Navajo leaders, McCain call out Trump
President Donald Trump invoking Pocahontas as a derogatory term during an event honoring Navajo Code Talkers cuts deep for many Native Americans.
The White House denied the president was using the name as a racial slur, but several Navajo Nation leaders said Tuesday that Trump has once again managed to make the name offensive.
Navajo Nation council delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty said in a statement that Trump’s “careless” comment is the “latest example of systemic, deepseated ignorance of Native Americans and our intrinsic right to exist and practice our ways of life.”
Trump has used the name as a moniker for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. On Monday, the president used the term to take a jab at Warren while honoring Navajo war veterans whose work helped win World War II.
“You were here long before any of us were here, although we have a representative in Congress who, they say, was here a long time ago,” Trump said. “They call her Pocahontas.”
The derisive dig has deeper connotations for Crotty and others who said Pocahontas’ life should be honored, not used as a joke.
Pocahontas was the daughter of a Native American chief from what is now Virginia. While her life has been romanticized, Pocahontas was an intermediary between Native Americans and colonists in Jamestown who was kidnapped and raped while in captivity, according to historians.
Her struggles still resonate, Crotty said. “Our women and children are targets of violence. We must speak out against such ignorance,” she said.
Sen. John McCain also criticized Trump’s remark. “Politicizing these genuine American heroes is an insult to their sacrifice,” the Arizona Republican tweeted Tuesday.