the elizabeth warren/native-american-affirmative-action thing is pretty funny. she says she based her self-reported ethnicity on 'family lore,' and that's certainly plausible. in fact, it's an american tradition to throw in some indian: cf. noble drew ali. my grandmother told me stuff like that and also that we were descended from thomas jefferson, possibly because there was an early-19th-century thomas jefferson sartwell. and since the racial/genderal composition of the faculty was always based on self-reporting, i occasionally myself have grown tired or offended enough to respond 'other' or 'south-sea islander' etc. on the other hand, harvard relentlessly promoted warren's minority status, especially in the 90s golden era of identity politics, when your professors were on hunger strike and your students enraged until you hired (any damn) black woman. life was a celebratory parade of tokens, and every white dude - no matter how milquetoast, no matter how apparently sincere our recitation the approved forms of words - carried the collective guilt of centuries of kicking your ass.
elizabeth warren in full drag pow-wow blackface regalia
