As Rachel explained on the show last night, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) has been going after Elizabeth Warren’s (D) ethnic heritage very aggressively for months, but very recently, this line of attack took a deeply ugly turn.
It’s disturbing enough that Scott Brown thinks he’s capable of figuring out a person’s ethnic background just by looking at them, but over the weekend, Brown aides — whose salaries are taxpayer financed — mocked Native Americans with fake war whoops and tomahawk chops at a rally for the senator’s campaign.
Cherokee Nation was not amused by the racist antics and expects the Republican senator to apologize.
The principal chief of the Cherokee Nation today denounced Senator Scott Brown’s campaign staffers for what he called “offensive and racist behavior” against Native Americans, calling on Brown to apologize. […]
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“The conduct of these individuals goes far beyond what is appropriate and proper in political discourse,” the chief, Bill John Baker, said in a statement. “The use of stereotypical ‘war whoop chants’ and ‘tomahawk chops’ are offensive and downright racist. It is those types of actions that perpetuate negative stereotypes and continue to minimize and degrade all native peoples.”
The Cherokee Nation chief added that the campaign “must be called to task for their actions,” and called upon Brown “to apologize for the offensive actions of his staff and their uneducated, unenlightened and racist portrayal of native peoples.”
Brown has said he doesn’t “condone” the actions of his own staff, but thus far, he’s refused to apologize.
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