Surprise: Elizabeth Warren Refuses to Explain Heritage Claims at the DNC

As an obligatory follow-up to my post earlier today, it appears US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is steadfastly refusing to confirm or deny allegations she purposefully lied about her ethnic heritage in order to bolster her academic career. The Boston Herald reports:

Elizabeth Warren, scrambling to shift focus from her ongoing Cherokee scandal, dismissed demands from Native Americans who want her to explain her heritage claims in her first appearance at the Democratic National Convention this morning.

“I’ve answered those questions, what I’m here to talk about (is) what’s happening to America’s working class families,” said Warren, who had just completed brief appearances on the “Today Show” before the prime-time speech tomorrow.

Questions surrounding Warren’s American Indian heritage re-emerged after many members of a council of Democratic Native Americans — including the great-grandson of Geronimo — were outraged that Warren listed herself as a minority in a law school directory without any proof.

Warren ignored a follow-up question about whether she was refusing to meet with the group, who are loyal Democrats and come from across the country. She has continued to claim that her Cherokee roots are a part of her life due to stories her family told her, but she’s declined to speak further about the issue.

Are we really surprised? I mean, this is the same Democratic Senate candidate who told reporters last May the reason she listed herself as an ethnic minority (for nine years) in a professional law journal was to, ahem, meet “people who are like I am.” Wow. And setting aside the fact she still cannot produce one single shred of evidence corroborating her dubious (and discredited claim), Professor Warren also stopped self-identifying as a Native American in 1995 -- that is, the very same year she achieved tenure at one of the most prestigious law schools in the nation. Curious, isn’t it? In other words, there’s a reason why Elizabeth Warren is constantly avoiding reporters by dismissively declaring she’s “already answered those [kinds of] questions.” She hasn’t. Just ask any of the disgruntled Democrats at the DNC (who also happen to be Native Americans) still waiting for answers.

My family has an amusing story about a link to Indian blood lines, too.

When my mother and her brother were both pre-school age, my grandmother’s youngest brother brought his fiancee home to meet the family. Paul worked for the RR and travelled a good bit (so did several of his brothers and father), and met his fiancee somewhere in the NJ piney region. I mean Paul’s family was not exactly urbane and sophisticated, but his new bride was even more unsophisticated (if you know the Jersey Pines region, you can imagine).

Well, Paul’s mother assembled as many of the family as could make it to greet the new bride to be and scared her to death. She showed up in braids and a very plain dress. Not knowing how to act, she gravitated to the youngest children present and put on an act to entertain them, telling them that she was a full blooded Indian and that was why her hair was in braids. She did hand stands and cart wheels and jumped around doing her version of Indian dances.

My uncle believed that Gertie was a full blooded Indian his whole life and passed the story on to anyone who would listen. My sister and I believed what he said and it wasn’t until I ran into her grandson on a genealogy web site that I found out it wasn’t true, The last time that I saw my uncle, he was 90 and brought up the story of Gertie being a full blooded Indian, once again and I told him that it wasn’t true. The look on his face was so sad that I knew that I should have let him go on believing it.

You run into that more with the Eastern Band, since intermarriage was relatively common going back to the seventeenth century.

My wife's Grand parents went to a lot of trouble to hide their Cherokee blood, as did many.

I have a Bachelor's degree from North Easter State at Tahlequah, and lived in Locust Grove for several years, after I left the Navy.

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