It started when I was down around Logan, to retrieve my wife, who had flown up from Dulles.♠ At 3 p.m. I tuned into WBUR, 90.9, and the show Radio Boston with Meghna Chakrabarti and Anthony Brooks. One of the topics was Professor Elizabeth Warren's heritage.
Frankly, I was surprised that NPR was giving any attention to this, given their political slant. But they were. Sure, there was Jeff Jacoby on the show, but also John Carroll. I think this issue has moved into its own space and become a sort of parody for the absurdity of some of the lengths to which we go in the name of affirmative action. As I suggested in a comment at Left in Lowell, if you have been in a hiring or promoting position and you have not given a leg up to someone who was in one way or another part of the "approved set" of applicants, then you are not helping execute the American Dream. Don't always go for the Ivy League applicant of the set before you. Once in a while go for the Land Grant College applicant or the A&E applicant. Look for the other qualities, which may be of value in the short or long term. Don't always make the easy choice.
The problem is, the Elizabeth Warren story has, as Ms Arons-Barron says, distracted us.
Thankfully, most people understand that there are bigger issues in this campaign, not the least of which is Scott Brown’s efforts to gut strong regulatory support of the Volcker Rule. He may be heeding his heavy level of financial backing from Wall Street at a time when the nation needs to stand firm on financial regulation, rather than watering it down.Yeah, right. The real issue is if, or if not, Keynes is the path to take. As for financial regulation, if Dodd-Frank didn't save us from the CityBank $2 billion loss, how much regulation will? If you said bring back Glass-Steagall, like the Lyndon LaRouche types suggest, I might be interesting in hearing your story.
As for this paragraph:
The Cherokee story has staying power because its gives Brown an opportunity to pander to white male independents. It’s easier for reporters, columnists and bloggers to write about because it doesn’t require explaining the significance of procedural votes or delving into complex (sometimes boring) substance.We do realize, don't we, that the Republicans were the first ones to elect a US Vice President with Native American blood, albeit not Cherokee? Can we move beyond the "Republicans are racists" meme?
And, yes, I am still planning on voting for the "centerfold".
Regards — Cliff
♠ For those following the sub-plot, Lukas is up to five and a quarter pounds.
7 comments:
If the purpose of affirmative action and "diversity" is to maximize the range of experiences that one is exposed to, what, exactly, did Elizabeth Warren offer either to fellow faculty OR her students?
That it turns out she's not even 1/32 Cherokee begs the question, what if she WERE? Is there any evidence that this would have made her a better (or worse) teacher?
In short, to what extent are the blandishments in defense of affirmative action utter nonsense, with no realbearing on competency and capability?
The other candidate for the Democrats, as did members within the Cherokee Nation think it matters, so it matters. I was willing to let this one go, because we all have forklore in our ancestry. It is how she used it in a professional setting and her employers, that is worrisome. It is like mentioning my grandfather grew up in Sparti (Sparta), Greece in an interview. Not that the qualities of that culture is something to brag about.
Larouche? That's low. ;-)
Glass-Steagal's most important premise is that financial institutions in the business of preserving capital for the purpose of protecting the stakes of their depositors, or the claims of their policyholders, should NOT be allowed to be in the business of "investment banking", aka doing the thing that JPMorgan did to lose 4 billion the other day. (It's not 2 billion the way Jamie Dimon originally would have us believe it--it's 4 billion and watch the stories evolve over the coming weeks to "explain" why they lied about it from the start).
"Financial Services" firms are the legacy of the moneylenders Jesus threw out of the temple, and the usury that Mohammed forbade, and say what you will about their adherents' dogma, on this premise both Jesus and the Big Mo had it absolutely correct. They've got to be tightly controlled, or they will wreck (actually, steal) the public treasury.
"Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he can rob the whole world".
The dissolution of Glass Steagal by the McCain cabal (with the tacit support of Barney Frank and his cabal in order for them to get the McCainiacs to keep Fannie and Freddie "safe" from prying eyes) is the primary reason all this came crashing down over the past 4 years. Calling "Larouche" on those of us who would have it otherwise is in very poor taste.
Libertarianism fails when it comes to financial regulation. Those of us who lean Libertarian on social and fiscal issues have to compromise our principles for the greater good and support things like Glass Steagal, or we all lose.
If you believe in Glass-Steagall even Lyndon shouldn't be able to run you off. :-)
Reards — Cliff
Cliff, this is re-commented from Dick's blog:
Marjorie, thanks for writing this. I agree with you about the overall importance of this issue [low], and will cite Sayre’s Law here: “In any dispute, the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.” Complicated stuff like START negotiations, NATO expansion, or the Volcker Rule doesn’t get the same radio play because it’s harder to wrap your head around. The Native American heritage thing is a bit more straightforward, and it also conjures up a lot of other intense feelings that some people hold about things like hiring preferences and “set-asides” for some people.
But for a second, let’s shelve all of that. As your previous post on this issue implied, there was a screw-up here on the part of the Warren campaign. The fumble that I see is how do you go from “I don’t remember” and “It wasn’t all that important to me,” to “I was trying to connect with people like myself” and “it was part of our family lore” in a span of ONE DAY?!? The second two quotes show that a) clearly, she does remember, and b) clearly, it was important to her.
I think your advice in that last paragraph is sound, and it’s too bad her advisors weren’t saying that before all this erupted — a good vetting process lays out EVERYTHING on the table and then pre-empts the opposition by figuring out how to handle questions like this before they arise. To me, jumping from the old legal standby of “I don’t remember” and then spinning 179 degrees to the “people like me” line, followed up by the “high cheekbones” bit just doesn’t pass the smell test.
Then again, neither does Scott Brown staging a half-court basketball shot at a high school, taking out paid radio ads to wax philosophical about the loss of Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield, or insisting over and over again that he’s a “regular guy” when he’s anything but. My partisan blinders aren’t so thick that I can’t see problems on both sides.
And your point about family lore is well-taken…other than stories from my now-deceased grandparents, and some phenotypes suggesting Celtic blood, I can’t really *prove* the lore I’ve heard about relatives fleeing County Wexford for Canada around 1870 when the British burned their church and displaced them. For the sake of the argument, let’s give Elizabeth Warren a full pass on that.
That still doesn’t explain the awkward fumbles along the way from the original “Who…me?” reaction to the more sensible and reasonable follow-up answers. This was badly flubbed.
Families can be a problem in this area of one's heritage. My Father had told me that his Grandmother (which one I don't know) was a foundling. On the basis of this, in the late sixties and early seventies, I told my wife and anyone else bored enough to listen that I was a Black, Japanese, Jew.
This worked, sort of, until my wife met my Aunt Edra (Father's Side) when my Cousin and I were both in the Tampa area in the early 70s. Aunt Edra set my wife straight on this. No foundling.
But, the moral is, this is America. Except for legacies who get to go to Ivy League schools on the basis of being a legacy, your past is not as important as your present and your ability to explain who you are now.
This is America. John Ford taught us that "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend".
And be happy. Smile. Don't look like a scold.
Regards — Cliff
PS: No, I never put any of that down on an application. I just try to remember to scratch out "White" and put in Caucasian. I do resent people who use the naked term "Anglo". Anglo what? Resent? Maybe not, but that is a nicer term that "totally disrespect".
PPS: Back in the day of the "One Drop" rule.
Regards — Cliff
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