This week presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren made a general "I'm sorry for what I did and I apologize to any the people I harmed" without actually admitting what she was apologizing for. Since she's having problems admitting what she actually did and why it's bad, I thought I'd write a proper apology for her:
Back when I was just starting my career I realized that I would have difficulty getting a job at a top tier law school with a degree from a 2nd tier school. In order to get an "in" I relied some old family stories and checked "Indian" as my race. I never actually researched what it actually meant to be Native American. It's as much culture as ancestry and I never had a living relative talk about growing up in a tribe or on a reservation. But no one checked. Harvard was thrilled to have a minority, even a blond, blue-eyed Native American. I was even asked to contribute to Pow Wow Chow, a cookbook of traditional Indian recipes. By that point I'd convinced myself that we were descended from Indians and therefore anything we ate must be traditional, even if it was a seafood recipe I copied from a magazine.
Once I had established myself I quietly dropped any claims to Indian heritage until it came out during my first Senate run. I ignored this issue when it came out but I decided to put it to rest when I began organizing my presidential campaign. I had a genealogist check my DNA and I did an interview with family members where we talked about the stories we'd grown up with. As it turned out, I didn't properly understand that the DNA results undercut my claim and family stories are meaningless.
So I apologize for using this claim to advance my career. I apologize to the people I displaced by elbowing my way in front of them with a false claim. And I apologize to the Native Peoples of America and to all minorities. I used programs meant to make up for centuries of discrimination even though I was not entitled to use them.
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