President Donald Trump at the podium during an event honoring members of the Native American code talkers in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 27, 2017 (Oliver Contreras-Pool/Getty Images)

When Don “Puffy” Comb-Over took the opportunity during a White House ceremony honoring the Native American code talkers to call Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas,” the collective response from most nonracist Americans was, “Oh no, he didn’t!”


But there were many people—including conservatives, people profiled in the New York Times and original-recipe white people—who didn’t find anything offensive about the slur. “How can a name be racist?” racists asked.


White House bullshit artist spokesperson and 2017 nominee to the Lying Motherfuckers Hall of Fame Sarah Sanders Huckabee said, “I don’t believe that it is appropriate for [the president] to make a racial slur, or anybody else.” The mauve Teletubby added: “I don’t think that it is [a racial slur], and I certainly don’t think that was the president’s intent.”

Early Tuesday morning, Satan intern and 22nd-place finisher in the Park Avenue School for Rich Turds sixth-grade spelling bee (when he was in the 11th grade) Eric Trump showed off his single-digit IQ when he tweeted:

Of course, Eric Trump doesn’t understand that Pocahontas is a real person and not a fictional cartoon character. Like father, like son. I bet he watches that cartoon once a week and admires Elizabeth Warren. Bless his little dumb heart.

To settle the confusion, we thought we’d explain why Donald Trump’s reference to Warren as Pocahontas is racist.


Who was Pocahontas?

She was an actual Native American woman in the area we now call Virginia known as Tsenacommacah. When the first white settlers landed in America, they showed the Native Americans how they were going to act for the next 500 or so years by kidnapping a teenager name Matoaka and holding her for ransom.


The Jamestown settlers renamed her “Rebecca.” No, I’m serious—they actually kidnapped a woman and tried to name her “Becky.” However, the Powhatan people told the Jamestonians that Matoaka’s name was “Pocahontas,” which loosely translates to “stolen by thieving-ass wypipo” (my Powhatan is a little rusty).

What does that have to do with Elizabeth Warren?

As a Harvard University professor, Elizabeth Warren was listed by the college as a minority professor because she claimed Native American ancestry. During her initial run for the Senate, her Republican opponent seized on this fact because ... um ... you know how they do. They tried to say it had something to do with fake diversity, dishonesty or affirmative action. They actually tried to get her to take a DNA test because white people apparently believe that Native American blood is redder or has feathers or something (the GOP is traditionally very bad at science-ing).


But is she Native American?

Who knows? She says that her parents and grandparents always told her about her Native American heritage. The New England Historic Genealogical Society’s Chris Child said he’d found a document stating that she has a great-great-great-grandmother who is Native American, which would make her 1/32 Cherokee according to the “one-drop rule” of the Federation for Unscientific Cursory Knowledge for White American Definitions, or FUCKWADS. NEHGS later backtracked on that claim when it could find no proof of the alleged document.


Warren’s family is from Oklahoma, however, so it is possible because ... have you ever read about what white people did to the Native Americans? It’s unlikely that white Oklahomans didn’t intermix when they were genociding the indigenous population. I’ve read a few history books, and I’ve never read about a conquering colonizing force saying, “We refrained from raping, but we pillaged like a motherfucker.”


To be fair, there is no evidence that Warren used her Native American status for the purposes of getting into college, gaining employment or otherwise benefiting her career. She does say she used it as a professor to “connect” with students.




None of this explains why Trump calls her Pocahontas.

Warren is one of the most popular Democrats and one of the few people in either party who will call Trump out using logic and plain talk. Instead of calling him a racist, she talks about his policies.


That’s scary for him. Trump likes to use nicknames, so he attacks her with the only negative thing he can use against her. He’s literally like a third-grader chasing people around the playground with doo-doo on a stick. That’s not an analogy. White House insiders have told me that he actually keeps a dookey wand by his bedside instead of a gun.

OK, that last sentence is not true. But if you found out it was, would you be surprised?


Exactly.

But why is this racist?

Because calling someone by a stereotypical name that is not their own because of their alleged ethnic or racial background is racist. If someone called me “Leroy,” I’m fighting. Well, I’m over 40 now, so I probably wouldn’t fight them, but I’d want to.*


*Please don’t hold me to the “I probably wouldn’t fight ... ” part of that statement. I try to take the high road, but when they go low, I go high. And by “high” I mean the punches to the throat or jaw area.

It’s as if Trump went to a Holocaust survivors’ memorial and reminded them that they weren’t the only ones who were murdered, or went into a room filled with Jews and said, “Hey, I like the Jews! My daughter had sex with one!” (Bad examples. He actually did both of those things.)


But here is the biggest reason Trump’s nasty nickname is racist: because Native Americans said so.

In May the National Congress of American Indians said in a statement: “The name of Pocahontas should not be used as a slur, and it is inappropriate for anyone to use her name in a disparaging manner.”


After the incident Monday, NCAI President Jefferson Keel, a U.S. Army officer and Vietnam War veteran, stated: “We regret that the president’s use of the name Pocahontas as a slur to insult a political adversary is overshadowing the true purpose of today’s White House ceremony.”


Despite what Eric Trump and Sarah Huckabee Sanders say, Trump’s name-calling is racist. Many white people like Trump will often excuse their racism by saying, “I’m not prejudiced.” They will vehemently argue their point about why their actions shouldn’t be considered racist.

Why? Because many white people actually believe it. It’s as if Mike Tyson punched a baby in the head and got mad when the baby cried because it was just a left-handed jab, not his knockout punch. They honestly believe that they can decide for nonwhite people whether something is racist or not. Not only do they think they can do whatever they want, but they also believe that they should be able to control people’s responses to their actions.


And if you think I’ve contradicted myself by stereotyping white people, you might be right. I might be a little bit racist.

But I like to call it “presidential.”