During an interview with The New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump referred to Democratic US Senator from Mass. Elizabeth Warren, as “Pocahontas.” Why?
When most people think of Pocahontas, they either think of the Disney princess film or think back to learning about the Indian princess’s historical marriage to American John Rolfe in 1614 in history class. She was a fearless leader of her people who chose to go through with this arranged relationship for the safety of her people, and to bring peace between the Jamestown settlers and and the Powhatan Indians.
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Normally, if someone was called Pocahontas it would be a high compliment — a note on someone’s strength and beauty. Or it could be shamefully used as a racist glib comment towards someone of Native American descent. Trump continuously makes bold offensive comments towards Muslims and Mexicans, so the latter is unfortunately not far outside his wheel house.
However, Warren appears to the untrained eye to be a Caucasian woman. What's the jab here? Because these two have been sparring quite a bit, so we definitely know this wasn't a comment of endearment on Trump's behalf. Warren called Trump "a loser" on her Facebook page on March 21, which sparked a Twitter war between the two politicos. Trump then called Warren a "flunky," a "fraud," and "weak." Warren told The Boston Globe, she laughed upon hearing these comments, and fired back at Trump on Twitter, calling him "a bully" who "spits insults and lies."
So, when Dowd asked Trump about this heated feud, and he spat back saying, "You mean Pocahontas?" What was he talking about?
He's referencing Warren's claim to be of Native American descent. During her tenure as a professor at Harvard Law, Warren listed herself as a minority professor in the Association of American Law School's annual directory for her American Indian lineage, something for which Trump thinks is incredulous. Trump first brought up this topic on May 6, saying, "Goofy Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton’s flunky, has a career that is totally based on a lie. She is not Native American.”
According the Boston Herald, who at first went after the Senator for her seemingly out-of-the-blue Native American claim, discovered Warren's great-great-great- grandmother was indeed of Cherokee descent, which would make her 1/32 Native American. Warren claims her mother's parents have American Indian blood, which would increase that fraction, and many of her relatives are proud and active supporters of their Cherokee descent.
This feud is reminiscent of Trump's prior firm belief and witch hunt towards the current United States President Barack Obama, claiming that he is not at American citizen, and it's about at the same level of an annoying waste of time. Unless the Boston Herald's genealogist was wrong, this is a moot point of conversation, a large deviation from the many important topics American leaders should be focusing on right now.
