So after taking some potshots at Ralph Northam over a costume he donned 35 years ago, Pocahontas has now apologized to the Washington Post for claiming to be native American for nearly two decades.
She evidently felt forced into this position because WaPo has uncovered her 1986 application to be admitted to the Texas bar, where she clearly and neatly printed out “American Indian,” all in her very own handwriting. She certainly wasn’t forthcoming until WaPo released this story.
I see this article as a warning shot fired by WaPo over the Democrats’ bow, a warning along the lines of “there is more where this came from.” Left to read between the lines, perhaps, along with the existence of nearly two decades of further missteps by Warren yet to mine. Opinions?
If race is a social construct why should she apologise for identifying as a native American? Either there is science behind race, gender etc or there isn’t.
What’s new or important about that? She claimed to be American Indian in a lot of situations. Did she gain some kind of advantage from it? That’s the only thing that will really hurt her.
Oh I think she did gain something, an interview, a posting, something. She’d be convicted of cultural misrepresentation if she were well, sigh…conservative.
Well, for one thing before this article it was only known that she had listed herself as native American in her AALS listing. With help from the Boston Globe, Harvard and Penn law schools both denied they hired her based on race - although Harvard Law did subsequently tout her as a minority prof of law. Warren has also denied she benefited directly, but she has never denied that she came to the attention of the Ivy League through her AALS listing.
This article is further evidence that Warren knowingly shopped herself around as a native American. This was just speculation two days ago, now it is becoming fleshed-out fact.
It’s also news because she apologized for something she has previously said was merely family lore. And she took a DNA test that proved, she says, she has native American ancestry. So why now apologize?
I hope this doesn’t stop her from winning the nomination, fwiw. While her candidacy would very likely result in a Democrat loss, it would definitely cause a large, raucous, and vigorously healthy conversation among Americans about the value of affirmative action and the wages of Democrat identity politics. Why did a privileged white female feel she needed to lie about her race in order to advance her career?
Come on, it’s a weird thing to do. My mother is Irish, I even have an Irish passport, but I would never claim to be Irish. You are where you were born and raised. Anything else is some kind of weird blood thing.
She played the race card to curry favor with stupid people who were able to give power and money. Don’t expect the aforementioned stupid people to own up to it.
But she really does seem to have drunk too much of her own Kool-Aid, or she’d never have had that DNA test. The outcome has damaged the race card for all others who might want to play it. And that’s fine with me.
In unrelated news, they’re saying Kamala Harris is black.
“Nationality” is more of a thing for Americans. You should see some of the “Irish” in NYC. She could have well thought of herself that way from her family history. She’s backing off it now. I don’t see it as a big deal as such, though the Native Americans may not love her. It remains to be shown if she profited by it, which I think would hurt her.
The bad news is reserved for Democrats only. If she becomes the nominee then imo she loses and pulls the party down on her coattails, just in time for redistricting that will take place in 2021 based on the 2020 census.
The good news would be that Democrats might finally realize that identity politics is bad medicine. They may even come to realize it’s bad for the nation, too. A guy can hope.
I understand that, but thoughts and feelings are not actuality.
The American experience, as you say, is weird. I’m pretty confident that I’m more Irish than 90% of Irish Americans, and I don’t give a toss about it. Similarly, I have white South African friends who are more African by several generations than Afro-Americans.
I also find it weird, more so that it’s based on a story and she had no evidence of it besides some weird cheekbone theory. I wouldn’t click Korean even though I have a clear genealogy on my mothers side, that would be weird. It would even be more absurd if I claim to be loyalty because my grandma said she is related to the former loyal family in Korea.
I made the prediction it would take a decade for them to wake up to that realization, and only then if they suffered losses consistently over that period. That was only 2 years ago, seems to me they haven’t come close to the realization you hope for, yet.
Identity politics is all they’ve got. It’s their whole business model. They’ve got nowhere to go from there. That’s why they keep doubling down on it. They have no choice.
