Posted on 03/14/2018 5:27:52 AM PDT by Kaslin
Believe it or not, I was willing to give Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren the benefit of the doubt that she thought she was 1/32 Cherokee. Her belief (or hoax) was a non-issue until 2012 when she was running to unseat incumbent Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown. In 1984’s Pow Wow Chow cookbook, she signed her recipes “Elizabeth Warren – Cherokee,” and nobody cared. In the mid-1990s when she was tenured at Harvard Law School, she listed herself as a minority in a law school directory, and nobody cared. In 2012, everybody cared. Rush Limbaugh, who has a knack for nicknames, dubbed her Fauxcahontas. (Donald Trump—no slouch at nicknames himself—continues to carry her banner under the moniker Pocahontas.)
But maybe she was telling the truth.
She hails from Oklahoma where, apparently, everybody thinks they’re part Cherokee. A spokesman for the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma—the largest Cherokee tribe in the country with 300,000 members—said, "There's a running joke in Indian country: If you meet somebody who you wouldn't necessarily think is Native, but they say they're Native, chances are they'll tell you they're Cherokee."
Oklahomans aren’t the only ones who think they’re part Cherokee. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., known for his work with African-American genealogy, said the widespread belief in Indian ancestry “is the biggest myth in African-American genealogy: 'My great grandmother was a Cherokee princess,' " he says, adding, "The average slave and the average Native American didn't even see each other, which makes it very hard to mate."
This isn’t unreasonable. Many families “enhance” their histories in some way, either deliberately or through the years like the Telephone game where what is said at the beginning of the game resembles not at all what is said at the end. Like I said, benefit of the doubt, even though I am no Elizabeth Warren—a pox on both her houses—supporter. Fair is fair.
In 2018, she is running for reelection and appeared on Sunday’s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. After six years of enjoying reasonable doubt about some high cheekbones, she slid a change-up our way.
So let me tell you the story of my family. My mother and daddy were born and raised in Oklahoma. My daddy first saw my mother when they were both teenagers. He fell in love with this tall, quiet girl who played the piano. Head over heels. But his family was bitterly opposed to their relationship because she was part Native American. They eventually eloped. They survived the Great Depression. The Dust Bowl. A lot of knocks. They raised my three brothers, all of whom headed off to the military, and me. And they fought. They loved each other. And most of all they hung together for 63 years. And that's the story that my brothers and I all learned from our mom and our dad, from our grandparents, from all of our aunts and uncles. It's a part of me, and nobody's going to take that part of me away.
Huh? Now it’s her parents’ marriage that “proves” she’s part Cherokee? And she heard the story straight from mom and pop? Well, that’s convenient, or would be if it weren’t invented out of wholecloth. It would seem that a woman as bright—it pains me to say it—as Elizabeth Warren would have gone for the big guns way back in 2012. “My mother is part Native American, and that’s why my father’s family opposed the marriage” is a heckuva lot more solid than high cheekbones in a black and white photograph. If it’s true. (That’s a rhetorical “if” because clearly it’s not.)
This is important because even though she insists, “I have no intention of running for president”—classic political double-speak—she is certainly thinking hard about it. She’s also being courted and pressured and cajoled and enticed and flattered by members of her party who badly want her to run. She smacks of Hillary-lite (please, no).
Isn’t it interesting that Hillary was once party to demonizing her husband’s accusers as liars, bimbos, and trailer trash only to campaign heartily in 2016 that every woman deserves to be heard? And now Elizabeth Warren is pretending it’s no sleight of hand to substitute the “proof” of her parents’ marriage for that of her grandfather’s photograph. What a savvy politician. When she suddenly finds the intention to run for president, she might even win her party’s nomination.
But my money’s on California Senator Kamala Harris for Democratic nominee in 2020. As California’s Attorney General, Harris ran for and won her Senate seat in 2016 with nary a word about her Indian and Jamaican heritage. It seems that when ethnic heritage is for real it’s a non-issue. When it’s a political ploy, it’s probably not for real.
Hey at least she claimed to be an Indian American, and not from a foreign country, (randomly picking a county), say like kenya,5 in order to get special privileges.
Its the Democratic way apparently?
LOL. Heritage, yes...but neither parent was a citizen.
I have a feeling that Donald Trump will educate America about that little distinction.
I believe Scott brown is now the US ambassador to New Zealand.
“”When she suddenly finds the intention to run for president””
She will have thought up more stories by then....
Kamala Harris - NO! NO! NO! PLEASE! NO! NO! NO!!!!
This is why you never see a Native American comedian.
Not in the South! I’m old and I have always called my daddy “daddy.”
Ok, thanks for setting me straight. :)
This author says he’s willing to give Warren the benefit of the doubt because she thought she was some very small percentage of Indian. I’m not. I have “family lore” that I’m some small percentage of Indian. We even have an old photograph of an Indian woman who is supposed to be my great-great-great-etc. grandmother. It would make me 1/32nd or 1/16th Indian. But I never in my life would consider identifying as a “minority” or claiming Indian status. Its a scam for whites who want to glom onto the identity politics bandwagon.
To me, when you refuse a DNA test, you’re telling me you’re a liar...period.
Its that phony cornpone folksy affect she learned from Hillary, who ain’t in no ways tard.
WRONG!
Everyone actually from Oklahoma KNOWS that they are part Choctaw because the Cherokee have been jealous of our ways for centuries.
Yup, after the 2016 election he simply disappeared.
Yep. And that script is just sitting in a drawer at CNN to be brought out when the time is right.
Kinda like the 2000+ page Obamacare bill.
She won’t have to say anything if they don’t ask.
Or,if they do ..whatever answer she gives will get a pass.
Unless they want to make room for the next “chosen one”
Then they will destroy her.
I prefer “Lieawatha” myself.
She may actually believe she’s part Cherokee. She may BE part Cherokee. But before claiming any Indian benefits, doesn’t there have to be proof? Harvard Law should’ve required proof before giving her a leg-up over other candidates based on her alleged heritage.
Thinking you’re a minority person is one thing, but bamboozling people to get goodies is something else altogether.
Gates is wrong, as usual. The Cherokee did own slaves. There was even a slave revolt.
“”Not in the South! I’m old and I have always called my daddy “daddy.”””
I’m in the south now but was raised as a Yankee and when I speak of something my father did (long deceased), I still refer to him as Daddy as I’d never called him anything but that. It wouldn’t be natural to refer to him as Dad or any other term. I remember my mother always referred to her father as Papa and as a young kid, I always thought that was odd but I can see why she did..it’s just natural.
Good work if you can get it :)
Lunatics do odd things.
Scott Brown is currently the Ambassador to New Zealand, I believe.
There is not a further corner of the world that one could be sent to,
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