Sigmund Freud must be wishing he were alive in this day and age in order to get a crack at the ever-expanding list of new mental disorders being created by liberals in America.
Not only is the new trend of creating phobias exclusive liberal territory, (when’s the last time you heard a conservative come up with a “phobia” – such as homophobia, trans-phobia, Islamophobia – and use it to advance a cause or agenda), so is the trend of faking one’s ethnic heritage.
Last week’s removal of yet another pretend minority by New Hampshire’s Dartmouth College shines light on a phenomena of behavior exhibited almost exclusively by the political left in America — instances of Caucasians pretending to be ethnic minorities. Its odd behavior to say the least, and behavior that is rarely if ever exhibited by anyone but liberals.
Last month Dartmouth, an Ivy League and therefore almost by definition an uber-liberal school, named Susan Taffe Reed as new Director of its “Native American Program.” In her new position Ms. Reed was to help students adjust to life at the school and serve as a liaison between the college and Native Americans. The school said her role as president of the Eastern Delaware Nations would be instrumental in helping guide Indian students.
There’s was just one problem. She’s a fake.
Last week Dartmouth removed Dr. Reed, who has a doctorate in musicology and American Indian Studies from Cornell University, from her post after tribal officials and alumni accused her of misrepresenting herself as an American Indian. Apparently to tribal elders and officials just studying American Indian culture in school isn’t enough to actually be an American Indian.
Reed’s appointment in September was almost immediately mired in controversy, as some Native Americans said Dartmouth didn’t sufficiently vet Ms. Reed’s association with the Eastern Delaware Nation, which concedes it isn’t an actual tribe. Several Indian activists groups who dug into Ms. Reed’s past said they couldn’t find documentation of her claims that she had Native American heritage.
The college said in a statement last week that Reed will no longer head its Native American Program and that it was “exploring opportunities” to retain Ms. Reed in some capacity. “Unfortunately, the distraction around her appointment prevents her from effectively serving in this role,” said Dartmouth spokeswoman Diana Lawrence.
For her part, Dr. Reed could not be reached for comment. She did however release an email stating that she said she was of mixed Native and European heritage, though she didn’t specify which tribe or tribes she hailed from. She added that she had been raised participating in traditional Native ceremonies in a rural region of Pennsylvania. In other words – she “identifies” as a Native-American Indian therefore she is one. Apparently participation points count when it comes to one’s ethnic makeup.
Reed’s case calls to mind that of another disgraced and fired phony Indian, former professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Ward Churchill. Yet another far-left leaning academic and bonafide America-hater, Churchill infamously claimed that the United States deserved the September 11, 2001 attacks because of “ongoing genocidal American imperialism.” He was canned by the U. of Colorado after having been exposed as a plagiarist and a fake Indian who concocted his identity as a Native-American in order to further his academic career.
The shifting sands of Churchill’s supposed Indian heritage date back decades. In 1992 Churchill wrote that he was 1/8th Creek and 1/16th Cherokee. In 1993 Churchill told the Colorado Daily that “he was 1/16th Creek and Cherokee.” In 2003 Churchill stated, “I am myself of Muscogee and Creek descent on my father’s side, Cherokee on my mother’s, and am an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. The story changed some more when in in February 2005 he wrote that he is 3/16ths Cherokee.
In a statement dated May 9, 2005, and posted on its website, the United Keetoowah Band (the tribe of federally-recognized Cherokee Indians said, “The United Keetoowah Band would like to make it clear that Mr. Churchill IS NOT a member of the Keetoowah Band and was only given an honorary ‘associate membership’ in the early 1990s because he could not prove any Cherokee ancestry.” The tribe said that all of Churchill’s “past, present and future claims or assertions of Keetoowah ‘enrollment,’ written or spoken, including but not limited to; biographies, curriculum vitae, lectures, applications for employment, or any other reference not listed herein, are deemed fraudulent by the United Keetoowah Band.”
When finally confronted and asked about his ethnic identity Churchill said it was “not important.”
All of these percentages bring to mind U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren. Like Churchill and Reed, Warren allowed herself to be brought on as a “minority hire” at a liberal school — this time Harvard — on the basis that she’s an American Indian. The Senator continues to claim her Indian heritage. How? From where does this information come? Is she registered with any tribes or national registries? No, she claims she’s 1/32 Indian …because her mother told her so.
Enough of the fake Indians. How about some real fake black people?
Rachel Dolezal and Shaun King are both a pair of white people identifying as black and so therefore they are (in their own minds). Ms. Dolezal of course is the now-deposed president of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP (that’s “National Association for the Advancement of Colored People”.) Dolezal lied about her race in order to get her job and for years portrayed herself as black though she was born white. She stood by her self-identification until the end, telling CNN, the Washington Post and others, “I identify as black.”
Dolezal does not deny her biological parents are white (she has siblings so how could she?) but she also went as far as to change her physical appearance over the years in an effort to look more ethnic. That she knowingly deceived those around her and lied about who she was is an abuse of trust that Ms. Dolezal just doesn’t see. She admitted not having corrected various published reports over the years and claims being trans-racial somehow made those reports accurate. Somehow.
Mr. King has been an instrumental figure on the BlackLivesMatter movement around America and yes he’s another white liberal who has assumed the identity of an ethnic minority. Public records show that King’s birth certificate lists two Caucasian people as his parents. But rather than fess up like Dolezal, King chose to throw his own mother beneath the bus and blame the ambiguity of his racial heritage on her extra-marital affairs and promiscuity. In a blog post on DailyKos King wrote, “I refuse to speak in detail about the nature of my mother’s past, or her sexual partners, and I am gravely embarrassed to even be saying this now, but I have been told for most of my life that the white man on my birth certificate is not my biological father and that my actual biological father is a light-skinned black man.” Way to stay classy.
This pattern of behavior seems to be the exclusive territory of those on the ideological left. Why is that? And to make matters even more perplexing, when one of these fake minorities is uncovered and exposed it’s the left, the very people to whom they have lied and defrauded, who are the ones to come rushing to their defense!
If anything one would think things the other way around. It’s the ideological right in America which is constantly under attack (by the left) for “not having minorities”, “being against blacks”, etc. Thus it would make the most sense for righties to be feigning black, Indian or Hispanic in order to bring some color to their side of the aisle and help blunt the effect of such accusations. Yet we never see that. Regardless of race, ethnicity or skin color we never seen conservatives “identifying” as anything but conservative. Could it be because truth transcends color? Or because of adherence to a moral code about lying and deceiving others?
My father used to tell me, “If you always tell the truth, you never have to remember what you said.” Morph that into, “You never have to remember who you are.” It’s amazing how many (liberals) are trying to forget who they are.
Derrick Wilburn is the Founder and Chairman of the Rocky Mountain Black Conservatives and American Conservatives of Color.
He is a sought after speaker/presenter, and is also a renown author and columnist, contributing columns and editorials to the Colorado Springs Gazette and Colorado Common Sense News. He can also be read nationally on American Thinker, Allen B. West and the Tea Party News Network.
His online videos may be viewed on the ACofC YouTube channel and he frequently delivers the Tea Party National Weekly Address.
