High schooler: I should have claimed to be Cherokee like Elizabeth Warren
“Sen. Elizabeth Warren, I salute you and your 1/32 Cherokee heritage”
The mainstream media, Democrats and progressive writers have been in full denial about the significance of Elizabeth Warren’s false claim for employment purposes — and only for employment purposes — to be Native American.
Yes, it was about making a claim for which there was no justification, and which very likely was contrary to the definition of Native American right on the form when the box was checked.
Yes, it’s about a refusal to come clean and apologize, while building a political career accusing others of deception.
Yes, it’s about Cherokees who are upset that someone misappropriated their identity and then dropped it when no longer needed.
It’s all those things, but more.
It’s also about the people who played it straight, who played by the rules, who did not rig the system in their favor by checking a box they were not entitled to check in an attempt to gain advantage.
That last point finally seems to be permeating, as this column in The Wall Street Journal by high school student Suzy Lee Weiss demonstrates, To (All) the Colleges That Rejected Me (via @SGLawrence):
Like me, millions of high-school seniors with sour grapes are asking themselves this week how they failed to get into the colleges of their dreams. It’s simple: For years, they—we—were lied to.
Colleges tell you, “Just be yourself.” That is great advice, as long as yourself has nine extracurriculars, six leadership positions, three varsity sports, killer SAT scores and two moms. Then by all means, be yourself! If you work at a local pizza shop and are the slowest person on the cross-country team, consider taking your business elsewhere.
What could I have done differently over the past years?
For starters, had I known two years ago what I know now, I would have gladly worn a headdress to school. Show me to any closet, and I would’ve happily come out of it. “Diversity!” I offer about as much diversity as a saltine cracker. If it were up to me, I would’ve been any of the diversities: Navajo, Pacific Islander, anything. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, I salute you and your 1/32 Cherokee heritage.
I also probably should have started a fake charity.
By the way Suzy, Elizabeth Warren is not even 1/32 Cherokee, so it’s worse than you think.
@leginsurrection @michaelpleahy Suzy Lee Weiss “Gets” Elizabeth Warren’s 1/32nd Affirmative Action/Diversity Scam: m.us.wsj.com/articles/i/SB1…
— Sara (@SGLawrence) March 30, 2013
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Comments
Suzy Lee Weiss has a point, but I would (gently) remind her that there are more than 10 colleges in this country, and many, many wonderful places to get an excellent college education. Along with the Ivy League, which seems to have lost sight of its original mission and the colleges that pad their statistics to get a place on a list, are a whole mess of colleges that specialize merely in teaching undergraduate students.
Swear to God, it’s true.
Two words…
Hillsdale College.
Bang for your buck!!!
Amen. I will add that Hillsdale doesn’t ask anyone to identify his race. It doesn’t matter to them.
“Along with the Ivy League, which seems to have lost sight of its original mission…”
Very true. If you are a lesbian with a lesbian “dad”, are part black, part Indian and missing any limb, you’ll get in. If you are a rich Asian who pays your own way, you’ll get in. Money always talks the loudest. Did you ever notice how many Asians make up your typical Ivy class? If you are an atypical bright American high school student, good luck.
Sounds like Suzy Lee has great promise as a writer!
AND a logician…!!!!
When does Michael Moore make “Rigged: a Love Story?”
We live on an Indian reservation and our daughter received numerous recruiting offers from several universities in the Pacific Northwest until she finally responded at my insistence and checked the box for Caucasian as her race.
Neither of our boys received any letters extolling the so-called advantages big schools claim to offer. It is maddening. Affirmative action is out of control.
Terry
Suzy forgot to say in her essay that she was interested in a hard science, agriculture, or engineering field.
Wow, so it turns out that Eliz. Warren does read LI! Wow, that’s all anyone can say.
./sarc off!
1. If, like me, you hit a paywall at the WSJ link, for the moment you can find the piece in Google cache.
2. Weiss’s high school, Allerdice, was rated as one of the country’s 1000 best in 2006 (out of approximately 15,000 high schools in the USA).
3. Yet I’m to believe that Weiss did not know what it takes to get into an “elite” university? I call bullshit.
4. Weiss ends with:
Hopefully she will take the first step toward accepting that
a. she brought much of her situation on herself, and
b. she should stop festering and play the cards she’s been dealt.
Or she can go to the fridge and have some cheese with her whine.
5. I speak from experience. When life has treated me unfairly, too often I succumbed to bitterness and resentment which dangerously compounded the setbacks. In fact I am (hopefully) digging out of a hole like that right now.
6. Elizabeth Warren graduated from high school at 16. She probably would not be where she is today without cheating and she would not be there without working very hard. Life is more complicated than a morality play.
Agreed. Little Suzy gets on my last nerve. Suck it up and solider on, d@mn it.
“1. If, like me, you hit a paywall at the WSJ link, for the moment you can find the piece in Google cache.”
If someone quotes a WSJ article that you can’t access directly, run a Google search for some text in the quotation. Click on the link to the article from the search results. In this way, you should be able to access the full article.
“6. Elizabeth Warren graduated from high school at 16. She probably would not be where she is today without cheating and she would not be there without working very hard. Life is more complicated than a morality play.”
So am I to assume that you advocate cheating [B]AND[/B] working hard to achieve something that a person who works hard [B]AND[/B] fails should not have a chance at achieving?
Life [B]IS[/B] a morality play. And you have just failed it.
Life [B]IS[/B] a morality play. And you have just failed it.
Politics attracts people who seek a pretext to act out their hate.
Never quit banging this drum, Professor. EW is dangerous.
There is something that really bothers me about Suzy’s post. A 1/32 blood quantum is enough to claim Cherokee citizenship. All you have to be able to do is to prove lineal descent from an original Dawes enrollee. In fact, there is no minimum blood quantum below which someone with the right family tree could not claim Cherokee citizenship. I have a smaller blood quantum than that, and I am an enrolled citizen of an Indian nation that handles citizenship in the same way. So mocking the idea that someone who has a “low” blood quantum isn’t “really” Indian doesn’t sit well with me.
The problem isn’t the blood quantum, it’s the lack of proof. If Elizabeth Warren could prove her ancestry to a Dawes enrollee, she could legitimately claim Cherokee citizenship upon application. Then there would be no issue with her actions. Her sin, as people like Twila Barnes argued, is that she hasn’t proved her status (and can’t prove it, with her family tree) yet insisted on claiming it, to try to get job-related benefits from it.
Ambassdor Chris murdered in Benghazi was part Native american. The real deal. His mother was full-blooded.
Come to think the Indains said nothing about his death and tehy should be demanding answers.
1/32? I literally have no idea who all 32 of my great-great-great grandparents were, let alone their nationalities. However, the chances of one of them having Cherokee blood could be pretty high, considering going back one more generation gives you 64 pools of genes to explore. I’m sure that many more of us are “missing out on free money”. I shall commence researching immediately to find out how to get more money out of my government!
I hope this comment was an April Fool’s joke.
As regards Cherokee citizenship, see my comment above. If you have a Cherokee ancestor on the Dawes Rolls, you can claim Cherokee citizenship. If you don’t, you can’t. Continually going back a generation just to see if maybe there was a Cherokee somewhere in your family tree won’t get you anything.
As regards the end of your comment…again, I am a registered tribal citizen. I get no money from the government as an individual. I do have access to some services, which are subsidized by my tribe, not my the federal government. And I am in the position to assure you that my experience would be true for most Cherokees as well.