ANALYSIS/OPINION:

As amusing as it is to see the whitest looking woman in American continue to claim her Native American heritage, it’s important to remember that it is actual Native Americans, actual members of the Cherokee Nation, who are most annoyed at the Massachusetts Senator’s appropriation of their heritage and identity.

Just this past November, Rebecca Nagle wrote at the left-wing activist blog Think Progress about her anger toward Warren for claiming to be Cherokee:

As a young Cherokee woman, one would assume that I would take Warren’s side in standing up against Trump’s racist remark. Following the incident, Warren lambasted the president, telling MSNBC that Trump has done “this over and over thinking somehow he’s going to shut me up with it. It hadn’t worked in the past, it is not going to work in the future.” A real Native American hero, right? Wrong. She was not a hero to me when she failed to foster a haven of support for Native students within Harvard University’s alienating Ivy League culture. She is not a hero for spending years awkwardly avoiding Native leaders. She is not a hero because, despite claiming to be the only Native woman in the U.S. Senate, she has done nothing to advance our rights. She is not from us. She does not represent us. She is not Cherokee.

Indeed, Warren’s latest double-down of her double-down claiming her Cherokee heritage included a curious statement:

“By all accounts, my mother was a beauty. She was born in Eastern Oklahoma, on this exact day — Valentine’s Day — February 14, 1912. She grew up in the little town of Wetumka, the kind of girl who would sit for hours by herself, playing the piano and singing. My daddy fell head over heels in love with her.” But my mother’s family was part Native American. And my daddy’s parents were bitterly opposed to their relationship. So, in 1932, when Mother was 19 and Daddy had just turned 20, they eloped.”

Warren went on to say, “I get why some people think there’s hay to be made here. You won’t find my family members on any rolls, and I’m not enrolled in a tribe.“

In 1932, Warren claims her mother’s family was “part Native American” and yet they were not on any member roles and were not enrolled in a tribe. For a part-Native American family to avoid enrolling in a tribe in 1932, it’s reasonable to conclude that they were either so distantly related to the Cherokee tribe that it would be an invalid enrollment, or Warren’s family was trying to deny their heritage and attempting to “pass” as non-Indian.

But, apparently, her mother’s family was obviously Native American just by visual acknowledgement of their physical characteristics, otherwise it would make no logical sense for her father’s family to oppose their union. Who would her father’s bigoted, racist family even know her mother’s family was Cherokee if they didn’t clearly appear Native American?

This is why Nagle, in her op-ed, was so amendment to call Warren out for her obvious misrepresentation:

Warren’s misrepresentation of her heritage has major consequences for Native Americans, who have little visibility not only in politics, but in American culture at large. Warren’s claims of Cherokee identity make her the only representation of Cherokees that the average American will likely ever see. I challenge non-Native readers to name another Cherokee leader in elected office. Or any Native American holding elected office in the United States. Or a contemporary Native American author. A Native American movie star. A Native American athlete. Or any famous Native people who are alive today. What is beyond maddening is that, as Native people, we are relegated to being invisible, while Warren is not.

After Warren’s latest claims of Cherokee identity, it certainly appears that she is embracing a lie and clinging to it with a white-knuckled ferocity not seen since we were told that Hillary Clinton did not have and classified materials on her email server.

In other words, Warren looks like a shoe-in for the Democrat’s 2020 nomination for President.