THE CHEROKEE STORY HURTS WARREN, BY WHY DOES THIS MAKE IT WORSE?

Elizabeth Warren has described herself in the past as part Native American in a directory of law professors, though no one has yet demonstrated that she used this reported minority status in anything to do with employment. It's been determined that she is, in fact, 1/32nd Cherokee (just like the current principal chief of the Cherokee Nation), but the discovery that she's called herself a Native has been a setback for her Senate campaign.

OK, I get it -- but why should this make the situation worse for Warren?

... Legal Insurrection's William A. Jacobsen writes that he genealogical knife cuts both ways -- he says Warren is also related to a militia member who participated in the roundup of Native Americans ahead of the Trail of Tears. If Warren is 1/32nd Native American, she is also 1/32nd atrocity committer -- try getting an educational grant for that.

Really? How is that different from being African-American and also being descended from a slave owner, which is the case for a significant percentage of American blacks -- including both Barack and Michelle Obama? I wouldn't argue that Warren is truly Cherokee the way the Obamas are black, but you don't become less of a member of an oppressed group because you're also descended from the oppressors. That's crazy.

Are we going to stop calling people black if their slave ancestors were forcibly impregnated by their owners? That would be the logical extension of this. So, fine -- go ahead and criticize Warren if you think she passed herself off as something she's not. But her non-European blood is still non-European no matter what was done by the Europeans from whom she's descended.