{"id":58438,"date":"2019-07-10T17:36:57","date_gmt":"2019-07-10T17:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58438"},"modified":"2019-07-10T17:39:36","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T17:39:36","slug":"claiming-to-be-cherokee-contractors-with-white-ancestry-got-300-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=58438","title":{"rendered":"Claiming to be Cherokee, contractors with white ancestry got $300 million"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/lanow\/la-na-cherokee-minority-contracts-20190626-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>Claiming to be Cherokee, contractors with white ancestry got $300 million<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Los Angeles Times<\/a><br \/>\n2019-06-26<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@adamelmahrek\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Adam Elmahrek<\/strong><\/a>, Investigative Reporter<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@pringlelatimes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Paul Pringle<\/strong><\/a>, Investigative Reporter<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/lanow\/la-na-cherokee-minority-contracts-20190626-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/resizer\/WLuWl_wFqG8RChbihnQAU6r3MdY=\/1200x0\/www.trbimg.com\/img-5d17ea9e\/turbine\/la-na-cherokee-minority-contracts-20190626\" width=\"550\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Two years ago, when the mayor&#8217;s office in <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/St._Louis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">St. Louis<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stlamerican.com\/news\/local_news\/minority-firm-gets-k-demo-contract-on-nga-west-site\/article_cc2e872c-6355-11e7-b5ef-8faac41a94e3.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced<\/a> a $311,000 contract to tear down an old shoe factory, it made a point of identifying the demolition company as minority owned.<\/p>\n<p>That was welcome news. The <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Missouri\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Missouri<\/a> city was still grappling with racial tensions from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/nation\/nationnow\/la-na-nn-ferguson-michael-brown-20140817-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown<\/a>, a black 18-year-old, in nearby <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ferguson,_Missouri\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ferguson<\/a>. After <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/nation\/la-na-hands-up-20140813-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">angry protests<\/a>, elected officials had pledged to set aside more government work for minority-owned firms.<\/p>\n<p>There was only one problem&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/lanow\/la-na-cherokee-minority-contracts-20190626-story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Contractors with white ancestry were awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts reserved for minorities by making unsubstantiated claims to being Native American, a Times investigation found. To qualify for the minority contracting programs, they used membership in unrecognized Cherokee groups that federally recognized tribes and Native American experts consider illegitimate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,14647,8,3015,26,20],"tags":[29975,3909,773,29976,778,13272],"class_list":["post-58438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-economics","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-politics","category-usa","tag-adam-elmahrek","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-missouri","tag-paul-pringle","tag-st-louis","tag-the-los-angeles-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58438","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=58438"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58441,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58438\/revisions\/58441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}