Elizabeth Warren Releases DNA Test Showing "Strong Evidence" of Native American Ancestry

[ShadowRun]

I don’t think this thread went the way TS thought it would lol

 

[Zankou]

I definitely agree with the first part of this. I knew some white people growing up who inexplicably would claim Cherokee ancestry. In the past few years I spent some time with an elderly woman at a nursing home who claimed the same thing. You're also right on another point---it's always been Cherokee, not another tribe, in my experience as well.

We don't have evidence that Warren used "native" status to benefit from affirmative action. I don't see how Warren used it to really benefit her career other than accepting that award from Harvard---I suppose she could have turned it down. The cookbook thing looks ridiculous but I don't see how it benefited her career and if she really thought she was Cherokee then it's not dishonest. Plagiarizing the recipe, if true, is obviously unethical.

To my knowledge, she affirmatively changed her ethnicity identification from white to Native American while at Penn, listed herself as Native American in a professional directory, and again elected to identify herself as Native American at Harvard. These aren’t innocent or thoughtless actions. Any legal professional knows what claiming ethnic minority status entails in terms of potential career advantage. It’s a huge advantage as an applicant, albeit not so much as a practitioner.

She doesn’t seem to have benefited from it in practice (no evidence that it contributed to her being hired at Harvard), and nobody seems to have taken her claims very seriously, but that doesn’t exactly excuse it.

Generally I have a high degree of acceptance for people claiming various non-obvious identities when they put forth a sincere long term effort to claim, connect with, and express that identity. Warren rather cynically claimed to be an ethnic minority, in a context where that imparted significant professional advantage, with (as far as I can tell) no legitimate basis for doing so. She wasn’t trying to assume a deeply-felt Indian identity, she was trying to *use* an Indian identity.

 

[spamking]

To me, it should have been /thread right here. In terms of her politics, this would never have even come up if not for Trump et al making it an issue.

Why? The DNA comparison didn't proven anything close to what she and others are claiming . . .

 

[Rational Poster]

To my knowledge, she affirmatively changed her ethnicity identification from white to Native American while at Penn, listed herself as Native American in a professional directory, and again elected to identify herself as Native American at Harvard. These aren’t innocent or thoughtless actions. Any legal professional knows what claiming ethnic minority status entails in terms of potential career advantage. It’s a huge advantage as an applicant, albeit not so much as a practitioner.

She doesn’t seem to have benefited from it in practice (no evidence that it contributed to her being hired at Harvard), and nobody seems to have taken her claims very seriously, but that doesn’t exactly excuse it.

Generally I have a high degree of acceptance for people claiming various non-obvious identities when they put forth a sincere long term effort to claim, connect with, and express that identity. Warren rather cynically claimed to be an ethnic minority, in a context where that imparted significant professional advantage, with (as far as I can tell) no legitimate basis for doing so. She wasn’t trying to assume a deeply-felt Indian identity, she was trying to *use* an Indian identity.

I don't think she claimed it cynically, only ignorantly.

She believed she was Native, when she wasn't, and thought it was an opportunity for herself on a job application.

Trump's father on the other hand lied about being Swedish during both World Wars and the interim periods purely to benefit their business and conceal their Germany heritage.

It's certainly a glass house situation for Trump and I think you can clearly demonstrate that the Trumps benefited more than Senator Warren.

 

[Zankou]

I don't think she claimed it cynically, only ignorantly.

She believed she was Native, when she wasn't, and thought it was an opportunity for herself on a job application.

Trump's father on the other hand lied about being Swedish during both World Wars and the interim periods purely to benefit their business and conceal their Germany heritage.

It's certainly a glass house situation for Trump and I think you can clearly demonstrate that Trump's benefited more than Senator Warren.

Trump is 1000x scummier than Warren by any measure. This case is interesting, however, because it exemplifies a sort of fantasy identification with victimization...and its paradoxical invocation and use in creating and reinforcing structures of political dominance.

Cultural appropriation is a silly concept, but Warren didn’t genuinely appropriate anything from Native American culture. She just skimmed the ‘oppressed minority’ identification tag, without either having been genuinely subjected to or voluntarily assuming the underlying identity.

 

[method115]

I don't think she claimed it cynically, only ignorantly.

She believed she was Native, when she wasn't, and thought it was an opportunity for herself on a job application.

Trump's father on the other hand lied about being Swedish during both World Wars and the interim periods purely to benefit their business and conceal their Germany heritage.

It's certainly a glass house situation for Trump and I think you can clearly demonstrate that the Trumps benefited more than Senator Warren.

I would agree with you if she had come out and said she was wrong and she's not Native American. Instead she released the report and is acting like she has a W over Trump. That's not the actions of a person who believes they were wrong.

 

[Andy Capp]

Why? The DNA comparison didn't proven anything close to what she and others are claiming . . .

But who cares? She didn't use it to forward her academic career, and the average person would have never even heard about it at all if others hadn't made it a political issue. That she is now trying to defend it (ineffectually, by all accounts) is secondary. It seems very likely to me she would have never brought it up on her own.

Edit: but of course, we know who cares, the people making a monstrous deal out of it via lies and misrepresentations of the facts.

 

[Rational Poster]

I would agree with you if she had come out and said she was wrong and she's not Native American. Instead she released the report and is acting like she has a W over Trump. That's not the actions of a person who believes they were wrong.

Trump challenged her to do it and show her native ancestry, she clearly has some native ancestry, even if it's not much. In that sense it's a win because suddenly he doesn't care about it anymore when questioned.

The Trumps did the same exact thing, except even more intentionally, and for much longer. The Trump's lie about their heritage became their reality. Trump himself carried that lie more than half his life.

Warren erroneously believed she was a significant part Native and used that embellishment to get a job that she was already more than qualified for. She was already a professor for nearly 20 years and a highly regarded bankruptcy lawyer.

 

[Jack V Savage]

Trump is 1000x scummier than Warren by any measure. This case is interesting, however, because it exemplifies a sort of fantasy identification with victimization...and its paradoxical invocation and use in creating and reinforcing structures of political dominance.

I think this is the key to understanding the freakout here and the way the issue plays into identity politics. I think Brown's team brought it up in order to insinuate that Warren is a race traitor, and that resonated with the rubes. That also kind of strikes at something that might have been a strength (like Kerry's military service or Clinton's integrity).

 

[SamSchmidt]

You guys debating above are still skating around the fact that not just the Sioux National tribal Council but the Cherokee Nation now as well, have called her out on this bullshit. I mean, obviously even they think she was using it to forward her career and use it as a boost for 2020.

I assume you believe them wrong? Are they Kanye race traitors now too?

Wow.

 

[Rational Poster]

Trump is 1000x scummier than Warren by any measure. This case is interesting, however, because it exemplifies a sort of fantasy identification with victimization...and its paradoxical invocation and use in creating and reinforcing structures of political dominance.

Cultural appropriation is a silly concept, but Warren didn’t genuinely appropriate anything from Native American culture. She just skimmed the ‘oppressed minority’ identification tag, without either having been genuinely subjected to or voluntarily assuming the underlying identity.

I think you would find if you ask most Americans they will incorrectly identify their ancestral heritage.

I would probably be confident claiming more Americans falsely identify with some ethnic group they're not actually a part of. A girl born in Oklahoma City incorrectly claiming native heritage is probably the rule, not the exception.

Just like everyone I grew up claimed to be Italian, but they weren't. Americans have always had some odd fetish with claiming to be part of this or that ethnic group.

 

[Scerpi]

To my knowledge, she affirmatively changed her ethnicity identification from white to Native American while at Penn, listed herself as Native American in a professional directory, and again elected to identify herself as Native American at Harvard. These aren’t innocent or thoughtless actions. Any legal professional knows what claiming ethnic minority status entails in terms of potential career advantage. It’s a huge advantage as an applicant, albeit not so much as a practitioner.

She doesn’t seem to have benefited from it in practice (no evidence that it contributed to her being hired at Harvard), and nobody seems to have taken her claims very seriously, but that doesn’t exactly excuse it.

Generally I have a high degree of acceptance for people claiming various non-obvious identities when they put forth a sincere long term effort to claim, connect with, and express that identity. Warren rather cynically claimed to be an ethnic minority, in a context where that imparted significant professional advantage, with (as far as I can tell) no legitimate basis for doing so. She wasn’t trying to assume a deeply-felt Indian identity, she was trying to *use* an Indian identity.

Maybe it's time to leave race or ethicity and gender off college applications and base acceptance solely off performance.... So Universities can stop discrminating against....

Spoiler

Asians

 

[spamking]

But who cares? She didn't use it to forward her academic career, and the average person would have never even heard about it at all if others hadn't made it a political issue. That she is now trying to defend it (ineffectually, by all accounts) is secondary. It seems very likely to me she would have never brought it up on her own.

Arguably the largest Native American tribe in the US cares . . .

Edit: but of course, we know who cares, the people making a monstrous deal out of it via lies and misrepresentations of the facts.

Right . . . only one side can't get the facts straight. That other side is 100% correct.

 

[AlexDB9]

Arguably the largest Native American tribe in the US cares . . .



Right . . . only one side can't get the facts straight. That other side is 100% correct.

It’s almost like posters with any variation of Homer Simpson as their name like to be contrarians for no apparent reason

‘But her claim is true...she is a little Indian” *Facts show she has less Native Americans ancestry than the average American*

Lets ignore all that cause trumptards

That’s been the last 65 pages in a nutshell

 

[NoDak]

Do you and that 1/1024 liberal post on sherdog while he is "in" you?

liberal like, why, because the guy who is a little more liberal than you was making you his punk bitch?

C'mon, now. That's too far.

 

[waiguoren]

To my knowledge, she affirmatively changed her ethnicity identification from white to Native American while at Penn, listed herself as Native American in a professional directory, and again elected to identify herself as Native American at Harvard.

How did she benefit from these choices?

These aren’t innocent or thoughtless actions.

Definitely not thoughtless, but why not innocent? If she really thought she was Cherokee (again, like you, I've met people of seemingly pure northern European descent who are convinced they are 1/8 or less Cherokee), then what's wrong with listing herself as such?

Any legal professional knows what claiming ethnic minority status entails in terms of potential career advantage. It’s a huge advantage as an applicant, albeit not so much as a practitioner.

Do we have any evidence she used it as an applicant?

 

[vespasian]

She doesn’t seem to have benefited from it in practice (no evidence that it contributed to her being hired at Harvard),

But tenure and promotion to full professor (don't know if she made full professor) would certainly be helped by minority status, especially for a female.

and nobody seems to have taken her claims very seriously, but that doesn’t exactly excuse it.

But they did, and it benefited Harvard as well:

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/co...a_minority_hire_really_university_should_have

“Of 71 current Law School professors and assistant professors, 11 are women, five are black, one is Native American and one is Hispanic,” then-Law School spokesman Mike Chmura told the Harvard Crimson in a 1996 article.

 

[waiguoren]

“Of 71 current Law School professors and assistant professors, 11 are women, five are black, one is Native American and one is Hispanic,” then-Law School spokesman Mike Chmura told the Harvard Crimson in a 1996 article.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Not really . . . as I mentioned once before . . . most Indian tribes vote Democrat. So while you're trying to play this off as some GOP whine fest the fairly liberal Cherokee Nation (lead by a registered Democrat) spoke out against this fiasco.

Nice try though.

Oh snap, well, might as well call it a day then.

If one tribe out of a group so small they don't even register as one of the racial/ethnic groups when figuring out the composition of the electorate doesn't like it, there's no hope for her.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

You really don't see how this could hurt her in the primaries or with independents? I think Warren sees how it could, which is why she's trying to put the issue to bed. How do you think it will play for Warren when Kamala Harris asks her whether she was comfortable being presented by Harvard Law School as their first female person of color professor? It'd make for great TV and could be a one punch KO.

The idea of cultural appropriation might be a silly thing, and it might even be a racist thing, but it's a real thing and it is accepted among the exact kind of people otherwise most likely to vote for Warren. Warren's not trying to get redneck votes or Rust Belt union worker votes with this DNA test. She's trying to keep the college student vote which could easily cut against her in the primary and be lost to a left wing third party like the Greens in the general.

In the primaries maaaaaybe it could count against her if she's in a razor-thin contest with someone else. Maybe.

In the Kamala Harris scenario you posed, she could easily chalk it up to family lore and be done with it. It's been proven she gained nothing professionally from it. Harvard Law touted her as a minority and they probably gained something, but Warren herself didn't gain much.

Just judging from the reactions to this whole issue since it started years ago, the ones that harp on it endlessly are the deplorable types. A few liberals here and there mention some concern when asked about it but for the most part it's pretty insignificant.