ONTD

meeeeeeee too.

Oh my god, they did not....

smh @ Pocahontas

Don't fight racism with racism.

Right? I don't care even if she did lie about it. I'm over it we all know and remember. We don't need to be reminded.

Basically, Scott Brown's accusation was that Elizabeth Warren can't be Native American because "look at her".

yeah I believe the nearest Cherokee tribe was kind of pissed at her

Pretty much what the other commenters described: they wanted her to provide official document proving her ancestry, but for a lot of people in the U.S., that doesn't exist. But she did hear all her life that she was part Native American and seems to genuinely believe it.

It depends on how you qualify race, I guess, and who gets to decide what someone is/isn't.

All that aside, it's ridiculous that this is the offensive Brown has decided to go on. It's not like there aren't real problems to talk about.

Well, I can't (obviously) speak for ONTD nor can I speak for the Native American community, but I personally think that race, as a social construct, is more complicated than blood percentages. As a person of color, I think self-identification is important so if someone tells me they identify with a certain race, I give them the benefit of the doubt, no questions asked.

I think that depends on context though. I have distant relatives who are a fraction Chinese and I will defend their right to self-identify as whatever the hell they like whenever they like until my face turns blue. Unfortunately, I have had to in the past from people who are Chinese themselves, especially people of Chinese nationality. I don't think, however, that that should discounts my relatives' experiences and their choices to identify as Asian/Caucasian. And yea, sometimes they'll point out their eye shape as a really specific Asian feature that they've inherited. In that context, it's not so much exoticism, but a very physical way in which they've connected to a part of their culture all their lives.

basically her family had told her stories about having native american ancestors so then scott brown has accused her of faking her native american heritage to get an advantage for getting better schooling/jobs (using affirmative action, checking that minority box when applying to stuff). theres no records to show that she actually did so to any of her schools/jobs, but she did list herself as minority in some sort of law directory? (i sorta forget on that one so you can look it up). but warren also doesnt have the exact documentation showing native american lineage, just her families stories.
tbh i think some people do have native american ancestry and just dont know it. a lot of people dont trace their ancestry and find out later in life they are part xxxxx.

edit: oh yeah and what the other commenter said. she cant be native american because she doesnt look native american enough.

Edited at 2012-10-05 03:23 am (UTC)

the thing is i dont think she is appropriating their struggle to take advantage of the school system? like, i dont think any of her school records show that. i havent read everything on this but i believe thats why some people dont care about it. cuz she actually hasnt really used it to work the system.

tbqh both her and Scott Brown are wrong in one way or another

As the other commenter said, Elizabeth Warren grew up hearing stories about her Native American ancestry from her mother. I believe the claim is that her great-great-grandmother was Cherokee. Regardless of whether or not that is true (there is no evidence to confirm or deny it), she really shouldn't have ever claimed to be Native American on an official form. It's fine if that is culturally important to her, and there is no evidence that she was given any advantage because of it, but it's really not okay for people with an extremely small percentage of NA heritage to officially identify as NA. So many people have a NA ancestor somewhere in the past that when almost exclusively white people do this is reeks of trying desperately to label themselves as something "exotic" and is kind of trivializing to NA identity. I am not saying that this was her intent, nor do I pretend to be an authority on what constitutes a NA identity, but that is what I have gathered. Moreover, it's generally accepted that you need to be 1/8th NA to be really classified as NA, and for legal recognition you must have some affiliation with a tribe, which Warren does not.

THAT SAID, the way this has been dragged into the forefront of the campaign is not okay. Brown's comment about Warren not being a minority based on the way she looks was inappropriate and irresponsible, as is the entire Republican party's treatment of the issue. They are bringing up something that has no bearing on the issues or the race in hopes of discrediting Warren, presumably because they can't do that with her actual policies. Conservative pundits here also have a field day with it and call Warren all sorts of racist names to make fun of her "fake" heritage.

tl;dr:



Edited at 2012-10-05 04:41 am (UTC)

Yeah that's ONTD for you. I mean I'm still going to vote for her but that doesn't mean I don't have a problem with Warren's claim.

This comment is amazing.

The Democrate stans are annoying the shit out of me.