Cherokee: The Democrats Have Done Nothing But Rally Around Warren

Re:Native Americans: Brown's smear campaign on Warren spiraling out of control

Below is a comment by my friend, David Cornsilk, in response to the article linked above. I agree with him wholeheartedly.  

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Scott Brown has questioned Elizabeth Warren on her false claims of Indian heritage as a matter of honesty and character. That is not a smear campaign, its an effort to distinguish a truthful person from a lying politician. Warren has side-stepped the issue hoping to defuse it by either ignoring it or whining that he's attacking her family. The use of a false claim of ethnic identity for personal gain is a legitimate issue which strikes to the very heart of Warren's qualification to serve in the U.S. Senate. Other questions about her integrity have surfaced, but those are of little interest to me, as I'm not a voter in Massachusetts. 

But I am a Cherokee and and, unlike Ms. Keene, I was raised a Cherokee among Cherokees in the Cherokee Nation. I live three miles south of our border with the Creek Nation and my parents, children and grandchildren live in the Cherokee capital of Tahlequah. I am a long-time genealogist and historian familiar with Cherokee records. I am a liberal independent, will be voting for Obama in November and consider myself a blue dot in one of the reddest states in the Union. But I cannot support the candidacy of Elizabeth Warren for the same reason I would not support the candidacy of Todd Akins in Missouri. Character means something and both candidates are sorely lacking. At least the Republicans had the good sense to throw Akins under the bus. 

The Democrats have done nothing but rally around Warren, defending her false claims and condemning anyone who might dare to hold her accountable. The tomahawk chop and war whoops of the Brown supporters is a teachable moment for Brown, his surrogates and America. Elizabeth Warren's stereotypical claims of a high cheekboned papaw WAS a teachable moment she squandered when she refused to meet with three Cherokee women who traveled to her state to discuss this matter; several Indian people at the DNC who asked to speak with her; and the American Indian Press, especially Indian Country Today. That's three strikes she has blown against the Indian community and none of that had anything to do with Scott Brown! 

If a politician were refusing to meet with African Americans, Jews, Catholics or whomever, everyone would be up-in-arms. But for some strange reason, perhaps because America thinks it owns American Indians, and because everything that we have is fair game for appropriation, our righteous indignation at Warren's indiscretions go unheard and unheeded.

copyright 2012, Polly's Granddaughter - TCB

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