Serena Williams is outraged by a New York City hotel’s decision to decorate one of its hallways with what appears to be a cotton plant.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion was in the hotel this week for Kim Kardashian’s launch of the SKIMS/Nike partnership. However, while showing off how elegant the hotel is, she came across what appeared to be a cotton plant decoration, The Spun reported.
Williams expressed her dislike for the decoration on her IG Story on Thursday, stating that it “doesn’t feel great” to see that kind of table adornment at a hotel.
“How do we feel about cotton as decoration?” Williams said while looking at the decoration. “Personally, for me, it doesn’t feel great.”
Williams then plucked one of the cotton balls and rubbed it on one of her nails. She then flinched back in disgust. It’s not clear if the plant is real or not, but what is clear is the stigma associated with cotton farming or cotton plants.
For the average Black person in the United States, cotton farming, which otherwise is a very lucrative business, brings to mind the sad history of slavery and sharecroppers who were cheated out of their wages while their manpower helped to build America’s colonial economy.
Per History.com, enslaved people from the South were the largest producers of the world’s cotton, totaling about 75% of the global production at the time and this mass production accelerated slavery in America.
The name of the hotel where Williams stayed has not been revealed.
