Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren floated the notion Friday of reparations for indigenous people.
Warren was speaking to reporters before a Democratic Party fundraiser in Manchester, N.H., when the liberal legislator took up the reparations matter, Fox News reported. She reiterated her support for offering some kind of compensation for slavery and going one step further, saying Native Americans need to be “part of the conversation. It’s an important part of the conversation.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) acknowledges the crowd as she walks on stage to deliver remarks on the first day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center, July 25, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The senator raised the prospect after a reporter asked her if she supported extending reparations to natives. Warren again suggested that America’s legacy was one of an “ugly history of racism” that obliges political leaders of today to “confront it head-on and we need to talk about the right way to address it and make change.” (RELATED: Sen. Elizabeth Warren Supports Use Of 25th Amendment To Sink Trump)
Warren did not did not go into detail about a plan to offer reparations. In a statement to The New York Times this week she insisted Americans “must confront the dark history of slavery and government-sanctioned discrimination in this country that has had many consequences, including undermining the ability of black families to build wealth in America for generations.”
“We need systemic, structural changes to address that,” she said.
Supporters cheer as U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speaks at a rally to launch her campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in Lawrence, Massachusetts, U.S., Feb. 9, 2019. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Although Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris, who is also vying for her party’s 2020 presidential nomination, has said she supports reparations for slavery, she has not included Natives Americans in her pool of those in the present allegedly deserving of compensation for the sins of the past. (RELATED: Elizabeth Warren Admits She Is Not A Person Of Color)
Warren’s apparent embrace of extending reparations to the indigenous could again highlight her own suggestions that she is a Native American. Warren’s self-released DNA analysis made a joke of such a claim and the senator recently apologized to the Cherokee Nation for suggesting she was indigenous.