When you apply for college and look at checking those boxes, everyone knows what’s at stake. If you check off a box, you will be given preference and potentially exclude someone who really is a minority.
Warren took action to put her name on that directory, which is used by Universities to find minority hires. She should have been damn certain of her claim, and been able to prove it. This isn’t just making interesting conversation at a cocktail party. Because of that I think it raises to the level of a lie to make the claim without proof, even if there is some family lore she heard.
I agree with magellan01 here, and the notion that anything you can’t prove is a lie is very silly. She says that’s the family story and even if it’s not a true story I think that’s a simpler explanation.
Not as far as I know. From Warren’s perspective there probably isn’t much to be gained in doing more work on this story.
I just listened again. It’s very clear. Thirteen seconds in someone yells “Yankees Suck!” and then the crowd picks it up and chants it about eight times. On second viewing the Brown supporters don’t join in the chant and are doing the Native American mockery the whole time.
It actually looks like the crowd is trying to drown them out by chanting “Warren” and for a little bit just switched over to “Yankees Suck” to change things up a bit.
But, it’s definitely not Cherokees suck. The word starts with a Y and has two syllables and is clearly “Yankees”.
It’s not surprising. Quite literally, it’s likely in any gathering of people in MA that “Yankees Suck” will spontaneously start up.
You guys are looking for offense so hard you see it everywhere.
For a long time, based on family legends, I told people my own ancestry was Scots-Irish and Cherokee. Some further poking around showed that the supposed Cherokee ancestry was much likelier to be Swedish ancestry.
Yes, that’s weird.
I asked an Eastern-Band Cherokee bigwig about it a few years ago: why are there so many descendants of Cherokee princesses? He had a really interesting answer.
Scots-Irish folks are patrilineal. Cherokee are matrilineal. When the Scots-Irish settled in the early US, they came down from Pennsylvania, and a lot of them settled in Western NC, in Cherokee country. They were mostly men. A lot of them took Cherokee wives, figuring they’d assimilate the women into their own culture; the Cherokee women took Scots-Irish husbands, figuring they’d assimilate the menfolk into their own culture. So, lots of intermarriage.
When the Trail of Tears happened, a lot of those families escaped by claiming they were white, not Cherokee, based on the husband’s name. Thus a lot of white-identified families have a Cherokee woman as an ancestor.
As for “princess”? I can’t source this, but I remember reading that in the 18th and 19th century, the term “princess” was a super-common term of affection used by husbands for their wives. It’s very possible that family members found letters written by granddad to grandma and misinterpreted the “princess” to be an actual title of their Cherokee grandma, not understanding it was like claiming their grandma was a Cherokee Sweetheart.
So. Should Warren have made the claim? Probably not, and I can see why the Cherokee might be annoyed (then again, ever since the tribe voted to expel the descendants of tribe-members’ slaves, I kind of stopped caring about what they think about their membership).
However, suggesting that her mistake rises to the level of significance is a desperate move. There’s no evidence that it affected anything in her life, or that she intended for it to affect her career. And more importantly, there’s no evidence that she shouldn’t have been hired: her work at Harvard was, by all accounts, superlative.
I’d agree with you if this were just an off the cuff remark by her. But because this is a formal, documented list of “minorities” that she went out of her way to sign up on I think it crosses the line. She should have known she needed proof to make such a claim.
magellan01, a word of unsolicited advice: Don’t respond to any of Airbeck’s posts. It’s not worth it. If you engage him you’ll end up accumulating warnings and ultimately potential banning.
-Debaser, conservative poster on the SDMB since 2001 without as much as a single mod warning.
Ideally there should be some level of proof involved in getting on a list like this and perhaps Warren should’ve thought to check into the story herself. In the real world, though, I think people probably take it for granted that their families are telling the truth about stuff like this. It wasn’t a legend about her great-great-grandparents, it was about her own parents.
I didn’t post anything to “just get a rise” out of anyone. But perhaps you’d like to straighten your spine and make a direct accusation?
Interesting. You call it something to “hide behind”. I call it a fact.
You’ve not been paying attention. They’re not for everyone, one has to earn them. As you have. In fact, reviewing the comments I’ve responded to thus far in this post alone, here you go: :rolleyes:
No. But I probably would have checked things more thoroughly if I was going to claim to be something that would give me some benefits not everyone gets. Especially if at first blush it might look like I was lying or gaming the system.
And as I’ve pointed out here are two different issues, two different claims. One is Brown’s accusation of lying. The other—the original one—is Warren’s claim of being of Native American ancestry. She needs to substantiate that claim.
At this point, where the burden falls to her? Absolutely.