Harvard Crimson commenters say no to Warren, yes to racist jokes
Quick! How many stereotypes about Native Americans can you think of off the top of your head? Not very many? Well, that is yet another reason that Harvard is the best at many things.
When the Crimson endorsed Elizabeth Warren for Senate last week, the paper’s readers raced to add their own hilarious observations about Native American culture to the comment thread. Warren has been accused of falsely claiming minority status because her mom apparently told her that she was part Cherokee. And as Harvard’s astute Internet commenters know, elections are not about issues — they are about whether or not someone is 1/32nd Native American.
There’s not a single comment on the editorial that explicitly supports Warren. But between it and lots of other articles that the Crimson has published about Warren, Harvard’s commenters have never wanted for an excuse to write something funny about those hilarious Indians.
A sampling of comments from some of those articles:
So try to base you views on reality not the twisted babble of a white Indian and a wannabe Indian that are just making smoke signals to cloud the truth.
I wonder how much of Warren’s out-of-state donations are coming from casinos in Oklahoma?
LOL. Indians do smoke signals and they also love casinos! But seriously, does anything ever not come down to race with Republicans? Just kidding, of course — they sometimes also like to talk about “erotic gay wrestlers,” whatever that means (is being gay and/or a wrestler inherently erotic, or did this one do something special?).
But at Harvard, it’s not just Republicans who find these jokes hilarious. The liberals are every bit as into it, just with (slightly) fewer spelling errors. Check out this comment from an OWS supporter:
The claimed to be the intellectual author of Occupy Wall Street — “This is what we do!” — but is as mute as a cigar store Indian in her ads and speeches about every one of the current rash of ongoing violations of securities law…A vote for Lizzie Warren is a tomahawk-blow in the back to Capitalism, Honor, and Jurisprudence.
Take that Banksters — Occupy is also here to shut down your monopoly on Andrew Jackson-era racism! Tomahawks and feathers and stuff! Get it? Cigar store Indians are also automatically hilarious.
And did you know Cherokees hate crab cakes? It’s true:
Would be nice if Harvard would look into the fact that she plagiarized her little part of the cookbook she contributed to… The one she was also using to tout her fake heritage in by providing recipes for crab cakes (funny I never realized that crab cakes were an ethnic food of the Cherokees…)
Then there’s the “ironic support” racist joke:
We need to finally, finally elect an genuine American Indian woman to the Senate from our state. Send her your wampum and get her elected.
Needless to say, some didn’t restrain themselves to the boundaries of jokes about Native Americans:
The scientists have informed us that we are all descendants from a common ancestor in Africa. That means that I’m part African American and I’m planning on including that in my next application.
cherokees practically invented crab cakes. clearly harvard needs to get their facts straight.
Why do we care about Harvard?
I for one am glad that Spectrum has devoted all of their spare writers to the Crimson Hit Piece beat.
Really, all? Do you count?
What are you even defining as spare?
Not so shocking that Spectrum has yet again become a wailing place for hard core liberals to spew elitist snark about “racist” Republicans and make terrible “jokes” that amount to “MITT ROMNEY IS RICH!!!,” “REPUBLICANS ARE GREEDY/RACIST/IDIOTS!!!,” “SARAH PALIN IS DUMB!!!”
I long for the days of a remotely unbiased news source that, crazy as it may sound, reported on Columbia news in a remotely non-partisan and journalisticly responsible manner rather than selectively picking news and goading its readers into (of course!) knowing that anything a right-leaning person does is (of course!) the stupidest/meanest thing mankind has ever witnessed.
Or can you not read?
But Mitt Romney IS rich, Republicans ARE greedy or racist or idiotic, and Sarah Palin is obviously pretty dumb…
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There was a joke about conservatives, and a joke about liberals. Mostly the joke was on the Crimson’s commenters. Don’t see how it’s a big deal.
Saying ‘Harvard racist” is redundant.
Funny, if we posted all of Obama’s gaffes (did he really graduate from here?), Sarah Palin would look like Stephen Hawking.
this is just poorly reasoned…there’s stuff to be made fun of here. but did you take CC?
Spec: “Don’t make racist jokes about Native Americans, mmkay?”
DQueezy: “halloween costume #68 (for five friends): one person is andrew jackson and the others are the trail of tears. too soon?” (https://twitter.com/dquinters/status/258207988555345920)