Second-largest U.S. Indian tribe expels slave descendants

[Jolie Rouge]

By Steve Olafson | Reuters – 11 hrs ago

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - The nation's second-largest Indian tribe formally booted from membership thousands of descendants of black slaves who were brought to Oklahoma more than 170 years ago by Native American owners.

The Cherokee nation voted after the Civil War to admit the slave descendants to the tribe.

But on Monday, the Cherokee nation Supreme Court ruled that a 2007 tribal decision to kick the so-called "Freedmen" out of the tribe was proper.

The controversy stems from a footnote in the brutal history of U.S. treatment of Native Americans. When many Indians were forced to move to what later became Oklahoma from the eastern U.S. in 1838, some who had owned plantations in the South brought along their slaves.

Some 4,000 Indians died during the forced march, which became known as the "Trail of Tears."

"And our ancestors carried the baggage," said Marilyn Vann, the Freedman leader who is a plaintiff in the legal battle.

Officially, there are about 2,800 Freedmen, but another 3,500 have tribal membership applications pending, and there could be as many as 25,000 eligible to enter the tribe, according to Vann.

The tribal court decision was announced one day before absentee ballots were to be mailed in the election of the Cherokee Principal Chief.

"This is racism and apartheid in the 21st Century," said Vann, an engineer who lives in Oklahoma City.

Spokesmen for the tribe did not respond when asked to comment.

The move to exclude the Freedmen has rankled some African American members of Congress, which has jurisdiction over all Native American tribes in the country.

A lawsuit challenging the Freedman's removal from the tribe has been pending in federal court in Washington, for about six years.

As a sovereign nation, Cherokee Nation officials maintain that the tribe has the right to amend its constitutional membership requirements.

Removal from the membership rolls means the Freedmen will no longer be eligible for free health care and other benefits such as education concessions.

http://news.yahoo.com/second-largest-u-indian-tribe-expels-slave-descendants-011650136.html

comments

The reason why this article caught my attention is because there is cherokee blood in my family and we are black. The fact that there is probably cherokee blood in all races out there, once again there is segregation rearing it's ugly head. They are trying to make it sound like they are doing past slave ancestors a favor by kicking them to the curb because it was a mistake to own slaves. Some of us are so "over" the past and trying to make a better future. We can't turn back time.

~~~

Now this will be interesting to keep up with. American Indians do not feel they owe modern day Afrcan Americans a place in their tribe because of something they personally had nothing to do with. There are quite a few non American Indians who feel the same way, but they are called bigots.

~~~

If you are a Native American, you should do as the members of your tribe dictates. It seems to be an exclusive club you can't buy into. I think it is a rule enforced by DNA to be or not to be part and parcel of your tribe. I say let the Native American do as he feels is right and just. I don't think it is too much to ask after losing your entire world to the Europeans

[Jolie Rouge]

Cherokees told to take back slaves' descendants
By JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS - Associated Press | AP – 23 hrs ago

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A federal order for one of the nation's largest American Indian tribes to restore voting rights and benefits to about 2,800 descendants of members' former slaves threw plans for a special election for a new chief into turmoil Tuesday.

The federal government sent the sternly-worded letter to the Cherokee Nation after it sent letters last week kicking the descendants out of the tribe and stripping them of benefits including medical care, food stipends and assistance for low-income homeowners.

The tribe also barred the descendants from voting in a Sept. 24 special election for principal chief. The Cherokee Supreme Court ordered the special election after it said it could not determine with certainty the outcome of a close and hotly contested June election between incumbent Chad Smith and longtime tribal councilman Bill John Baker. The results had flip-flopped between the two during weeks of counts and recounts. Baker had twice been declared winner, but so had Smith.

The federal government said that unless the descendants, known as freedmen, were allowed to vote, the upcoming election wouldn't be valid. "I urge you to consider carefully the nation's next steps in proceeding with an election that does not comply with federal law," Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk wrote in letter Friday to acting Chief S. Joe Crittenden. "The department will not recognize any action taken by the nation that is inconsistent with these principles and does not accord its freedmen members full rights of citizenship."

Crittenden said the special election would take place as scheduled. "The Cherokee Nation will not be governed by the (Bureau of Indian Affairs)," he said. "We will hold our election and continue our long legacy of responsible self-governance."

The election has drawn national interest because while the tribe is based in Tahlequah, many of its 300,000 members live outside Oklahoma.

The freedmen have asked a federal judge to restore their voting rights before the special election, and a hearing is planned next week in federal court in Washington. The tribe never owned black slaves, but some individual members did. They were freed after the Civil War, in which the tribe allied with the Confederacy. An 1866 treaty between the tribe and the federal government gave the freedmen and their descendants "all the rights of native Cherokees."

More than 76 percent of Cherokee voters approved a 2007 amendment removing the freedmen and other non-Indians from the tribal rolls, but no action was taken until the tribe's Supreme Court upheld the results of that special election last month. Cherokee leaders who backed the amendment, including Smith, said the vote was about the fundamental right of every government to determine its citizens, not about racial exclusion.

But the Department of the Interior said Tuesday that it still believes the expulsion is unconstitutional because it violates the 1866 treaty. Marilyn Vann, president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes, said she hopes the federal order will result in the election being delayed. "The freedmen people still have rights in the tribe such as voting," Vann said Tuesday. "We'll have our day in court."


http://news.yahoo.com/cherokees-told-back-slaves-descendants-193054698.html;_ylt=AlQa1b8SrP.2Nio68Y0RrZcDW7oF;_ ylu=X3oDMTRrcjluYzcwBGNjb2RlA3dlaWdodGVkY3QuYwRtaX QDTW9zdFBvcHVsYXIgTGlzdGluZwRwa2cDNWQ4ZjViMzMtOGZk MC0zYWMzLWJmOTctYjU3YzFkMTUzNzhmBHBvcwMxMARzZWMDTW 9zdCBQb3B1bGFyBHZlcgM1M2U4MzVkMC1kZTRkLTExZTAtYWE1 Yi00NzUwYTE1M2M1NDE-;_ylg=X3oDMTFyNzExZWxyBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRw c3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANwb3B1bGFyBHB0A3NlY3Rpb25zBHRlc3 QD;_ylv=3

[Jolie Rouge]

Cherokee Indians say they will not be dictated to by U.S.
By Steve Olafson | Reuters – 19 hrs ago

http://news.yahoo.com/cherokee-indians-not-dictated-u-010110913.html

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - The nation's second-largest Indian tribe said on Tuesday that it would not be dictated to by the U.S. government over its move to banish 2,800 African Americans from its citizenship rolls.

"The Cherokee Nation will not be governed by the BIA," Joe Crittenden, the tribe's acting principal chief, said in a statement responding to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Crittenden, who leads the tribe until a new principal chief is elected, went on to complain about unnamed congressmen meddling in the tribe's self-governance.

The reaction follows a letter the tribe received on Monday from BIA Assistant Secretary Larry Echo Hawk, who warned that the results of the September 24 Cherokee election for principal chief will not be recognized by the U.S. government if the ousted members, known to some as "Cherokee Freedmen," are not allowed to vote.

The dispute stems from the fact that some wealthy Cherokee owned black slaves who worked on their plantations in the South. By the 1830s, most of the tribe was forced to relocate to present-day Oklahoma, and many took their slaves with them. The so-called Freedmen are descendants of those slaves.

After the Civil War, in which the Cherokee fought for the South, a treaty was signed in 1866 guaranteeing tribal citizenship for the freed slaves.

The U.S. government said that the 1866 treaty between the Cherokee tribe and the U.S. government guaranteed that the slaves were tribal citizens, whether or not they had a Cherokee blood relation.

The African Americans lost their citizenship last month when the Cherokee Supreme Court voted to support the right of tribal members to change the tribe's constitution on citizenship matters.

The change meant that Cherokee Freedmen who could not prove they have a Cherokee blood relation were no longer citizens, making them ineligible to vote in tribal elections or receive benefits.

Besides pressure from the BIA to accept the 1866 Treaty as the law of the land, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is withholding a $33 million disbursement to the tribe over the Freedmen controversy.

Attorneys in a federal lawsuit in Washington are asking a judge to restore voting rights for the ousted Cherokee Freedmen in time for the September 24 tribal election for Principal Chief.

(Editing by Greg McCune)

comments

according to family history, I am part cherokee, but i certainly do not qualify, nor should i expect the Cherokee nation to acknowledge me as part of thier tribe. What this would do is set a legal precadent and then everyone that has claimed to be part indian would have to be allowed into the tribe. Its just stupid. you should have to be INDIAN to be in an INDIAN tribe.
My ancestors lived in Texas when it was part of Mexico, so legally they were Mexican citizens. Should I be allowed to claim I am a Latin American because of that fact? NO.

,,,,

It's about time the Indians stood up for their autonomy. But why call these guys African American if they are members of the Indian nation. They wouldn't be Americans they'd be African Indians. I'm sick of everyone claiming American in their hyphenated names. You're either an American or not

[Jolie Rouge]

Native American group: Elizabeth Warren ‘better be able to defend’ ancestry claim
The Daily Caller – 9 hrs ago

A prominent Native American group says Massachusetts Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren had “better be able to defend” her past claims of being an Indian-American minority.

The Democratic candidate is facing questions about her heritage following the revelation on Friday that she described herself as a Native American minority in professional law school directories during the 1980s and ’90s.

“Once you put that down, you better be able to defend it,” Ray Ramirez of the Native American Rights Fund told The Daily Caller on Monday.

Warren, who no longer publicly refers to herself as Native American, has disputed that she claimed Indian-American minority status then to give herself a professional advantage.

Asked for evidence of her ancestry to back up the candidate’s past statements, a Warren spokeswoman told TheDC on Monday that the campaign is “working on digging up some sort of evidence to appease” inquirers.

But the campaign hasn’t been able to immediately provide any documentation. The Boston Herald reported Friday that the Warren campaign said the “tales of Warren’s Cherokee and Delaware tribe ancestors have been passed down through family lore.”

Ramirez said anyone who claims in writing to be a Native American should have some sort of supporting documentation. “If you’re a member of a federally recognized tribe, then that means you would have a tribal enrollment number,” he said. (RELATED: Warren campaign says it’s digging up evidence of Native American heritage to satisfy the press)

“If you just heard it from family members,” Ramirez added, ”and really have no documentation, I guess it’s best not to ever put that down.”

According to the website of the Native American Rights Fund, “There exists no universally accepted rule for establishing a person’s identity as an Indian” but as “a general principle an Indian is a person who is of some degree Indian blood and is recognized as an Indian by a tribe/village and/or the United States.”

Warren is challenging Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown for the Massachusetts Senate seat once held by the late Ted Kennedy.

http://news.yahoo.com/native-american-group-elizabeth-warren-better-able-defend-034605205.html

comments

If you're going to claim to be indian, perhaps you shouldn't be the whitest person in the room.

...

Warren: Its just a little lie, why cant you see through the Republicans tricks? After all, its Bushs fault.

..

It's funny that Indians whose history consisted entirely of oral history prior to the 19th and if not 20th century because they had no written language are so dismissive of the oral history of non-Indian families. On the other, it is one thing to have Indian ancestry and another to actually be an Indian, and if all you have is an oral history of the former, you shouldn't claim to be the latter, and you certainly shouldn't seek some sort of minority preference based on it. If Ms. Warren did that, that would be very wrong.

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Minority student loans. Minority contracts. Tax breaks for being a member of a Indian tribe. Dozens of ways to get over if you can claim to be an Native American. A DNA test would settle this problem.

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Minority student loans. Minority contracts. Tax breaks for being a member of a Indian tribe. Dozens of ways to get over if you can claim to be an Native American. A DNA test would settle this problem.

..

A lot of folks have family members who insist there was an "injun in the woodpile" including my own (A great grandfather,... who was purportedly 1/2 Lakota back in the general area of Nebraska..._), but as one poster has already said,... a D.N.A. test would settle any such questions these days if one is interested enough to go to the trouble.....

[Jolie Rouge]

Phony Indian Elizabeth Warren Claimed She Was Native American For Harvard Job… She’s Not
Posted by Jim Hoft on Sunday, April 29, 2012, 8:05 PM

Far left Democrat Elizabeth Warren claimed she was a native American at Harvard for years. She’s not.

The Boston Herald reported: http://bostonherald.com/news/politics/view.bg?articleid=1061127621


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.”

Her GOP Senate rival, U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, said today the story raises “some questions that need to be answered.” Brown’s campaign went further calling on Warren to apologize for allowing Harvard to claim she was part Native American.

“For years, Harvard has claimed special minority status for Professor Elizabeth Warren as a member of a Native American tribe and their first minority hire,” said Jim Barnett, campaign manager for Brown. “That Warren allowed Harvard to hold her up as an example of their commitment to diversity in the hiring of historically disadvantaged communities is an insult to all Americans who have suffered real discrimination and mistreatment, and Warren should apologize for participating in this hypocritical sham.”

Warren, who has not provided any documentation on her Native American heritage, said she is “proud” of her lineage. "“These are my family stories,” she said. “This is our lives and I am very proud of that.”

via Instapundit: http://noticias.terra.es/fotos/actualidad/fichafoto.aspx?itemurl=/2011/espana/1002/fotos-media/espana-manifestacion-pxc-josep-anglada-en-una-manifestacion-en-barcelona-03


The old AALS Directory of Faculty guides are online (through academic libraries) at Hein Online. The directories starting listing minority faculty in an appendix in 1986. There’s Elizabeth Warren, listed as a professor at Texas. I spot-checked three additional directories from when she was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, including 1995-96, the year Harvard offered her a position. Elizabeth Warren, Elizabeth Warren, Elizabeth Warren.

So, we know one thing with almost 100% certainty: Elizabeth Warren identified herself as a minority law professor. We know something else with 90%+ certainty: (at least some) folks at Harvard were almost certainly aware that she identified as a minority law professor, though they may not have known which ethnic group she claimed to be belong to, and it may not have played any role in her hiring.

But it gets even more interesting: once Warren joined the Harvard faculty, she dropped off the list of minority law faculty. Now that’s passing strange. When the AALS directory form came around before Warren arrived at Harvard, she was proud enough of her Native American ancestry to ask that she be listed among the minority law professors. (Or, in the unlikely even that she just allowed law school administrators to fill out the forms for her without reviewing them, they were aware that she claimed such ancestry, and she didn’t object when she was listed.) Once she arrived at Harvard, however, she no longer chose to be listed as a minority law professor.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/04/phony-indian-elizabeth-warren-claimed-she-was-native-american-for-harvard-job-shes-not/

UPDATE: This story reminded me of the 1980s case of the twin red-haired Boston firefighters who claimed to be black, based on a photo of a great-grandmother and alleged oral history. While I remembered that they had gotten fired for their alleged fraud, I didn’t remember this detail:


Under current rules, said [general counsel to the state personnel office] Ms. Dale, candidates who say they are members of minority groups are judged by appearance, documented personal history and identification with a minority community. Disputes over claims of minority status are resolved by the Department of Personnel Administration.

And indeed, there eventually was a two-day administrative hearing, in which the hearing officer determined that the twins failed all three criteria, and thus were not black. A judge upheld the ruling, finding that the twins had claimed minority status in bad faith.I have to admit being under the impression until now that as a legal matter, minority status was an in issue of self-reporting. But at least in the Massachusetts Civil Service system, one can get fired for “racial fraud.”

http://volokh.com/2012/04/28/elizabeth-warren-herself-claimed-minority-status/

[Jolie Rouge]

Elizabeth Warren campaign, challenged on Native American heritage claims, ‘digging up some sort of evidence to appease you’
Published: 2:50 PM 04/30/2012

Massachusetts senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren described herself in law-school professional directories as a Native American minority from 1986 to 1995.

The white Democratic candidate has so far offered no evidence that she is, in fact, part Native American, suggesting that she may have falsified that ethnic credential to advance her academic career in the early affirmative-action era. But “it is true,” a Warren spokeswoman told The Daily Caller on Monday, “and we’re working on digging up some sort of evidence to appease you.”

Another Warren spokeswoman shot back at the campaign of incumbent Republican Sen. Scott Brown, whom Warren is challenging for the senate seat once held by the late Ted Kennedy. “If Scott Brown has questions about Elizabeth Warren’s well-known qualifications — from her high marks as a teacher to her nationally recognized work on bankruptcy and the pressures on middle class families — he ought to ask them directly instead of hiding behind the nasty insinuations of his campaign and trying to score political points,” spokeswoman Mindy Myers said in a statement.

Harvard University’s decision to promote Warren as a minority faculty member brought the issue front-and-center, but the Boston Herald reported Monday that Warren described herself that way when she taught at the University of Texas and the University of Pennsylvania. American law school directories listed Warren as a minority professor for nine years before Harvard scooped her up, and Harvard apparently used that information to promote her as a minority, the Herald first reported Friday.

Warren’s campaign claims she did not know Harvard was promoting her as its law school’s only Native American professor and one of only a handful of “minority” faculty members. She does have Native American blood, the campaign said, but didn’t use that to get her job at Harvard. “The simple fact is that Elizabeth is proud of her heritage,” Warren spokeswoman Alethea Harney said.

In a statement Friday, Brown’s campaign manager said she should apologize. On Monday the campaign told the Herald that Warren should “come clean” about falsely claiming to be a minority. Campaign manager Jim Barnett said that Warren allowed Harvard to conduct a “diversity sham.”

“For years, Harvard has claimed special minority status for Professor Elizabeth Warren as a member of a Native American tribe and their first minority hire,” Barnett said. “That Warren allowed Harvard to hold her up as an example of their commitment to diversity in the hiring of historically disadvantaged communities is an insult to all Americans who have suffered real discrimination and mistreatment, and Warren should apologize for participating in this hypocritical sham.”

Warren’s campaign has yet to say when it will release the evidence it claims to have to support Warren’s contention that she is part Native American. The campaign also has not responded to TheDC’s question about how much Native American blood she has, or how much is the minimum required before she could legitimately claim that heritage.


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/30/elizabeth-warren-campaign-challenged-on-native-american-heritage-claims-digging-up-some-sort-of-evidence-to-appease-you/#ixzz1tciX5ruW

comments

This is all easily explained. The law school professional directory simply misspelled "Naive American" and accidently inserted a "t" so that it became "Native American."

But considering that Ms. Warren is a Democrat, one wonders how that error was overlooked for so many years.

...

As a true person of native american heritage I think your naive comment was too kind. This woman, like many other democrats all too often take advantage of minority groups. This was no accident or over-sight. Shame on mzzzzz waren she is as much of a fraud as her boss Obama. I'm sure they will come up with some remote birth certificate that oddly notes she is both1.32nd part native american and a member of the daughters of the american revolution. Honesty is not a democratic trait.

...

Yea, yea, I'm from Oklahoma, all of our great, great grandmothers were one quarter Cherokee. Sure! Right! Everybody is part Indian. I bet you if you were, you passed for white unless you saw a scholarship coming your way. Hypocrite. I bet no one at NW Classen High School thought you were an indian.

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I am a half black muslim lesbian in a wheel chair. I may not look like it, but if you ask me for proof then you are a racist and you should shutup and worry about more important issues.


http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyolfvl5VH1qznsrc.gif

[Jolie Rouge]

Elizabeth Warren, Native American?
By Jim Geraghty April 27, 2012 9:53 A.M.

I doubt this will move many votes in the Massachusetts Senate race, but it does illustrate how pursuit of “diversity” in higher education can drive institutions to make rather implausible claims:

Elizabeth Warren’s avowed Native American heritage — which the candidate rarely if ever discusses on the campaign trail — was once touted by embattled Harvard Law School officials who cited her claim as proof of their faculty’s diversity.

Warren’s claim, which surfaced yesterday after a Herald inquiry, put the candidate in an awkward position as campaign aides last night scrambled but failed to produce documents proving her family lineage. Aides said the tales of Warren’s Cherokee and Delaware tribe ancestors have been passed down through family lore.

. . . Fried said he learned about Warren’s Cherokee and Delaware background later when he found a picture of Warren’s mother and asked her about it. Both Warren’s grandparents on her mother’s side had Native American lineage, her campaign said yesterday.

(Warren’s birth surname is Herring, which is an Anglo-Saxon name.)

Thankfully, it appears that some recognize the ludicrousness of claiming minority status based upon the identity of one’s great-grandparents:


Sarah Marston, the current spokeswoman at Harvard Law School, said the school has had a change of heart when it comes to discussing Warren’s heritiage.


“The Law School’s current policy is to refrain from publicly commenting about the race or ethnicity of individual faculty members,” Marston said in a statement.


Back in 2005, NR’s John J. Miller took a look at the phenomenon of “fake Indians” after Ward Churchill grabbed the public spotlight: http://old.nationalreview.com/flashback/miller200601271228.asp


Between 1960 and 2000, the number of Americans claiming Indian ancestry on their census forms jumped by a factor of six. Neither birthrates nor counting methodologies can account for this explosive growth. Instead, the phenomenon arises in large part from the increasingly idealistic place Indians occupy in the popular imagination. Much of it is based on harmless sentiment mixed into a hash of unverifiable family legends and wishful thinking among folks who hang dreamcatchers from their rearview mirrors. But for a distinct subset, it’s all about personal profit. They’re professional imposters who have built entire careers by putting the sham into shaman.


Of course, there’s nothing new about white political figures attempting to spotlight a distant tie to a Native American ancestor. Native American author Sherman Alexie shared this anecdote: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/jan/04/artsfeatures.fiction


When President Clinton was still in the White House in 1998, he invited Alexie and a small group of others to take part in a televised “Dialogue on Race” forum. “He said, ‘Sherman, before I was president, the only thing I knew about Indians was that my grandmother was part Cherokee.’”

“Later on, I was asked if Indians were part of the national dialogue on race. I said ‘No, the only time white folks talk to me about Indians is when they tell me their grandmothers were part Cherokee.’ As the show wore on, I thought ‘Oh, my God, I gave the president s*** — the president!’ Afterwards I was scared and tried to hide — and he came across to me and grabbed me by the shoulder and leaned in close to me and said, ‘Sherman, you’re f***ing funny!’”

http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/297118/elizabeth-warren-native-american

E-Mail From Bert the Samoan Lawyer
Posted on | May 1, 2012

What? You doubt that he’s actually Samoan? What kind of vicious racist hatemonger are you, to doubt Bert the Samoan Lawyer?


It’s impossible to be sure about this Elizabeth Warren/Native American thing but I will bet you … a Ruth’s Chris dinner the next time [you are] in Alabama that if Elizabeth Warren was listing herself as a “Native American” minority while teaching law at Texas and Penn (in faculty directories) she was using that claim to get preferential treatment in hiring at those places. Remember Ward Churchill? Claiming Native American ancestry is a known scam, especially useful at state universities that are, to put it mildly, obsessed with ethnic diversity in the professoriate. It also turns up a lot with people who want to run gambling operations free of state-law impediments.

In addition, there are about 1,000 contexts in which falsely claiming minority status is a federal crime.

The non-denial denials coming out of Warren’s campaign coupled with the lame attempt to paint Scott Brown as conducting a war on women by calling Warren on this suggest to me that this story is going to have legs. Long ones.

This woman almost became the top cop of the entire financial industry. Maybe she’ll pull a Geithner: “so what if I cheated on my taxes; now I run the Treasury!” But I’m hoping the investigative blogosphere will get on this hard. There is almost no way she could have listed herself as a minority in a faculty directory if she was not doing so on more official documents.

While Bert’s Samoan authenticity is beyond doubt, the Native American authenticity of Elizabeth “Dances With Socialists” Warren is being mocked by Allahpundit, Instapundit, William Jacobson, Moe Lane, Weasel Zippers, Tom Maguire, Mark Steyn, Ace of Spades and Ace of Spades — really, she needed mocking twice by Ace — to say nothing of every talk-radio host within range of a microphone.

Somehow, despite the vigorous denials Harvard Law is issuing to the New York Times, and even though she’s “working on digging up some sort of evidence to appease you,” I’m thinking this “Cherokee Princess” bit is pretty much the nail in the coffin of Warren’s campaign.

Imagine you’re a blue-collar Irish Democrat in Boston. Your kid didn’t get into Harvard, did he? This rich blonde Harvard professor who gets paid half a million bucks a year claims she’s the great-great-grandaughter of Pocahontas or something?

http://theothermccain.com/2012/05/01/e-mail-from-bert-the-samoan-lawyer/

[dianepost]

While the "Cherokee Princess" phenomenon is an irritating and tasteless display of both privilege and historical ignorance (princess, really?), it is also frustrating that many people have reached the point of assuming that anyone who isn't readily identifiable as Indian, but who mentions native ancestry, is participating in that phenomenon. Also, there is such a thing as a pale Native American. Try not to peg someone's ancestry based on looks unless you are an expert at genealogy and recessive traits.

[Jolie Rouge]

Elizabeth Warren and the Oppression Olympics
By Michelle Malkin • May 2, 2012 08:33 AM

Elizabeth Warren is the Harvard law professor running for Senate in Massachusetts as a Democratic populist-progressive champion. But don’t call her “Elizabeth Warren.” Call her “Pinocchio-hontas,” “Chief Full-of-Lies,” “Running Joke” or “Sacaja-whiner.”

Warren has claimed questionable Native American minority status for years to reap career “diversity” benefits. Now, Cherokee leaders, campaign rival GOP Sen. Scott Brown and an army of Twitter detractors have called her out for gaming the racial-preference system. Live by identity politics, die by identity politics.

The Boston Herald reported last Friday that Harvard administrators “prominently touted Warren’s Native American background … in an effort to bolster their diversity hiring record in the ’90s as the school came under heavy fire for a faculty that was then predominantly white and male.” When asked for proof of her tribal heritage, Warren’s campaign first denied that she had ever bragged about it. But from 1986 to 1995, Warren listed herself as a minority professor in a professional law school directory.

While the Democrat’s team scrounged for evidence over the weekend, Warren stalled for time by asserting that she didn’t need to provide documentation because family “lore” backed her up. Someone told her a story, you see, and magically conferred native status upon her. Through narrative, all things are possible! (Notorious “fake Indian” Ward Churchill is wondering why he didn’t think of this alibi first before the University of Colorado at Boulder fired him for academic fraud.)

On Tuesday, Warren finally discovered a great-great-great-grandmother supposedly “certified as Cherokee” and a random cousin somehow involved with a museum that preserves Native American art. There’s also a great-great-grandfather somewhere in Warren’s dusty genealogical records who spent time on a Cherokee reservation. Because walking a mile in someone else’s moccasins is now just as good as being born in them.

Native American officials aren’t buying Warren’s 1/10,000th Cherokee claim. Suzan Shown Harjo, a former executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, told the Herald: “If you believe you are these things then that’s fine and dandy, but that doesn’t give you the right to claim yourself as Native American.”

When Brown raised the issue, Warren and her progressive strategists traded in the candidate’s Native American blanket for a War on Women victim’s mask — because asking a privileged Harvard prof to verify her minority claims is sexist, of course.

“If Scott Brown has questions about Elizabeth Warren’s well-known qualifications,” her campaign manager railed, “he ought to ask them directly instead of hiding behind the nasty insinuations of his campaign and trying to score political points. Once again, the qualifications and ability of a woman are being called into question by Scott Brown, who did the same thing with the Supreme Court nomination of Elena Kagan. It’s outrageous.”

Once again, the left’s incurable love affair with oppression chic is on naked display. It’s an Olympic competition of the haves to show their have-not cred. Just a few weeks ago, it was the White House tokenizing Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor — the “wise Latina” — as “disabled” in an official graph promoting the administration’s minority hiring practices. http://www.mediaite.com/online/white-house-touts-appointing-first-disabled-justice-to-supreme-court-%E2%80%93-sonia-sotomayor/ What’s her disability? She has diabetes. No, it’s not debilitating, nor does it fall anywhere near the definition of disability under federal law.

But like their friend Elizabeth Warren, the Ivy League social engineers at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. just couldn’t help embellishing their “diversity” record to score political correctness points. Birds of a manufactured feather flock together.

***

Update: Obama to appear in campaign ad with Warren. http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/05/obama-appears-in-ad-for-warren-122244.html

Professor William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection: http://networkedblogs.com/x97Ct


Given that until two days ago Warren relied soley on family “lore” for the claim, and even now all there is is a possibility of a great-great-great grandmother who was Cherokee, the issue is why Warren claimed the status at all.

…Why would Elizabeth Warren, who never suffered an ounce of discrimination on the basis of her alleged Native American status, whose parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and great great grandparents also suffered no such discrimination, feel justified in claiming such status, which she must have known would accrue to her benefit even if such benefit were not provable?

In the game of Oppression Olympics, if you feel discriminated against by the patriarchal hegemony, you are discriminated against by the patriarchal hegemony. No questions asked. Claim first, proof later.

http://michellemalkin.com/2012/05/02/sacaja-whiner-elizabeth-warren-and-the-oppression-olympics/

[janelle]

O' Reilly quote----"She claims she is native American because she was born in Oklahoma or something like that." LOL

[Jolie Rouge]

Elizabeth Warren’s ancestor traced back to Trail of Tears! …On the side holding the guns.
Also: the new character assassination term of art is "Fauxcahontis." Please update accordingly.
Moe Lane ~ Tuesday, May 8th at 4:30PM EDT

Yeah, when’s that primary in Massachusetts, again? Because the general election is going to be a trip: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/08/Elizabeth-Warren-Ancestor-Trail-of-Tears


…the most stunning discovery about the life of O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford is that her husband, Ms. Warren’s great-great-great grandfather, was apparently a member of the Tennessee Militia who rounded up Cherokees from their family homes in the Southeastern United States and herded them into government-built stockades in what was then called Ross’s Landing (now Chattanooga), Tennessee—the point of origin for the horrific Trail of Tears, which began in January, 1837.


In case you were wondering: O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford is Elizabeth Warren’s ‘Cherokee’ ancestor; and by ‘Cherokee’ I mean ‘actually probably Swedish.’ See AoSHQ for more. http://minx.cc/?post=329082 Also, see Legal Insurrection for the original revelation. http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/05/cruel-irony-in-elizabeth-warrens-cherokee-saga/

The question is, of course, whether bringing all of this up is actually transcendentally mean of me. For example: it’s not Elizabeth Warren’s fault that one of her ancestors was involved in ethnic cleansing; deeply ironic, since he was displacing the very people that his descendant bragged about being a member of, but genealogy is like that. And its certainly true that the attitudes of that time period are mostly of historical interest today. Distasteful historical interest, at that. Lastly: it is simply not fair that I am comfortably able to kick Elizabeth Warren in the shins over this, given that (according to my family’s oral tradition) my own ancestors: a, almost all came over to America in the Twentieth Century and b, were extremely careful to use a variety of aliases when filling out the paperwork – which effectively means that potentially embarrassing revelations of this nature are not really likely to occur for me.

Still. Don’t identity politics suck, at least when one is on the receiving end? Maybe now Elizabeth Warren will finally get why hyper-awareness of one’s ethnic origins is sometimes not an optimal way of interacting with the world… oh, who am I kidding? She’s a liberal academic: it’ll take more than this to pierce her epistemic closure bubble…




PS: Just for the record, though: it is not unfair to kick Elizabeth Warren in the shins a few times and see how she responds. Every national candidate (not named Barack Obama, at least*) of recent memory has been subjected to this fun-house meat grinder: if Elizabeth ‘Fauxcahontis’ Warren is handling it badly then that’s really her fault, not ours.

What’s that? This is why normal** people don’t go into politics? Yeah, sure, whatever, those grapes probably are sour anyway.

*And he’s almost as bad at handling being smacked around as Warren is.

**Astoundingly, there really are folks out there who think that a Harvard law professor and professional policy irritant qualifies as a ‘normal person.’

http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2012/05/08/elizabeth-warrens-ancestor-traced-back-to-trail-of-tears-on-the-side-holding-the-guns/

May 08, 2012

Wrong Branch In Elizabeth Warren's Family Tree

Ooops - a genealogist discovers that not only is Ms. Warren probably not descended from a Cherokee, she is descended from a man who helped round up the Cherokee. I guess that is why she skips the Harvard powwow. http://www.bostonherald.com/track/inside_track/view/20220508inside_track_headline_3/srvc=home&position=5

Scott Brown is upping the ante by calling on Ms. Warren to release the relevant application records: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/scott-brown-pushes-elizabeth-warren-on-native-american-issue/2012/05/08/gIQAZZRqAU_blog.html


“Serious questions have been raised about the legitimacy of Elizabeth Warren's claims to Native American ancestry and whether it was appropriate for her to assume minority status as a college professor,” Brown said in a statement. “Her changing stories, contradictions and refusal to answer legitimate questions have cast doubt on her credibility and called into question the diversity practices at Harvard.”

Brown added that to clear up any confusion Warren should “authorize the release of her law school applications and all personnel files from the various universities where she has taught.”

A few weeks back I would have guessed this to be a dead end; Ms. Warren was listed in the law school directory as a minority and my guess would have been that prospective employess would be dscreet enough to rely on that rather than other documentation.

However, if the documentation were helpful to Ms. Warren's cause one might have expected her to have released it by now, so Scott Brown may come up aces here.


http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2012/05/wrong-branch-in-elizabeth-warrens-family-tree.html

[Jolie Rouge]

May 14, 2012
Native Pride

Elizabeth Warren is still proud of whatever her heritage is. http://dailycaller.com/2012/05/14/elizabeth-warren-im-proud-of-my-native-american-heritage/ Even the New Yorker, in the person of Amy Davidson, is troubled: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/05/elizabeth-warrens-native-american-question.html


She put herself down as Native American for the lunch invitations, and stopped when none were forthcoming? Hearing that from a woman who knows how to be straightforward—and who would now surely be able to issue some invitations on her own—one can’t help but wince. She has since augmented that with talk of old family photographs and high cheekbones. One can be a strong, unequivocal supporter of affirmative action, and still be impatient with her on this one. The problem is that even if you accept Warren’s explanation entirely at face value—that this was all about a Native American woman looking for other Native Americans to talk to—it doesn’t sound good. She doesn’t appear to have looked very hard, for one thing. No one has an obligation to be a spokesman or advocate for any ethnic group, or to turn one’s life into a readable catalog. And yet what Warren is saying is that when she was a junior faculty member, and relatively powerless, she opened herself up, waiting to be asked; as a senior professor, and in a position to be the asker, or at least a resource, she took her name off the list.

That's her story and she is sticking to it. Proudly.

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2012/05/native-pride.html

comments

Rereading that Mea Culpa by the Amateur Genealogist and the Cherokee Grandma business, it really is puzzling how that "evidence" popped up. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/14/Amateur-Genealogist-Who-Backed-Cherokee-Warren-Now-Admits-Mistake

There was no documentation at all, no evidence at all, no solid memory of a reliable conversation about it at all, and no such marriage application form even existed; Nothing textual, nothing electronic, nothing "an electronic copy of a textual", etc. Absolutely nothing.

Appears now that the most solid evidence upon which to make her claim is Lizzy's cousin's editing of a book on Injun's eating Velveetaa and Twinkies.:


"Such stuff as dreams are made on".

Even better now tho' is the complete silence from the "Professionals" at The New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Profiles in Courage, they ain't.

Seems to me The New England Historic Genealogical Society could use a man like Sandy Berger.


The Fauxcohantas follies, continued
By Michelle Malkin • May 14, 2012 06:48 AM

Earlier this month, I told you about progressive heroine Elizabeth Warren’s shady claim to Native American heritage. The saga of Sacaja-whiner doesn’t end. Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart.com — who first reported Friday that Warren’s Cherokee claim is based on a family newsletter and not on a purported marriage license — follows up again: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/11/warrens-cherokee-claim-based-on-family-newsletter-no-marriage-license-application-to-be-found



On May 1, according to a Boston Herald article, the Warren Campaign offered two pieces of evidence they said supported Ms. Warren’s claim of Native American ancestry. The first, a statement by genealogist Chris Child of the New England Historic Genealogical Society has now been thoroughly debunked in an article that ran Friday here at Breitbart, and another article that same day at Legal Insurrection.

The second piece of evidence was equally suspect. The Warren Campaign offered reporters an undated article from the Muskogee Phoenix about the contributions of Elizabeth Warren’s first cousin, Mrs. James P. Rowsey, to the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in Muskogee, Oklahoma as proof of Ms. Warren’s Native American ancestry:

The campaign also hastily produced an undated newspaper clip last night from the Muskogee Sunday Phoenix detailing a “Mrs. James P. Rowsey” — who they said is Warren’s cousin — and her involvement with the Five Civilized Tribes Museum, which is dedicated to preserving Native American art.

“Mrs. James P. Rowsey was Elizabeth’s first cousin — shared the grandparents in question,” a campaign official said in the statement.

A little research confirmed that Mrs. James P. Rowsey – Janyne “Candy” Carnes Rowsey (1932-2002)—was indeed Ms. Warren’s first cousin. Both are grandchildren of Harry Gunn Reed and Bethanie Elvina Crawford. Further research showed that Mrs. Rowsey’s most well known contribution to the Five Civilized Tribes Museum involved editing and publishing a cookbook in 1984 — Pow Wow Chow: A Collection of Recipes from Families of the Five Civilized Tribes: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek & Seminole.

Add half-baked oppression claims to the Warren family recipe book.

http://michellemalkin.com/2012/05/14/the-fauxcohantas-follies-continued/


comments



...

Twitchy compiled all the best Elizabeth Warren Indian names a few weeks ago:

http://twitchy.com/2012/05/01/elizabethwarrenindiannames-affirmative-action-equal-opportunity-mocking/

Sacajawarren;
Hoaxahontas;
Princess Spreading Bull;
being “Swift Canoed”; etc ...

...

Sure she isn’t a member of the Hekawi Tribe? To quote Chief Wild Eagle: [when asked how the Hekawi got their name] Many moons ago tribe move west because Pilgrims ruin neighborhood. Tribe travel west, over country and mountains and wild streams, then come big day… tribe fall over cliff, that when Hekawi get name. Medicine man say to my ancestor, “I think we lost. Where the heck are we?” :) PS. Thank you Mel Brooks. ;)

..

I’m just waiting for the Dem’s to start claiming this as evidence of a war on Native American women….

..

It should be relatively easy for her to get a truly accredited genealogist to research her ancestor’s status as a Cherokee or member of any of the other civilized tribes. The fact that nothing has been forthcoming should clinch the deal. A first cousin’s donations to a library…how progressive.

..

There “great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it” is:

Warren gaming the minority preference system with phony credentials ought be a red flag as to why Obama’s handlers have gone to extraordinary and costly measures to seal ALL his college records, transcripts, financial info, writings…

‘Transparency’ of Obama’s academic records, would be VERY revealing.

..

In fact, this was a great story 4 years ago; it just was not followed up on. B. Hussein Obama and his phantom “Inquiry Forbidden” background have never passed the smell test, nor the laugh test…as I have said more than once over the past four years.

___‹^›__‹(•¿•)›__‹^›___

[Jolie Rouge]

1997 Fordham Law Review article: Elizabeth Warren was Harvard’s ‘first woman of color’
http://s.michellemalkin.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/warren.jpg

Elizabeth Warren has pushed back hard on questions about a Harvard Crimson piece in 1996 that described her as Native American, saying she had no idea the school where she taught law was billing her that way and saying it never came up during her hiring a year earlier, which others have backed up. But a 1997 Fordham Law Review piece described her as Harvard Law School's "first woman of color," based, according to the notes at the bottom of the story, on a "telephone interview with Michael Chmura, News Director, Harvard Law (Aug. 6, 1996)."

The mention was in the middle of a lengthy and heavily-annotated Fordham piece on diversity and affirmative action and women. The title of the piece, by Laura Padilla, was "Intersectionality and positionality: Situating women of color in the affirmative action dialogue."

"There are few women of color who hold important positions in the academy, Fortune 500 companies, or other prominent fields or industries," the piece says. "This is not inconsequential. Diversifying these arenas, in part by adding qualified women of color to their ranks, remains important for many reaons. For one, there are scant women of color as role models. In my three years at Stanford Law School, there were no professors who were women of color. Harvard Law School hired its first woman of color, Elizabeth Warren, in 1995."

Padilla, now at California Western School of Law, told POLITICO in an email that she doesn't remember the details of the conversation with Chmura, who is now at Babson College and didn't respond to a request for comment. It is unclear whether it was Padilla's language or Chmura's. The description of her as a minority is coming from the same person - Chmura - whose comments to the Crimson sparked the original story about her heritage, and Warren's camp argued it's old news.

She has said she had no idea Harvard was billing her that way or how the school found out that her family claims Native American heritage. She learned of it first from the Herald story, she said. And it's possible Warren didn't see the Fordham story. But the Fordham piece takes the description of Warren by Harvard Law beyond the boundaries of the Massachusetts school. Warren had described herself as a minority on a law professors' listing for several years, ending in 1995. She has said she wanted to meet people like herself, but stopped when she realized that's not what the listing was for.

She has pushed back hard on suggestions she got her job based on her heritage, and her backers have noted a 1995 Crimson piece, from the year she was hired, makes no mention of her background. Asked to comment, Warren spokesman Alethea Harney said, "There is nothing new in this report. Elizabeth has been clear that she is proud of her Native American heritage and everyone who hired Elizabeth has been clear that she was hired because she was a great teacher, not because of that heritage. It's time to return to issues - like rising student loan debt, job creation, and Wall Street regulation - that will have a real impact on middle class families. It’s also time for Scott Brown to answer serious questions about his votes to let interest rates on student loans double so our kids pay more while he votes to give oil companies – some of the most profitable companies in the world – tax breaks worth billions. There are plenty more, like his votes against jobs bills because they’d make billionaires pay their fair share, or his votes to water down rules to hold Wall Street accountable that have brought him millions in campaign contributions. Scott Brown’s explanation for these votes against Massachusetts families is long overdue."

Brown's camp has been calling on Harvard to release records related to Warren's hiring, and for her to do the same. Recently, the AP reported that she described herself as "white" when she applied for the University of Texas decades ago, and didn't apply for a minority program at Rutgers Law School - but those documents becoming public help to underscore the questions that Republicans are posing about the remaining ones.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/05/fordham-piece-called-warren-harvard-laws-first-woman-123526.html


How Elizabeth Warren fumbled first controversy
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/75903.html
By MANU RAJU and DAVID CATANESE | 5/3/12 8:20 PM EDT

Political candidates facing controversy are often given this advice: Get all the bad news out immediately if you want to take control of the news cycle on a damaging story.

That has hardly been the case with Elizabeth Warren.

The Democratic Senate candidate in Massachusetts has delivered a series of uneven and confusing responses to revelations that she once listed herself as a minority law teacher, raising questions about whether this is just one blip in a long race or an image-defining moment that undercuts her profile as an authentic populist candidate. Democrats close to the Warren campaign argue that the more significant development this week has been the fact that she is pummeling the airwaves with $800,000 in ads, pitching herself as a champion of the middle class — and Sen. Scott Brown is not up on TV at the moment.

But privately even some Democrats agree with Republicans that her handling of the situation has damaged her credibility as the rookie candidate tries to introduce herself to voters in the nation’s marquee Senate race. “I don’t quite get it,” said one veteran Democratic strategist working on 2012 races, adding that the explanation has not quite made sense.

Warren has insisted that she did not cite her Native American ties in order to gain an edge in the legal teaching world, and her campaign released statements from officials at Harvard, and the universities of Pennsylvania, Texas and Houston that said her lineage played no role in their decisions to hire her. And she has tried to turn the questions into accusations that Brown was unfairly questioning her qualifications. But that failed to quell questions over why she even listed herself as a minority professor in the first place, whether she could produce adequate documentation proving she had tribal ties and why the law directories no longer listed her in that regard after she gained tenure at Harvard.

After the Boston press revealed she listed herself as a minority law teacher for nearly a decade from 1986 to 1995 — and Harvard Law School touted her as a diversity hire in the mid-1990s — even some fellow Ivy League law professors question how she could justifiably list herself as a person with minority roots in a profession that lacks diversity. “If she is 1/32nd Native American … is it really appropriate to list yourself that way and knowing you will therefore be listed as a minority law professor?” asked William Jacobson, associate clinical professor of Cornell Law School, the author of a blog read in the legal community. “Why in the world would you list yourself when it is such a tenuous and distant relationship?”

“Why would she have done it, and why would she have stopped when she was at Harvard?” Jacobson said. “The whole thing makes no sense.”

No smoking gun has emerged that disproves what she says — that she has never used Native American heritage for professional gain. Yet questions are still lingering nearly a week after the original Boston Herald story, as the drip, drip, drip of information continues on this controversy. If any new information emerges that firmly contradicts her, she will have a steep fight to re-establish her credibility.

For now, voters who are just tuning in are subjected to a debate within the media over whether Warren is claiming to be something she’s not.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/75903.html#ixzz1v9PwDySt

[Jolie Rouge]

Elizabeth Warren admits identifying herself as Native American to Harvard
By Rachel Rose Hartman | The Ticket – 2 hrs 35 mins ago.

Elizabeth Warren revealed for the first time late Wednesday night that she identified herself as Native American to Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania when she taught at both schools. "At some point after I was hired by them, I ... provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard," Warren said in a statement to the Boston Globe, the newspaper reported. "My Native American heritage is part of who I am, I'm proud of it and I have been open about it."

Warren, who is a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, had previously admitted to listing herself as a minority in a legal directory in the '80s and '90s, due to a Cherokee heritage that her family claims. But Warren had not previously acknowledged ever identifying herself as a Native American to the two universities at which she was hired to teach. Warren's admission on Wednesday was prompted by the Globe, which had obtained federal statistics that indicated the university listed a Native American female professor for the "1992-93 school year, the first year Warren worked at Harvard, as a visiting professor," the newspaper reported.

Warren has been struggling for weeks to steer the narrative of her campaign away from questions about her heritage. But her Republican opponent, Sen. Scott Brown, his supporters and news outlets continue to focus on Warren's background and on how she has identified herself in her professional life. Brown has questioned whether Warren may have benefited from affirmative action and has asked for Warren to release all university personnel records, which would presumably show how she identified herself during the hiring process. Warren and at least one professor who was on the Harvard committee that recruited Warren say her Native American heritage was not discussed during hiring.

Warren and genealogical groups have not been able to provide documentation of her heritage. Warren says knowledge of her heritage was passed down to her through "family lore."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/elizabeth-warren-admits-identifying-herself-native-american-employers-150158503.html

comments

A lot of laws that are designed to help non-Whites end up being used by Whites for their own gain. This is why society needs to favor merit. Merit is much harder to fake.

..

You know, Gary, I have worked with tribes for more than three decades. You'd be surprised, apparently, about how frank (mature?) native Americans are about how they have been raped. Recently, and figuratively, by a host of "wannabees" (perhaps as prominent as Elizabeth Warren). At the same time, I've often had some good laughs about the innocent and ridiculous things elites want to claim about Native Americans...anyway, your patronizing sympathy is cute. Of course, next you'll be telling me you're a native American, too.

..

LOL.. this is actually common. I had a friend who was white and one his great great grandfather was from Spain. He did not speak spanish and did not identify as hispanic. Except when it came time to apply for college admission and student aid. All of a sudden he became very HISPANIC.


.
Cherokees to Elizabeth Warren: ‘We don’t claim you!’
The Daily Caller – Wed, May 30, 2012.

More than 150 Cherokee Indians have joined a group online demanding more information from Massachusetts senate candidate Elizabeth Warren about her claims of Native American heritage. “You claim to be Cherokee. …We don’t claim you!” the group “Cherokees Demand Truth from Elizabeth Warren” declares on its website.

Warren has been embroiled in a controversy for weeks after it was revealed that the Harvard law professor once touted herself as an American Indian minority. She has since struggled to prove those claims as critics argue she claimed that heritage to further her career.

According to a mission statement posted on its website, the group is made up of “authentic Cherokees and descendants devoted to sharing the truth about our history.” The group said they are made up of descendants from the Cherokee Nation, the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. “Our mission is to help people understand what a real Cherokee is and to show why Elizabeth Warren claiming to be Cherokee without proof is harmful and offensive to us.”

Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson first reported the existence of the group Wednesday morning on his Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion blog. The group states on its website that the group is led by Twila Barnes and David Cornsilk. “I would like to meet with Ms. Warren, in person, and explain why her false claim of Cherokee ancestry is an issue,” Barnes told Breitbart.com. “She can ignore the questions of a reporter, but can she ignore the questions of a real Cherokee?”

http://news.yahoo.com/cherokees-elizabeth-warren-don-t-claim-154806591.html

comments

Half the people I knew growing up in Illinois claimed have a "Cherokee princess" in their family background. Never a Cherokee prince or plain old everyday tribal member.

...

I happen to KNOW the names of my Choctaw ancestors!!!

..

It's not PC to discuss Affirmative Action as being reverse discrimination. The 1%ers from both political parties and their off spring never were affected by this law, which is the second crime committed in the name of ' justice '. While America has always been told that society ' owes ' you nothing, some how we ended up with a class in society that's an acception. Joe Biden in his first Presidential bid was caught plagiarizing and had to end his campaign as a result. If Elizabeth Warren lied about her heritage for $$ gain, so should she.

..

I'm a card carrying Potawatomi Native American. I always put "white" on any legal forms because I'll be damned if the government or university system is going to give me extra help because they think I'm not good enough to compete with everyone else. Affirmative Action = racism.

..

Now that her 1/32 claim has been proven false, maybe one of her neighbors had native american background?

..

Learn your genealogy and prove a connection to a dawes-roll ancestor, get your tribal identification card, THEN you can claim tribal affiliation. If you haven't done your homework, you don't get to use "family lore" as a way for financial gain from the government.

..

It cracks me up. I have Indian blood but not enough to claim to be Native American, if that were the case, you could say i am German and Scottish as well, a Heinz 57 of sorts. I do have a deep regard for my Indian hertitage as my grandmother was full blood Cree as well as my German and Scottish ancestry in the sense that it is nice to know where you came from. I don't pretend to be more than I am and it makes me laugh when people with with one cell of indian blood claim that they are Native American.

..

She benefitted career wise and financially by stating she was a minority with multiple colleges without proof. End of story

[hblueeyes]

I wonder if there are DNA markers to prove Native American ancestry and what that would cost?

Me

[Jolie Rouge]

1997 Fordham Law Review article: Elizabeth Warren was Harvard’s ‘first woman of color’

...

Elizabeth Warren admits identifying herself as Native American to Harvard

She benefitted career wise and financially by stating she was a minority with multiple colleges without proof. End of story

... Am I the only one who sees the irony in this headline and speech ??


Elizabeth Warren to DNC: The ‘system is rigged’ against you
.By Chris Moody, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – 9 hrs ago.

CHARLOTTE, N.C.--In her speech to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren said that the American system of government is "rigged" against the middle class.

"People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: they're right," Warren said in her first address to a party convention. "The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs—the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs—still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them. Anyone here have a problem with that? Well I do."

Warren is running against Republican Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, who won the seat in a 2010 special election following the death of former Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Her full remarks: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/elizabeth-warren-dnc-system-rigged-against-023115244--election.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Thank you! I'm Elizabeth Warren, and this is my first Democratic Convention. Never thought I'd run for senate. And I sure never dreamed that I'd get to be the warm-up act for President Bill Clinton—an amazing man, who had the good sense to marry one of the coolest women on the planet. I want to give a special shout out to the Massachusetts delegation. I'm counting on you to help me win and to help President Obama win.

I'm here tonight to talk about hard-working people: people who get up early, stay up late, cook dinner and help out with homework; people who can be counted on to help their kids, their parents, their neighbors, and the lady down the street whose car broke down; people who work their hearts out but are up against a hard truth—the game is rigged against them.

It wasn't always this way. Like a lot of you, I grew up in a family on the ragged edge of the middle class. My daddy sold carpeting and ended up as a maintenance man. After he had a heart attack, my mom worked the phones at Sears so we could hang on to our house. My three brothers all served in the military. One was career. The second worked a good union job in construction. The third started a small business.

Me, I was waiting tables at 13 and married at 19. I graduated from public schools and taught elementary school. I have a wonderful husband, two great children, and three beautiful grandchildren. And I'm grateful, down to my toes, for every opportunity that America gave me. This is a great country. I grew up in an America that invested in its kids and built a strong middle class; that allowed millions of children to rise from poverty and establish secure lives. An America that created Social Security and Medicare so that seniors could live with dignity; an America in which each generation built something solid so that the next generation could build something better.

But for many years now, our middle class has been chipped, squeezed, and hammered. Talk to the construction worker I met from Malden, Massachusetts, who went nine months without finding work. Talk to the head of a manufacturing company in Franklin trying to protect jobs but worried about rising costs. Talk to the student in Worcester who worked hard to finish his college degree, and now he's drowning in debt. Their fight is my fight, and it's Barack Obama's fight too.

People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: they're right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs—the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs—still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.

Anyone here have a problem with that? Well I do. I talk to small business owners all across Massachusetts.

Not one of them—not one—made big bucks from the risky Wall Street bets that brought down our economy. I talk to nurses and programmers, salespeople and firefighters—people who bust their tails every day. Not one of them—not one—stashes their money in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

These folks don't resent that someone else makes more money. We're Americans. We celebrate success. We just don't want the game to be rigged. We've fought to level the playing field before. About a century ago, when corrosive greed threatened our economy and our way of life, the American people came together under the leadership of Teddy Roosevelt and other progressives, to bring our nation back from the brink.

We started to take children out of factories and put them in schools. We began to give meaning to the words "consumer protection" by making our food and medicine safe. And we gave the little guys a better chance to compete by preventing the big guys from rigging the markets. We turned adversity into progress because that's what we do.

Americans are fighters. We are tough, resourceful and creative. If we have the chance to fight on a level playing field—where everyone pays a fair share and everyone has a real shot—then no one can stop us. President Obama gets it because he's spent his life fighting for the middle class. And now he's fighting to level that playing field—because we know that the economy doesn't grow from the top down, but from the middle class out and the bottom up. That's how we create jobs and reduce the debt.

And Mitt Romney? He wants to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. But for middle-class families who are hanging on by their fingernails? His plans will hammer them with a new tax hike of up to 2,000 dollars. Mitt Romney wants to give billions in breaks to big corporations—but he and Paul Ryan would pulverize financial reform, voucher-ize Medicare, and vaporize Obamacare.

The Republican vision is clear: "I've got mine, the rest of you are on your own." Republicans say they don't believe in government. Sure they do. They believe in government to help themselves and their powerful friends. After all, Mitt Romney's the guy who said corporations are people.

No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people. And that's why we need Barack Obama.

After the financial crisis, President Obama knew that we had to clean up Wall Street. For years, families had been tricked by credit cards, fooled by student loans and cheated on mortgages. I had an idea for a consumer financial protection agency to stop the rip-offs. The big banks sure didn't like it, and they marshaled one of the biggest lobbying forces on earth to destroy the agency before it ever saw the light of day. American families didn't have an army of lobbyists on our side, but what we had was a president—President Obama leading the way. And when the lobbyists were closing in for the kill, Barack Obama squared his shoulders, planted his feet, and stood firm. And that's how we won.

By the way, just a few weeks ago, that little agency caught one of the biggest credit card companies cheating its customers and made it give people back every penny it took, plus millions of dollars in fines. That's what happens when you have a president on the side of the middle class.

President Obama believes in a level playing field. He believes in a country where nobody gets a free ride or a golden parachute. A country where anyone who has a great idea and rolls up their sleeves has a chance to build a business, and anyone who works hard can build some security and raise a family. President Obama believes in a country where billionaires pay their taxes just like their secretaries do, and—I can't believe I have to say this in 2012—a country where women get equal pay for equal work.

He believes in a country where everyone is held accountable. Where no one can steal your purse on Main Street or your pension on Wall Street. President Obama believes in a country where we invest in education, in roads and bridges, in science, and in the future, so we can create new opportunities, so the next kid can make it big, and the kid after that, and the kid after that. That's what president Obama believes. And that's how we build the economy of the future. An economy with more jobs and less debt. We root it in fairness. We grow it with opportunity. And we build it together.

I grew up in the Methodist Church and taught Sunday school. One of my favorite passages of scripture is: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Matthew 25:40. The passage teaches about God in each of us, that we are bound to each other and called to act. Not to sit, not to wait, but to act—all of us together.

Senator Kennedy understood that call. Four years ago, he addressed our convention for the last time. He said, "We have never lost our belief that we are all called to a better country and a newer world." Generation after generation, Americans have answered that call. And now we are called again. We are called to restore opportunity for every American. We are called to give America's working families a fighting chance. We are called to build something solid so the next generation can build something better.

So let me ask you—let me ask you, America: are you ready to answer this call? Are you ready to fight for good jobs and a strong middle class? Are you ready to work for a level playing field? Are you ready to prove to another generation of Americans that we can build a better country and a newer world?

Joe Biden is ready. Barack Obama is ready. I'm ready. You're ready. America's ready. Thank you! And God bless America!

[Jolie Rouge]

Mass. Senate debate video: Scott Brown challenges Elizabeth Warren about alleged Native American heritage
By Doug Powers • September 21, 2012 09:53 AM

At last night’s Massachusetts Senate debate, Scott Brown asked Elizabeth Warren (aka “Fauxcahontas” aka “Dances With Identity Theft”) how voters could trust her character after she’s lied about having Cherokee Indian heritage. Warren stuck to her previous “hey, that’s what my family told me” response.

From the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2012/09/20/scott-brown-challenges-warren-native-american-heritage-claim-lively-televised-debate/nO1lvqN9UWtAf7hAqBcqQP/story.html


Republican US Senator Scott Brown questioned Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren’s claim of Native American heritage in the opening moments of a lively high-stakes television debate tonight.

When moderator Jon Keller asked if character was an issue in the race, Brown answered, “I think character is important. … Professor Warren claimed she was a Native American, a person of color. And as you can see, she’s not.”

Warren responded that she had learned of her heritage from stories told by her family. “When I was growing up, these were the stories I knew about my heritage,” she said.

She also said that when her mother and father wanted to get married, her father’s family said no because “my mother was part Delaware and part Cherokee.”

“This is my family, this is who I am, and it’s not going to change,” said Warren.

The “because that’s what I was told as a child” thing isn’t a valid excuse. One time I tried to get out of a speeding ticket by claiming full federal protection under the Migratory Bird Protection Act because my parents used to tell me I was delivered to them by a stork, and I got laughed out of court.

Here’s a clip of the “You’re not a Cherokee” “Yes I am, sorta” exchange from the debate. Judging from the way Warren emphatically bobs her head to and fro and side to side as she talks, there might not be any Cherokee, but there’s definitely some parakeet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv25v46Knm8&feature=player_embedded

(Video h/t Allahpundit at Hot Air http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/20/scott-brown-to-elizabeth-warren-how-can-we-trust-your-character-when-you-lied-about-being-native-american/ )

**Written by Doug Powers http://michellemalkin.com/2012/09/21/debate-scott-brown-challenges-elizabeth-warren-about-alleged-native-american-heritage/

comments

Scott buried her.
Another great moment was when Warren complained about people with large student loans, and Brown suggested that one of the reasons was because she makes $300k for teaching 1 class. Classic.

..

What I find most amusing about this whole thing is that it took the media and her campaign team to dig up the name of her supposed “relative.” She didn’t even know her name yet felt so compelled to tell the story over and over again how she was part native american.

..

I do not care wht her ethnicity is. I do care if she uses it for selfish purposes, especially if it is 1/32nd of her DNA.

That speaks to her character.

[Jolie Rouge]

A minor technical issue
Posted by Judson Phillips on September 25, 2012 at 7:57am

The media has an incredible double standard when it comes to scandals. Mitt Romney makes a joke and it is a scandal. Barack Obama hires tax cheats for his regime and it is ignored. There is another major scandal brewing with a rising star in the Democrat Party.

Where is the media on this one? Where do you think they would be?

Who is the rising star and what is the scandal?

The rising star is Elizabeth Warren. She is often referred to as the “Godmother” of the occupy movement. She is also a Harvard law professor. That fact alone should disqualify her from ever being involved in politics. She is running to knock Scott Brown out of the United States Senate. The race could affect who controls the Senate. So as you might guess, the Obama propaganda media is pulling out all of the stops for Warren.

Now a scandal has arisen that the media is doing its best to ignore or cover up.

The scandal? Is Elizabeth Warren actually a lawyer? Is she practicing without a license? On Breitbart.com, Michael Patrick Leahy reported that Elizabeth Warren had been using her Harvard faculty office as her mailing address when she served as “Of Counsel” on several briefs to the Supreme Court. He followed up with her admission that she is not licensed in Massachusetts.

William Jacobson, a Cornell law professor who runs the Legal Insurrection blog, wrote extensively about the issue of whether Warren was practicing law without a license in Massachusetts. Warren’s practice appears to be limited to cases before the United States Supreme Court. If that is the case, it might be a stretch to say she was practicing law in Massachusetts.

However, there is a bigger issue some folks seem to be missing.

In order for a lawyer to practice before the United States Supreme Court, they must be admitted to practice before the highest court of one state. Supreme Court rules specify that if a lawyer has their license suspended in the state they are admitted in, they be immediately disbarred from the Supreme Court.

Here is the real question. Did Elizabeth Warren practice before the Supreme Court of the United States without a license?

She was licensed in both Texas and New Jersey. According to published reports, she resigned from the New Jersey bar on September 11, 2012. That is extremely odd. Even lawyers who don’t practice keep their licenses. You never know when you are going to need it. Because she resigned, there is no other public information about the status of her law license in New Jersey. If she wanted to be licensed in New Jersey again, she would have to take the bar exam there all over.

Most lawyers would prefer a root canal to taking another bar exam.

The excuse that she gave was keeping up with the continuing legal education requirements were too much. What a joke. New Jersey requires 24 hours every two years. She claims that was too much? If that is too much, perhaps being a United States Senator is too much for her as well.

Several reporters have tried to find the status of her law license in Texas and have not been able to find anything to show she has an active license in Texas. All of this is interesting and the drive-by media in Massachusetts is silent about this. Scott Brown is a lawyer too. If he had these problems, you can bet this would be all over the media. Why is none of the drive-by media interested in the issue of whether or not Elizabeth Warren practiced in front of the Supreme Court without a license? The real story here is the depths to which the legacy media, or as I like to call it the Obama propaganda media, has fallen. Whatever passed for objective reporting in this nation is now dead.

Now we only have a partisan press. Perhaps that is not the worst thing in the world. If the free market can work, the liberal media will be a thing of the past. Look at talk radio. Conservatives dominate it. Leftist talkers are few and far between.

Meanwhile the Obama propaganda media has no interest in this story. They just want to tell us to move along, there’s nothing of interest here. Didn’t they tell us that about Obama’s reaction to the murder of our Ambassador to Libya too?

http://www.teapartynation.com/forum/topics/a-minor-technical-issue

[Jolie Rouge]

Elizabeth Warren campaign seeks donations to cover $400k debt for ‘last minute pizza and coffee’
By Doug Powers • December 10, 2012 05:15 AM

The Warren campaign brought in $42 million in donations, the most of any House or Senate candidate in the country, but Fauxcahontas wouldn’t have proven herself fully qualified to join Congress the if she hadn’t spent more than she brought in. Mission accomplished… with extra cheese: http://bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2012/12/05/elizabeth-warren-ended-senate-campaign-debt-despite-record-fund-raising/ShWe5K7KzUiVnFHiIxkX5H/story.html



In an e-mail to supporters, the senator-elect from Massachusetts revealed that her campaign is in debt and asked for donations to help her out of the hole. Though she did not disclose the sum in her e-mail, a campaign official said Warren owes $400,000.

So how did a record fund-raiser end up in red ink?

Warren’s academic research has demonstrated that personal bankruptcy often stems from job loss, divorce, and catastrophic illness. In the case of her campaign, she is blaming pepperoni and mushrooms.

“Thousands more volunteers showed up — and that meant even more last-minute coffee and pizza,” Warren wrote, listing only that food and that beverage as the cause of the shortfall.

An inability to properly budget for coffee and pizza will make Dances With Campaign Debt the perfect Senator-elect to take a seat on the Banking Committee. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-04/elizabeth-warren-to-receive-senate-banking-committee-seat.html

In reality, printing, mail, legal and accounting were the bulk of Warren’s debt, but “pizza” is much easier to convince people to chip in for than ink cartridges and stamps. http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/12/elizabeth_warren_campaign_debt.html

But if Warren wanted to retire that “pizza” debt effectively, why didn’t she just email supporters and claim she didn’t order that? http://michellemalkin.com/2012/07/19/elizabeth-warren-obama-build-that/


(h/t Twitchy) http://twitchy.com/2012/12/09/aching-sides-fauxcahontas-warren-begs-for-cash-blames-campaign-debt-on-coffee-pizza/

**Written by Doug Powers http://michellemalkin.com/2012/12/10/elizabeth-warren-400k-debt/

[Jolie Rouge]

Actor Don Cheadle Finds Out His Ancestors Were Enslaved – But Not By Who You Think

By Brooke Bosca on January 27, 2015

Veteran Hollywood actor Don Cheadle, an Oscar-nominee for the film Hotel Rwanda, sat down with a PBS interviewer to review detailed research that was done on his ancestors.




Like most Black Americans not descended from immigrants, Cheadle was hardly surprised when told his ancestors were slaves in the pre-Civil War United States.

But when he was told exactly who their slave-owners were, he was in for an absolute shock, and all of us are in for a history lesson that shatters stereotypes.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=84838260&v=vkZXY3dYzE0&feature=player_embedded&x-yt-ts=1422327029

Whoa.

So Cheadle’s slave ancestors were owned by the Chickasaw. Not only that, they remained slaves for years after America abolished slavery because the Chickasaw nation was Sovereign, and refused to give up their slaves. And even after the U.S. had to force the Indians to free their slaves (irony) they refused to grant them citizenship, as America did, leaving the ex-slaves no nationality. They weren’t American or Chickasaw.

And according to some other ex-slaves, the Chickasaw were cruel slavemasters, as much any any White owner. Former slave Kziah Love told an interviewer in 1937, when she was 93 years old, what life had been like for an enslaved person in Indian Territory.



“That was a sorry time for some poor old black folks,” explained Love, who remembers living in fear of her Indian slave owner. “I believe he was the meanest man the sun ever shined [sic] on … He was sho’ bad to whup niggers … He’d beat ‘em most to death … One time he got mad at his baby’s nurse and he hit her on the head with some fire tongs and she died.”

Pretty mind blowing. Were you taught this in your history class?

http://toprightnews.com/?p=8127