My name is Cole DeLaune. I am a proudly enrolled member of the Kiowa tribe, and a Native of Oklahoma. Like many voters today, I am an ideological independent frustrated with the partisan gridlock in Washington. I rooted for Hillary Clinton in 2008, and have supported candidates from both political parties during the current election cycle.
Recently, Senator Scott Brown incurred criticism for remarks he made during the first debate in the Massachusetts Senate race. However his words have been decontextualized and mischaracterized, they pale in comparison to the shockingly offensive conduct of his opponent, Professor Elizabeth Warren, since late April. In defending claims of Native American heritage that remain unsubstantiated to this day, Professor Warren said in early May that she has, "high cheekbones. . . like all the Indians do." Clearly, the professor has no problem with invoking external signifiers of race or reductive superificial stereotypes whenever they bolster her dishonest narrative.
However, one of the most important and alarming aspects of this controversy has remained largely overlooked. Since her decades-long history of ethnic self identification first came to light in late spring, Professor Warren has refused to speak to Native American newspapers and websites, including Indian Country Today, the largest Native news outlet in the nation. She rebuffed attempts by Indian delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte to establish lines of communication. Additionally, she accused four liberally inclined Cherokee women who traveled across the country to Boston to request an audience with her of advancing a Republican conspiracy. Generally speaking, when a person so deliberately and repeatedly refuses to engage with members of a specific minority group, we call such behavior racist and prejudicial. African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanics, LGBT men and women, Catholics, and members of other cultural communities should wonder exactly how Professor Warren will advocate for their interests in the Senate when she treats the members of the community to which she says she is so "proud" to belong with such contempt and disdain.
Native Americans understand that Elizabeth Warren is no friend of ours, and we also realize that every earnest progressive should be appalled by her behavior and refuse to legitimize it come November. I'm a proud Native American, and I'm proud to support Scott Brown for the United States Senate.
If you want to talk racism, Elizabeth Warren is guilty as charged.
