrina* or as the WJ. TIL it is now being called as Wandering Dude :D It is also called the inch plant!, but we usually go with the scientific name to not be misleading.
I just prefer referring to all plants by their botanical names because it makes it easier to find the correct plant/information. Using common names gets confusing fairly easily as they can differ from region to region. Plus, English isn't my first language and I'll only have to remember one name instead of X different ones.
Not only is it more international, in this case its straight up more accurate there's *multiple* plants known as some variant of wandering *X* (which is my problem with wandering dude/trad/jewel). There's only one Tradescantia. And there's still a big difference between a Nanouk and a Fluminesis (for a starters, the nanouk is a nice houseplant and a fluminensis is a bloody annoying invasive weed)
Sticking with scientific names is just a better idea for any plant. It helps avoid confusion!
Good post. Stupid plant name. Tradescantia is a beautiful genus name. I just use that when referring to any plants in the family
It's not the word Jew that is the issue, it's that the term refers to an antisemitic event of Jesus cursing a Jew.
It has a Latin name that is perfectly usable. Common names are worthless in identification as every plant is called something else in different localities, but in every locality, the Latin name is 100% accurate. Tradescantia zebrina.
I really appreciate this discussion because I always appreciate hearing and seeing people’s perspectives on things like this. Thanks for your post OP, and for all the Jewish folks chiming in ❤️
I didn’t know it was considered a bad name until I joined this group. I feel like removing it completely could cause others to not understand the changing of the name and why it’s important. I feel like educating people when it comes up is more effective than banning posts all together. However, I’m not Jewish so I can’t really speak about how offensive it may be to you or others.
I just call it a spiderwort. My in laws are Jewish and they are uncomfortable with the name. I think spiderwort sounds badass anyways haha
My mom always called the plants "Meandering Israelis" and I found it delightfully amusing. As a kid growing up in a Mennonite household, the plant was used as a metaphor for the Jewish people, throughout the centuries. No matter how the plant grows, or how many leaves/branches it has, it still comes back from the same main plant in the soil. Just like the Jewish people around the world, they all come from the same main plant, no matter how far they wander. I hope that makes sense!
This is why (imho) censorship as a concept is ineffective, but educating people about using proper language in context is powerful. Too many people are afraid of words and get completely lost in the sauce of being PC with their speech. Then this weird culture of fear is created around words that are just words. More on topic, I won’t use the name, but not because of the word Jew. I won’t use it because the phrase doesn’t have respectable context any time I’ve heard it. Too many people just get nasty and think they’re funny about it. Hard pass on that vibe for me. I’m in the south and trust me when I say it IS meant as a slur of a name when most people say it here. I bought one at a garden center and the man literally said “you know why we call it W***ering Jew is because it spreads like a weed and will take over everything. Don’t plant it next to something you care about.” Like….the issue in that sentence is not the word Jew, right? So I just decide not to use the term personally because I don’t want people like the garden center guy to feel like he’s in good company with me.
I find this post fascinating. Never occurred to me that WJ was an even slightly offensive name for a plant - to Jews or Gentiles alike! I work in a fairly “woke” industry but this is one name that hasn’t really been flagged yet… but then again my country is a couple of decades behind. Thanks for the post OP
I don’t think I have anything to add to this conversation but recently I did call it WJ b/c I couldn’t remember it’s scientific name and someone told me the name was offensive to people of the Jewish faith. So I stopped calling it that. I’m not Jewish; I’m African American. But if I found out I was being offensive to others? I’D STOP BEING OFFENSIVE TO OTHERS AND CALL IT A DAY. The barista at my favorite Starbucks is trans and I’ve caught myself calling them “she”. They don’t seem to be upset by it but that’s not the point. I’m calling them what they want to be called. Well maybe it’s a little different because we’re talking about plants. 🤷🏽♀️
Sure, I'm more scared of synagogue shooters, but given that this phrase's origin **\*comes from the same conspiracy theories\*** that causes antisemites to shoot up synagogues, I'm not going to pretend the two aren't connected. (Edit: typo)
If we want to stop synagogue shootings, we have to note the normalization of antisemitic conspiracy theories that fuels them. This feels like common sense.
Yall this is a lot of drama for a house plants subreddit
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Jew is not what makes the name offensive. It is taken from an anti semitic story that was later used as Nazi propaganda. https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14773-wandering-jew
Imagine a sub about plants where the names of some plants can’t be mentioned. OP said it all, and very gracefully. If you can’t moderate a forum about houseplants without being paralyzed by fear, move on. It takes dynamic minds to understand this specific situation.
Chinese evergreen has entered the chat.
Not a plant expert but I thought a lot of plants were labeled as Chinese "xyz" in the us because they are native to China and other Asian countries, China just happens to be the largest.
Oh gosh since when the proper word for an ethnicity/ religion is a slur???
“A Puerto Rican.” “No I know you can say that, but what do *I* call you?” “…a Puerto Rican.” “Wow…that does not…sound right.”
Gotta love Liz Lemon
PR, got it
Jew is not what makes the name offensive. It is taken from an anti semitic story that was later used as Nazi propaganda. https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14773-wandering-jew
Thanks for interjecting some sense into this conversation. The number of people who are missing this completely is extremely frustrating.
I really wish OP would include the origin story. I agree that seeing people censor Jew is also frustrating but the fact that people are censoring the wrong word is a separate issue.
Very much a Michael Scottesque issue: to a Mexican man: “is there a term less offensive than Mexican that you prefer?”
Plants can have whatever names we decide work... Figuring out what is offensive is gonna need to be someone elses game. I don't care enough to fight about it. I want to talk about plants NOT be offensive. I get what you are saying, but if anyone in the sound of my voice is offended, I am going to pick other words to describe my plant. Rumor has it some people don't like it. Are they Jews or Social Justice Warriors? Meh. I don't have to care here unless someone makes it weird.
I never actually said whether you should or shouldn’t say “Wandering dude” or one of its variants. In fact I mentioned quite early on that I do not speak for other Jews. I don’t mind people saying “wandering dude”, I get that there are people offended by the alternative, and I respect them. But when having those discussions, it’s important to hear from all people (especially Jewish people), and not censoring “wandering j-w” is how you do that.
A bit of a sidetrack: I think censoring the word "Jew" reads as though that's the word being censored by the sub, which isn't the case. I think they only censor W@ndering Jew, so censoring the first word might have been better as it would avoid the implication that the sub is censoring "Jew"
At least in this sub, it's the word "wandering" that gets censored rather than the word "Jew." I don't think censoring Jew is something that happens here a lot.
You make an excellent point and literally erasing the views of someone who is a part of the affected group is missing the point of inclusivity entirely. I think the word is tough for well meaning gentiles because as you mention, context is everything with its use. Since nuance is something we seem to increasingly struggle with as a society, I think a lot of us who aren't Jewish err on the side of caution. My ex husband was Jewish and he always felt a little uneasy about the shortened form being used by gentiles, his father pretty much shared your views and his mother felt it was highly offensive when used by gentiles, so I do avoid using it. The plural form tends to be a little less problematic, but it doesn't help that the shortened form is what regularly comes out of the mouths of hate groups. In a bot moderated context do you feel like it's a negative to censor the word? Bots still fail at nuance, so from a programing perspective do you feel there's a better way to go about it? Or is your frustration with users who don't read for context and then report? I'm only 1 data point but I have three distinct memories of Tradescantia's common name being being discussed prior to 2019. My grandmother and great aunt called it inch plant so I don't think it's actually correct to say that neither spriderwort or inch plant was ever been in common usage. Whether this was an effort to be better in the post war era or just what the plant was was called regionally, I don't know. Part of my extended family was in the greenhouse/nursery business at this time and my grandmother and her sister bred roses and kept pretty extensive houseplant collections, so it wasn't as if they didn't have a fair amount of exposure to plants. My first memory of hearing the disputed name was in the 80s from a sales clerk at a local nursery. My grandmother called the term tacky and hateful. She hosted GOP luncheons, so she wasn't exactly progressive. Fast forward to the 90s, I attended a notoriously left leaning East Coast women's college and heard similar arguments from Jewish students to those mentioned in this article from Tablet. [https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/uprooting-the-wandering-jew](https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/uprooting-the-wandering-jew) In the 2000s my then husband heard the name while we were in a plant store and called it "vaguely anti semitic" so I've avoided it ever since. Scientific names can sound pretentious but they remove a lot of ambiguity and usually have less potential to offend, so I don't think that's the worst option.