Elizabeth Warren and the Politics of Identity

Not being a Massachusetts resident, I haven't been following the senate race between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown too closely, but during their first debate last week, Brown again brought up Warren's erroneous claim of Native American ancestry, something I'm more than familiar with.

Like Warren, I grew up with stories of Native American ancestry. It was only a few years ago, when I started searching my grandfather's family tree, that I did find his Metis ancestry through his mother's line.  The stories, at least in my case, proved to be true, but it's not a culture I was raised in, therefore it's not mine to claim. (And I also know just enough about DNA that there's a pretty good chance I didn't actually inherit any of theirs.) Growing up, it was neither embraced nor denied, and simply I added it to the stew of other heritages that make me an American. But to call myself anything other than white feels like taking something that isn't mine -- no, it is taking something that isn't mine.

I guess what I'm saying is I know where Warren is coming from. I don't believe she intentionally used it to gain any advantages, and she truly did believe her ancestry was, in part, Native American because we tend to believe what our parents tell us.

This also irritated me:

Professor Warren claimed that she was a Native American, a person of color and as you can see, she's not," said Brown, who repeated his call for his opponent to release records showing whether she had claimed Native American heritage on job applications. "When you are a U.S. Senator, you have to pass a test and that's one of character and honesty and truthfulness. I believe and others believe she's failed that test." -- emphasis mine (source )

 While in Warren's case, it proved to be false, it's really problematic to attack her claim by saying "you can clearly see she's not" a person of color. Granted, a light-haired, light-eyed person is not going to be seen as a person of color in most people's eyes, but that to even remotely imply there is a right way for a POC or an indigenous person to look is troubling, to say the least, or as Rachel Maddow said on her show, it's not up to Scott Brown to "divine Warren's ethnic heritage" based on what he thinks a Native American person should look like. This post is a good starting point, and better elucidates what I'm trying to say about appearance, heritage, and culture.

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Melissa Harris-Perry did a great segment about this, with Harris-Perry having the line of the night, saying we're becoming "part of a political angst where everyone has to show their papers." You can view it here  and here.

edited 9/25/12