Thread by @rebeccanagle

Why is it important for Warren to publicly and directly retract her family story of having Cherokee heritage?

Because its rooted in White Supremacy.

#Thread #StepUpWarren #CherokeeTruth

The ancestors Warren claims were Cherokee are not only well documented White ppl, they participated in the dispossession and genocide of Cherokee ppl.

Imagine a public leader claiming their family survived genocide, when they actually perpetuated it. Thats what Warren did.

In 1836, Warren’s white g-g-g-grandfather William Marsh, enlisted himself in a TN militia to fight in the “Cherokee War,” an occupation of Cherokee land in the lead-up to the Trail of Tears.

Decades later, his grandson John Crawford moved his family to Indian Territory & w/ no record of a permit was almost certainly illegal squatting.

The Crawfords were just some of the tens of thousands of white squatters who by the late 1800s outnumber Cherokees on our own land.

While Cherokees beseeched Congress to enforce our treaty rights and kick the squatters out, the squatters pushed Congress to divide up our treaty territory and create a path to white land ownership; the squatters won.

But when John Crawford's granddaughter Pauline Reed raised her child Elizabeth Warren she told a very different story. Not a story of stealing Cherokee land, but a story of being Cherokee.

Like many other white families in Oklahoma, Warren’s ancestors replaced the truth of their complicity in Cherokee dispossession with a tale of being Cherokee.

If that’s not wrong, if that’s not racist, I don’t know what is.

In her response letter yesterday, Warren called her family story "important context". She remains unwilling to let it go.

She's holding onto a story that not only has zero basis in reality, but is based White supremacy and Indigenous erasure.

.@pollysgdaughter compiled extensive research thats been publicly available since 2012 that you can read here: pollysgranddaughter.com/p/elizabeth-wa…