Elizabeth Warren: Indian or Not?

@garysibi (702)
Chicago, Illinois
October 16, 2018 2:48am CST
Elizabeth Warren is a US Senator from the state of Massachusetts. She attended Harvard university where she claimed that she was Native American, her mother, she claims, was part Cherokee and part Delaware. She used these claims to gain personal advantages. Her claim was disputed several years ago. In an attempt to settle the issue, she took a DNA test which showed that she is 1/1,024 Indian. (The tests cannot yet specify a tribe.) The problem is that the average white European American has twice that much Indian blood. If her claim were correct, she should be 1/2 Indian. There is another problem with the DNA test. These tests do not look at the DNA of tribes within the borders of the USA. Warren's Indian DNA comes from groups that live in Mexico and South America. Although Warren is rather smugly claiming that her claim has been vindicated, it is clearly quite the opposite. Warren is clearly a cheat and a liar. Agree or disagree and why?
4 people like this
4 responses
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
16 Oct 18
Why on earth do Americans get so uptight about their ancestry? We had all this with Obama's birthplace, which dragged on for ever - with Donald Trump being one of the chief accusers. If everyone was like me - with absolutely no idea who his birth parents were - these debates would be even more utterly meaningless than they are already! This is just as bad as the attitude that used to be prevalent in the UK decades ago - you were nobody if your forebears had been in "trade" as opposed to having "old money" and a title. Fortunately, those outdated attitudes have largely faded, but not apparently in our former colonies (although in a different guise). Surely what matters is what you do, not who your ancestors were.
3 people like this
@garysibi (702)
• Chicago, Illinois
16 Oct 18
AMerican liberals have made identity politics a big thing. Although I am an amateur geneologist, somebodies heritage does not enter into deciding who to vote for. In this particular case, there is a big difference. When Warren applied to Harvard, she specified that she was Native American. We have this stupid thing in America called affirmative action. Colleges use it to determine who should be admitted. The decision is not based on who is the most qualified but by ethnic background. When Warren lied about being a Native American, she took an opportunity away from someone who really was Native American. She cheated. However, she decided to go on the defensive and say "Look at all those white male Republicans who are picking on me." She lied again to get an advantage she did not deserve. That's why her ancestry has become an issue.
2 people like this
@jstory07 (133793)
• Roseburg, Oregon
16 Oct 18
@indexer It should not matter at all.
@garysibi (702)
• Chicago, Illinois
16 Oct 18
I should also point out that the idea of Obama having been born in Kenya was started by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2008. The issue here was very different. If he had been born outside of the USA, he could not become president under our constitution. Trump later picked up on the idea but it was Clinton who started it.
3 people like this
@CarolDM (203478)
• Nashville, Tennessee
27 Oct 18
I think it is all just another political move gone wrong.
1 person likes this
@jstory07 (133793)
• Roseburg, Oregon
16 Oct 18
She should just run on who she really is a women. I would not care if she is indian or not.
@Plethos (13618)
• United States
16 Oct 18
shes not native american. theres people who are 1/16th native american and not recognized by a tribe. cherokee tribe has even not accepted her dna results. theres more to being verified as a native american of the the cherokee tribe than just a dna test. by putting this out now, shes hoping that it will blow over by the time 2020 comes around.
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
16 Oct 18
@Plethos I would have thought it was clear enough. If the Nazis - who had every reason to want to prove someone's Jewish ancestry if it was there - did not consider three generations back to be a strong enough marker, then for anyone to claim ancestry - of any kind - from four generations shows that their reasoning is extremely weak. I am not trying to draw any other conclusion by mentioning Nazi Germany, merely pointing to the logical process in question.
1 person likes this
@Plethos (13618)
• United States
16 Oct 18
@indexer - when nazis are mentioned, it automatically means comparable evil. bottom line, warren used something as an advantage to further her career when it wasnt truth. many feel this was a mockery and insult to true native americans.
@Plethos (13618)
• United States
16 Oct 18
@indexer - why the nazi comparison? shes not on a euthanasian list.