So now AOC’s an Indian … or something?
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (R-N.Y.) said Saturday she got in touch with her “indigenous heritage” while protesting an oil pipeline opposed by Native Americans. The claim on Instagram sparked mockery at AOC, who is of Puerto Rican descent and grew up in the wealthy New York City suburb of Westchester County.
“One of the things that first started awakening and connecting me in a deep to my indigenous heritage was connecting to the Lakota Sioux at Standing Rock,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.
Ocasio Cortez was referring to taking part in protests against the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock Indian Reservation. That pipeline project has not been shut down, although President Joe Biden did cancel the Keystone XL pipeline shortly after taking office.
Is that the same tribe that Senator Elizabeth Warren 'gits her a beer' from?
AOC recalls being awakened to her 'indigenous heritage'https://t.co/JzZYuA3km9
— 🇺🇸 The FJC 🇺🇸 (Same on Truth!) (@The_FJC) June 5, 2022
Pipeline proponents say moving oil through tubes is safer and better for the environment than using tanker trucks or railroads. They also blame the far-left environmentalists for the record gas prices plaguing the U.S.
The Native American tribes opposed the pipelines passing through their ancestral lands and, according to AOC, welcomed her support. She said she is descended from the Taino people, who were indigenous to the Caribbean, and therefore fit right in with Indians living at Standing Rock.
“It really just clicked that this is nuts, like, the grace that they extended to say ‘no, you are a relative,’ was really formative for me,” AOC wrote. “While we may not be and come from the same exact lineage, there is a commonality to that ancestry. And it’s important for us to recognize that we were raised and we were told growing up that we were extinct, that Tainos don’t exist, and it’s really important for Puerto Ricans to understand that that narrative is being challenged right now.”
AOC’s latest heritage appropriation had Twitter users comparing her to fellow Democrat Elizabeth Warren. The Massachusetts senator has claimed in the past that she was part Cherokee Indian and that her Aunt Bee would often remark that her grandfather had “high cheek bones like all of the Indians do.” As far back as April 1986, Warren claimed American Indian ancestry in her application for the State Bar of Texas.
“AOC has indigenous in her just like Liz Warren is Native American,” tweeted Joey Joe. “These people r liars and r very sick individuals that’s what they have in them.”
In February 2019, as The Daily Wire reported, Warren apologized to the Cherokee Nation after she released a DNA test from the previous October that showed she was as little as 1/1,024 Native American.
A year later, more than 200 members of the Cherokee Nation and other Native American tribes wrote a harsh letter to Warren’s presidential campaign, blasting her “history of false claims to American Indian identity.”
“When you still defend yourself by stating you believed what you heard growing up, you set a harmful example for these white people stealing Native identity and resources with stories very similar to your own,” the letter stated.