And she's an American Indian, too! From the April 27, 2012 Boston Herald:
Elizabeth Warren said she had no idea until she read the Herald today her Native American heritage was touted by Harvard Law School as proof of their faculty’s diversity in the 1990s — a fact her rival wants her to apologize for.
“I think I read it on the front page of the Herald,” Warren said when asked about the issue.
“I don’t even remember,” she added when asked about a 1996 Harvard Crimson article that quoted a then-law school spokesman touting her minority status. “You’re trying to raise something from 15 years ago.”You know, if she looked like an Indian, or had grown up on a reservation, or otherwise suffered some disadvantage from being of Indian ancestry, this wouldn't bother me, or anyone else. Our family physician many years ago was part-Indian (Cherokee, I think), and he looked it, just a little bit. I can believe that in some places in America, not that many years ago, he might have been subject to a certain amount of prejudice because of it. But Elizabeth Warren? If she gets the affirmative action benefit, then it really does show what a crock this has become.
She's as indian as Ward Churchill, I'll bet.
ReplyDeletefrom Power Line today,
ReplyDeleteOur friend Susan Vass is not an amateur punster, but rather a professional comedian. She writes to ask: “Could Ward Churchill and Elizabeth Warren marry and franchise a chain of Forked Tongue Casinos for other fake Indians?”
Briefcase woman speak with forked tongue.
ReplyDeleteIron Eyes Cody (real name Oscar de Corti) fooled even the Indians.
ReplyDeletePartial Native heritage can be a difficult question. Formal enrollment with a recognized tribe or band requires documentation that is more rigorous than many of mixed ancestry are likely to be able to produce.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that much of the mixing was white male / Native female, in circumstances that would not have been related in public 50-120 years ago.
There is a line between what might be personally relevant in sentiment and family history, and what is likely to survive the type of scrutiny that is wielded in a political contest.
Whenever possible, I mark a mixed heritage box. It is personally important that statistical categories not finish the job of obliterating history that past social circumstances already tried so hard to bury.
Would I mark that box in a circumstance that seeks advantage under the law, or might lead to a demand for rigorous proof? No.
It really doesn't bother me if someone claims to be part-Native American. There's a lot of Americans who do have such ancestry. But it does appear that she used this as one time to get some employment advantage. That bugs me, but there is at least a case that if you are apparently of Indian ancestry, you might be subject to discrimination (or at least, you might have been 40 or even 30 years ago). If you are disadvantaged because of growing up on a reservation or impoverished because of being in an Indian culture, I can somewhat understand the case for affirmative action. But she sure doesn't look it, and ending up at Harvard Law hardly seems like a sign of such socioeconomic disadvantage.
ReplyDelete(Same anon. as previous.)
ReplyDeleteI agree that it looks like she claimed this in the past for employment advantage, and is now trying to dodge inconvenient controversy by pretending that it did not happen.