The new composite America

Fauxcahontas and the melting pot

Martin Luther King dreamed of a day when men would be judged not on the color of their skin but on the content of their great-great-great-grandmother’s wedding license application. And now it’s here!

By Mark Steyn

But being yourself is never going to be enough in the new composite America. Last week, in an election campaign ad, Barack revealed his latest composite girlfriend – "Julia." She's worse than the old New York girlfriend. She can't even be herself. In fact, she can't be anything without massive assistance from Barack every step of the way, from his "Head Start" program at age 3 through to his Social Security benefits at the age of 67. Everything good in her life she owes to him. When she writes her memoir, it will be thanks to a subvention from the Federal Publishing Assistance Program for Chronically Dependent Women but you'll love it:Sweet Dreams From My Sugar Daddy. She's what the lawyers would call "non composite mentis." She's not competent to do a single thing for herself – and, from Barack's point of view, that's exactly what he's looking for in a woman, if only for a one-night stand on a Tuesday in early November.

Then there's "Elizabeth," a 62-year-old Democratic Senate candidate from Massachusetts. Like Barack's white girlfriend, she couldn't be black. She would if she could, but she couldn't. But she could be a composite – a white woman and an Indian woman, all mixed up in one! Not Indian in the sense of Ashton Kutcher putting on brownface makeup and a fake-Indian accent in his amusing new commercial for the hip lo-fat snack Popchips. But Indian in the sense of checking the "Are you Native American?" box on the Association of American Law Schools form, which Elizabeth Warren did for much of her adult life. According to her, she's part Cherokee and part Delaware. Not in the Joe Biden sense, I hasten to add, but Delaware in the sense of the Indian tribe named in honor of the home state of Big F—kin' Chief Dances With Plugs.

How does she know she's a Cherokee maiden? Well, she cites her grandfather's "high cheekbones," and says the Indian stuff is part of her family "lore." Which was evidently good enough for Harvard Lore School when they were looking to rack up a few affirmative-action credits. The former Obama Special Advisor to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and former Chairperson of the Congressional Oversight Panel now says that "I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group, something that might happen with people who are like I am," and certainly not for personal career advancement or anything like that. Like everyone else, she was shocked, shocked to discover that, as The Boston Herald reported, "Harvard Law School officials listed Warren as Native American in the '90s, when the school was under fierce fire for their faculty's lack of diversity."
So did the University of Texas, and the University of Pennsylvania. With the impertinent jackanapes of the press querying the bona fides of Harvard Lore School's first Native American female professor, the Warren campaign got to work and eventually turned up a great-great-great-grandmother designated as Cherokee in the online transcription of a marriage application of 1894.

Hallelujah! In the old racist America, we had quadroons and octoroons. But in the new post-racial America, we have – hang on, let me get out my calculator – duoettrigintaroons! Martin Luther King dreamed of a day when men would be judged not on the color of their skin but on the content of their great-great-great-grandmother's wedding license application. And now it's here! You can read all about it in Elizabeth Warren's memoir of her struggles to come to terms with her racial identity, Dreams From My Great-Great-Great-Grandmother.

Alas, the actual original marriage license does not list Great-Great-Great-Gran'ma as Cherokee, but let's cut Elizabeth Fauxcahontas Crockagawea Warren some slack here. She couldn't be black. She would if she could, but she couldn't. But she could be 1/32nd Cherokee, and maybe get invited to a luncheon with others of her kind – "people who are like I am," 31/32nds white – and they can all sit around celebrating their diversity together. She is a testament to America's melting pot, composite pot, composting pot, whatever.

Just in case you're having difficulty keeping up with all these Composite-Americans, George Zimmerman, the son of a Peruvian mestiza, is the embodiment of endemic white racism and the reincarnation of Bull Connor, but Elizabeth Warren, the great-great-great-granddaughter of someone who might possibly have been listed as Cherokee on an application for a marriage license, is a heartwarming testimony to how minorities are shattering the glass ceiling in Harvard Yard. George Zimmerman, redneck; Elizabeth Warren, redskin. Under the Third Reich's Nuremberg Laws, Ms. Warren would have been classified as Aryan and Mr. Zimmerman as non-Aryan. Now it's the other way round. Progress!

Coincidentally, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission last week issued an "Enforcement Guidance" limiting the rights of employers to take into account the criminal convictions and arrest records of job applicants because of the "disparate impact" the consideration of such matters might have on minorities. That's great news, isn't it? So Harvard Law School can't ask Elizabeth Warren if she's ever held up a liquor store because, if they did, the faculty might be even less Cherokee than it is.

My colleague Jonah Goldberg wrote the other day about Chris Mooney, author of "The Republican Brain," and other scientific chaps who argue that conservatives suffer from a genetic cognitive impairment that causes us to favor small government. In other words, we're born stupid. So, thanks to gene sequencing, we now know why conservatives aren't as smart as, say, Pete Stark, the nigh-on-half-a-century Democrat congressman who believes that Solyndra, which is based in his district, is an automobile manufacturer: "I wish I had a big enough expense allowance to get one of those new 'S's' that Solyndra's going to make down there, the electric car," he told The San Francisco Chronicle this week. "My 10-year-old is after me. He no longer wants a Porsche. He wants Dad to have an 'S' sedan." Pete sounds so out of it, you have to wonder if maybe he's 1/32nd Republican on his great-great-great-grandmother's side.

But, if conservatives are simply born that way, shouldn't they be covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission?

Aw, don't waste your time. Elizabeth Warren will be ahead of you checking the "right-wing madman" box on the grounds that she gets her high cheekbones and minimal facial hair from Genghis Khan. And "Julia" will be saying she was born conservative but thanks to Obama's new Headcase Start program was able to get ideological reassignment surgery. And Barack's imaginary girlfriend will be telling him that she'd be left if she could, but she's right so she can't, but she'd love to be left. So he left her.

Good thing the smart guys are running the joint.