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I’m seeing way too many white people critiquing Native American intellectuals for their continued calls for @ewarren to do better. You are extremely in the wrong on this issue and here’s why. A thread.
Yes, Warren has issued some soft apologies for claiming Native identity and then trying to prove it with a DNA test. But the harmful “evidence” and defenses are still up on her website. 
And once she takes that down, her apologies need to be the start of a conversation — not the end of one. And this is not “just a Native issue.” White feminists striving for intersectionality should be paying attention here too.
The racist memes and slurs being hurled in Warren’s direction are more harmful to Indigenous peoples than they are to Warren herself but instead of addressing this harm in any meaningful way, she has issued empty apologies and repeatedly centered herself and her family’s story.
Instead of learning how to be a true ally to Indigenous peoples, she has opted to reinforce colonial systems of erasure. This, in part, is why @RebeccaNagle and others are still calling on her to do more:
Elizabeth Warren didn’t make one mistake years ago, she’s continued to do harm. Yet those coming to her defense now don’t seem to be fully aware of that, so let’s review:
Warren has said in the past that she’s Cherokee and Delaware, but here’s the thing: she’s not. According to @washingtonpost and other major media outlets, Warren listed herself as a minority in the Association of American Law Schools Directory of Faculty from 1986-1995.
She stopped once she scored a tenured position at Harvard. That “minority” status was based on family lore of a distant Indigenous relative and casual invocations of racial pseudoscience regarding a grandfather who "had high cheekbones like all of the Indians do."
Aside from checking boxes, Warren’s only public engagement with her appropriated Native identity seems to be the contribution of some plagiarized, mayonnaise-forward recipes to a 1980s cookbook, “Pow Wow Chow: A Collection of Recipes from Families of the Five Civilized Tribes.”
When questions about her identity surfaced in 2012, Warren failed to provide evidence to back her claims. Instead she has trotted out vague assertions like “Being Native American has been part of my story, I guess, since the day I was born.” nytimes.com/2012/05/20/opi…
Cherokee genealogist Twila Barnes conducted extensive research into Warren’s ancestors and found them “in plenty of historical records” but always “living as white people among other white people,” never among Cherokees. In a 2012 open letter, Barnes rightly chastised Warren:
Indigenous intellectuals—mostly women—have been addressing this issue for years, and they have produced ample opportunities for Warren and others to learn from her misdeeds. This syllabus is one excellent place to start:
At a recent special session on Elizabeth Warren at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, @BettyRbl recounted some of the ways Warren has failed to be accountable to Indigenous peoples:
“She refused to meet with the Cherokee women who first tried to engage with her….she’s tried to sweep the issue under the rug, she’s dodged the Native press, and she’s failed to provide any legitimate evidence of her claims.”
.@JeaniOBrien critiqued Warren for her disregard of Indigenous nations as sovereign political entities w/ the inherent right to determine their citizenry. Warren talks about “ancestry,” “identity,” and high cheekbones, she said, instead of “Indigenous sovereignty and nationhood.”
Over the past several years, Trump has escalated the matter by goading Warren with racist and misogynistic taunts. His supporters have followed suit, harassing Warren with tomahawk chops, war whoops, and memes featuring disparaging Native American stereotypes.
Among the most egregious offense is that Trump and his minions have rendered the name “Pocahantas” an insult to hurl in Warren’s direction. As @BettyRbl explained, the use of the name as a slur and Warren’s failure to address it has particularly violent implications:
"Native people know using the name Pocahontas as a slur is meant to dehumanize us. Pocahontas occupies a critical place in misogynist and racist settler colonial processes and practices intended to transform Indigenous peoples into 2nd class members of society…
…So when a candidate like Warren ignores and fails to address the slur for 6 years, that's a problem.”
This is not just semantics, it’s literally a life or death issue. Given the epidemic of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls, language that provokes gendered violence must itself be seen as an act of violence.
That’s why, according to @BettyRbl, “anyone who identifies as a feminist should be profoundly concerned about this.”
Warren did briefly address Trump’s use of Pocahantas as a slur at a meeting of the National Congress of American Indians (@NCAI1944) in February 2018. She acknowledged that Pocahontas’s story has been spun into a settler fantasy “used to bleach away the stain of genocide.”
In the same speech, Warren acknowledged that she could not rightfully claim Native American citizenship, that only tribes have that power. Her latest spate of apologies reflect that same awareness, but her actions have yet to follow suit.
At NCAI, she promised to redirect future attacks to national conversations about the state of Native America: "I’m here today to make a promise. Every time someone brings up my family’s story, I’m going to use it to lift up the story of your families and your communities."
But following in the toxic tradition of faux white allyship, Warren’s wokeness appears to be mostly performative.
Instead of using her platform to stand in defense of Native peoples when taunts were hurled in her direction, Warren tenaciously held to her identity claims & underscored them by sharing her DNA test results in hammy vid that even close advisors acknowledge was ill advised.
The video recounts her parent’s tale of nearly thwarted love due to a rumored Indigenous ancestor and the hardships they endured. As an afterthought, Warren acknowledges the sovereign right of tribes, then follows it with an immediate caveat:
“But my family history is my family history. My parents were real people, the love they shared, the struggles they endured, the family they built, the story they lived will always be etched on my heart and no one, not even the President, will ever take that away from me.”
The video entwines Warren’s identity with her parent’s scrappy love story — personalizing the heritage debate to the extent that any critique of her misdeeds is a critique of her family and their struggle.
Instead of spearheading a conversation about how social constructs of race influence prejudice and privilege, Warren muddles tribal sovereignty with a personal tale of hardship.
And despite her apologies, this video and claims to genetic “proof” of her appropriated “Native American heritage” are still up on her Fact Squad website: facts.elizabethwarren.com/heritage/
In her misguided attempt to prove her identity through genetic science Warren revealed that she is more interested in furthering her investment in colonialism than she is in building solidarity with Indigenous peoples.
.@KimTallBear has exhaustively demonstrated that Indigenous identity cannot be determined by DNA. What’s more, the reliance on genetic science is itself a form of violence in that it is a function of settler colonial systems hellbent on disappearing Indigenous peoples.
Here's the full article that @KimTallBear quote is from: hcn.org/issues/51.2/tr…
It’s easy to condemn Trump’s blatant racism, and indeed we should. But Warren’s misguided flirtation with Indigenous ancestry and continued harm represents an insidious strain of colonialism that white settlers need to take a more active role in combating.
And speaking directly to other white feminists here: there is nothing misogynistic about holding our female leaders accountable. On the contrary, it’s necessary if we want the feminist movement to accomplish anything beyond reinforcing the white supremacist settler patriarchy.
To date, Warren has only performatively engaged the generous attempts of Native peoples to call her in over the past seven years. A more public and clear apology from Warren wouldn’t signify weakness, it would prove she’s willing to be held accountable for her actions.
Her apology to Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin was a start, but as @rebeccanagle pointed out on Twitter, a private phone call is not nearly enough:
Warren needs to acknowledge that she screwed up, make a clear and official public apology, and take measures to build meaningful allyships with Indigenous peoples.
As @BettyRbl and David Chang concluded in their recent Politico piece, “It’s time Elizabeth Warren uses this as an opportunity to defend Native women, and not just herself.” They even did Warren the courtesy of spelling out specific actions she can take:
politico.com/magazine/story…
politico.com/magazine/story…
Now it’s your turn. Help elevate these demands by letting Warren know she needs to acknowledge she was wrong to ever claim Native identity, to respect Indigenous sovereignty, and to use her platform and her power to be an actual ally to Native peoples, especially women and girls.
Let her know that the feminist movement can’t achieve any real justice as long as our leaders are actively replicating and benefiting from the foundational injustices of settler colonialism. warren.senate.gov/contact/sharey…
White feminists have done a lot of talking about the importance of building a truly intersectional movement. Here’s a chance to show we really mean it.
Thx for reading--pls don't let this thread be your only engagement w/ this issue; follow and read the work of (to start) @KimTallBear @rebeccanagle @JeaniOBrien @BettyRbl @NativeApprops @Doug_Kiel @PepePierce @justicedanielh @pollysgdaughter @MsKellyMHayes @malindalowery @badndns
