Senator Warren, Identity Politics and The Cherokee Nation Sets the Course
E Pluribus Unum, “from one many” was the early the motto of the United States of America.
It was placed on our Great Seal in 1782 by the Congress.
“In God we Trust” was substituted as our motto in 1956.
Our early years were a time of building the character of a nation that lives dynamically to this day.
However, as we grow and evolve as a country it is not to say in the famous passive voice “mistakes were made.”
This was a big mistake; Article 1 Section 2 of our Constitution got us off a rough start that thankfully has been corrected with some great pain.
Article 1 Section 2 contained the infamous disentrancement of slaves who sadly were worth only “three fifths of all other Persons,” it took centuries of courage and sacrifice to address and correct:
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
It took a tragic Civil War to begin the process of holding true to our Motto.
That correction of the three fifths rule had a “butcher’s bill” of significant proportions.
The total death toll from the war, North and South is now estimated to be 750,000 soldiers and sailors. It means that over one in four soldiers who went to war were killed in action.
It is roughly proportional to six plus million battlefield deaths today.
And those numbers do not count the human cost of wounds and lasting illness from combat.
A century later the seminal Civil Rights act was enacted, but sadly again that took a national tragedy to set in motion.
The assassination of President Kennedy, on November 22, 1963, inspired the Congress to move the Civil Rights legislation, which had initially been held up with a Senate Filibuster in the 1963 session, to final passage in 1964.
And yet again another tragic moment occurred in American history, the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King.
That event was the brutal killing of a truly great man for the ages while he was on his profound quest for a post-racial America.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Today, our history in the year 2018, brings American Society to another inflection point on racial healing thanks to Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma).
Inadvertently she has brilliantly crystalized the abject hollowness of what is known as “identity Politics.”
Between 1987 and 1995, Warren was a “Native American” while teaching law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Harvard Law.
On October 14, 2018 Senator Warren was a strong contender to become the first female President of the United States.
On Monday October 15, 2018 she triggered an epoch event of demonstrating horrific political judgment.
However, for one brief shining moment on October 15 2018, she might have gotten away with one of the most fraudulent resume claims in American History.
This is a representative CNN headline of just one of many Main Stream Media initial defenders that says it all:
Elizabeth Warren releases DNA test with ‘strong evidence’ of Native American ancestry
By Rebecca Berg and Eric Bradner, CNN
Updated 7:26 PM ET, Mon October 15, 2018
Soon after that fraud was embraced and propagated by the MSM it took a very clear statement from the Cherokee Nation to put her perfidy in context.
We are now at an exceptionally significant moment in our history, because with brilliant insight and hard earned judgment, the Cherokee Nation has given us all a way forward in determining the value of how to account for true “identity politics:”
A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship.
Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America,” Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said.
“Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation.
Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong.
It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven.
Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage.
https://www.cherokee.org/News/Stories/20181015_Cherokee-Nation-responds-to-Senator-Warrens-DNA-test
In digging in to defend the indefensible, and initially supported by many in the media, Senator Warren has put a bright shining light that right now everyone in America can claim any identity.
So the logical extension of her position is simply to stop counting by race in the 2020 Census.
If those questions were removed, it would be a major event in declaring that America is entering a post-racial moment.
The original intent of the Census is simply equal representation for the proportional makeup of the US Congress.
Counting for gender, age, location, financial and family status is very appropriate and will allow many studies on how to continue to build a society based on merit with the less fortunate identified.
But if the “check you race” box is eliminated, because as Senator Warren has proved it can be used very inappropriately, then significant progress can be made in eliminating “affirmative action” set aside quotas.
Race questions census numbers will not currently be trusted in this age of DNA testing.
A race and color blind event has arrived and thankfully a “content of one’s character” moment has finally arrived.