The hypocrisy of Elizabeth Warren: There is a tradition in Boston of dressing up like Indians...

The Boston Tea party was about a lot more than dressing up like Indians...

Too bad Elizabeth Warren only picked up on the "costume part" and not the underlying message of that historical event...
Elizabeth Warren claimed Native American heritage only to further her career as a "minority."  Once she got the job and tenure as a Harvard Professor, she dropped that because her Native American ancestry claims were rather tenuous and embarrassing.   As Ann Althouse notes, this goes to a question of Elizabeth Warren's honesty.   Professor Jacobson notes this is an issue that should impact Elizabeth Warren's senate race because she is claimed to be something she is not.   I am sure Warren is proud of being part Native American (great--if it is even true, no one can seem to verify it), but the issue here is using that to promote one's career under a dubious diversity claim.  A tenuous claim on Native American ancestry should not be the basis of taking advantage of diversity hiring goals.  And her diversity is not the only thing Ms. Warren has lied about.

There is a deeper issue here than Elizabeth Warren engaging in some academic Indian-Native American-First Nation role playing to get ahead.  Diversity hiring is condescending at best to the target of its largeness and generally just a scam in how it is practiced.  It is a big lie.  It is not about equal rights, but special rights.  Perhaps Elizabeth Warren should pay attention to the underlying message of this historical Boston speech by a different person of color:

In regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us... I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! ... And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! ... your interference is doing him positive injury.  

Fredrick Douglass "What the Black Man Wants" — speech in Boston, Massachusetts, January 26, 1865.  Of course Fredrick Douglass was one of those blacks who went off the reservation... 


Professor Jacobson spotted a pretty good bumper sticker in Ithaca.    This whole thing also reminds me of this episode of the Sopranos...

Update:  The Other McCain has some great Cherokee song videos!
              DaTechGuy on Lizzy Warren and Colonization...
              Elizabeth Warren is not even a little bit Native American?  
              A picture can be worth a thousand words...