{"id":23588,"date":"2012-06-03T19:16:17","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T19:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=23588"},"modified":"2012-06-03T19:16:17","modified_gmt":"2012-06-03T19:16:17","slug":"elizabeth-warren-box-checking-for-fun-and-profit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=23588","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Warren: Box-Checking for Fun and Profit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Warren: Box-Checking for Fun and Profit<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Indican Country Today Media Network
\n2012-05-16<\/p>\n

Steve Russell<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice
\nIndiana University<\/em><\/p>\n

Forrest Carter, Carlos Castaneda, Ward Churchill, Iron Eyes Cody, Jamake HIghwater, Nasdijj, Princess Pale Moon, Andrea and Justine Smith, Mary Thunder, Dhyani Ywahoo.<\/p>\n

Some of these people have done good work; others have profited only themselves. Some have traded in valuable insights; others in execrable garbage. They have one thing in common<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The question recently has been whether Elizabeth Warren<\/a> belongs on that list. I am personally unclear about the standards of admission, so I will be thinking out loud. I contributed to Elizabeth Warren\u2019s campaign before and after her opponent nominated her for inclusion, so feel free to consider these remarks biased for that reason…<\/p>\n

…I was born and raised in the Creek Nation, and some of our customs are remarkably similar. We share the history of removal to Indian Territory and the abrogation of our treaties to create the State of Oklahoma. We produced the most effective organizers against the Dawes Act<\/a> abomination in the Cherokee Redbird Smith<\/a> and the Creek Chitto Harjo<\/a>. But I never, ever, thought I was the same as a Creek. Different language, different stories, different traditions of governing\u2014let\u2019s face it, different peoples.<\/p>\n

How can you maintain a tribal identity without knowing at least some of what that identity means?<\/p>\n

A genealogist in Boston claimed to have discovered that Elizabeth Warren\u2019s g-g-g-grandmother is listed on a marriage application as Cherokee. This would not tell us blood quantum because, even in those times, one was either a Cherokee citizen or not.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth Warren\u2019s alleged Cherokee ancestor would have been a contemporary of John Ross, Cooweescowee, the Bird Clan Cherokee who led the tribal government though our most tragic confrontations with American greed. Ross was one-eighth Cherokee by blood, as I am.<\/strong> I draw the conclusion that if Warren\u2019s ancestor were in fact Cherokee, we would still know nothing about her blood quantum.<\/p>\n

A prominent Cherokee scholar, Dr. Richard Allen, points out that Warren\u2019s ancestor was allegedly married to a white man in Tennessee at a time when such a marriage would have been prohibited by anti-miscegenation laws. Those laws only fell when struck down by the Supreme Court in 1967<\/a>, a blow for equality every bit as significant as the legalization of gay marriage in our time. Like the prohibitions on gay marriage, anti-miscegenation laws were justified by a comical admixture of fake science and superstition<\/a>, only comical to those not separated from persons they loved.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s only fair to admit the Cherokee Nation had such laws as well, but applying only to \u201cNegroes.\u201d However, white Cherokee citizens were limited to one wife. While that limitation sounds absurd, it was a rational attempt to avoid white intruders entering marriages of convenience with Cherokee women, which brings up another speculation about Ms. Warren\u2019s story…<\/p>\n

Read the entire opinion piece here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Warren: Box-Checking for Fun and Profit Indican Country Today Media Network 2012-05-16 Steve Russell, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Indiana University Forrest Carter, Carlos Castaneda, Ward Churchill, Iron Eyes Cody, Jamake HIghwater, Nasdijj, Princess Pale Moon, Andrea and Justine Smith, Mary Thunder, Dhyani Ywahoo. Some of these people have done good work; others have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,3015,26],"tags":[10647,8658],"class_list":["post-23588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-politics","tag-elizabeth-warren","tag-steve-russell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}