Sen. Elizabeth Warren just can’t seem to shake the consequences of claiming Native American ancestry. Known for not mincing words, Charlamagne Tha God called the Democratic presidential hopeful “the original Rachel Dolezal” in a recent interview on “The Breakfast Club,” reported the New York Post.
Dolezal is the white woman infamous for posing as Black that served as former president of the NAACP’s Spokane, Washington chapter. It is not a flattering comparison and Charlamagne did not hold back with his questions.
’Do you regret taking the DNA test?’ … ‘Why’d you do that?’ … ‘When did you find out you weren’t?’ and ‘Were there any benefits to that?’ are just some of the questions Charlamagne asked the 69-year-old politician.
During the awkward moment, Warren responded saying, “I can’t go back … I learned about my family the same way most people learn about their family, from my mama and my daddy and my aunts and my uncles and it’s what I believed.”
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 18: Boyce Watkins Jamarlin talks with Dr. Boyce Watkins about the lopsided relationship between the Democratic Party and Black America. They discuss potential 2020 presidential candidates, Sen. Cory Booker and Sen. Kamala Harris, and whether corporations and interests connected to foreign countries have more influence than Black voters on policy and priorities.
When Charlamagne told her she was “like the original Rachel Dolezal a little bit,” Warren was visibly at a loss for words. After composing herself, she reiterated it’s what she was told by her family.
She also repeated some of her comments from earlier this year when she apologized about the false information after a DNA test showed she doesn’t have any Native ancestry.
“I’m not a person of color, I’m not a citizen of a tribe and I shouldn’t have done it,” Warren said, adding that she never received any benefits to her career by claiming Native heritage.
Warren said she can’t change the past, but she wants to be a good partner to Blacks and other people of color by implementing policies like investing in HBCUs, creating a wealth tax, supporting reparations and wiping out student loan debt if elected.
