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

[method115]

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.

The main issue is she seems to think she’s right. So is she’s going to debate Kampala Harris saying that she is Native American? Cause she’s going to look like a fucking idiot on national tv doing that.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

The main issue is she seems to think she’s right. So is she’s going to debate Kampala Harris saying that she is Native American? Cause she’s going to look like a fucking idiot on national tv doing that.

I don't know what her strategy will be but it can easily be put to rest by saying, "Family lore had us as being part Native American, and that's what I always mentioned. DNA evidence shows that the percentage of NA genes are very small." Case fucking closed, let's move the hell on.

Furthermore, I'd like to think this sort of shameless race-baiting is what right-wingers do. I'd be surprised if any Democrats bring it up as a serious issue.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

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.

1. Lol, no way she can brush aside being honored as Harvard's first woman of color professor as family lore. She knows this, which is why she's trying to put this to bed.
2. I think most people harbor a good deal of skepticism about what she did or didn't gain, and more importantly, whether she intended to gain from listing herself as a minority.
3. Whether or not Warren gained, a minority woman lost, because otherwise Harvard would have actually needed to hire a real Native American woman to relieve the pressure for racial diversity. The willingness of the white-privileged Warren to stand in as a token woman of color, an identity which she falsely appropriated, cost a real woman of color a prestigious job.

If a black woman candidate wants to make an issue of this, she'll easily kill Warren's campaign. Whether the orange man ca have the same effect remains to be seen.

 

[Zankou]

How did she benefit from these choices?


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?



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

She didn’t identify as Cherokee previously, and other people didn’t externally identify her as Cherokee. All she had was a belief that she had a small fraction of Indian ancestry. That doesn’t make you an ethnic minority, particularly when you have never identified as such, have no connection to the ethnic culture, and aren’t identified by people as such. If she had made a good faith effort to connect with the Cherokee culture and tribe, I’d see it as a lot more defensible as representing her subjective belief that this was her genuine ethnic identity. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Put it this way, knowing she has a small fraction of Indian blood, would she claim *now* to be an Indian, and an ethnic minority? No, because it would be retarded and offensive. It wasn’t any less so back then.

If she had genuinely identified as Indian for years, and been authentically enmeshed in that identity, then it wouldn’t matter so much that she didn’t have much Indian genetics. But she skimmed the identity like it was a sweater you can take on or off as it suits you.

As far as advantage, the equivalent would be listing myself as ‘Native American’ on LinkedIn. Once you start marketing yourself in that respect in a professional context, you’re already exploiting it, whether it subsequently proves to be a causal factor in a later hiring or not.

 

[Zankou]

I don't know what her strategy will be but it can easily be put to rest by saying, "Family lore had us as being part Native American, and that's what I always mentioned. DNA evidence shows that the percentage of NA genes are very small." Case fucking closed, let's move the hell on.

Furthermore, I'd like to think this sort of shameless race-baiting is what right-wingers do. I'd be surprised if any Democrats bring it up as a serious issue.

Obama and Hillary were both pretty good on avoiding race baiting. Warren has shown some rather clumsy efforts to capitalize on it, by contrast (recall her grandstanding against Sessions on MLK grounds). I expect her handlers will help her purge that going forward.

 

[Jorge Luis Borges]

I'd be surprised if any Democrats bring it up as a serious issue.

You may be right, but it'll take a lot of party discipline. It is among likely Dem voters that theories about white privilege and cultural appropriation abound. And that is what this scandal is about, massive hypocrisy according to the left's understanding of race. A woman raised with all the privilege of being white appropriating the identity of an oppressed minority for short term gain, while making no commitment whatsoever to that community. Warren's actions pose a major challenge to the racial ideology of the campus left.

I don't think right wingers care much about that stuff. But college feminists do.

Right wingers have three motives for bringing this up that I can see. One is that it is funny as hell. Second is that when you're called a racist incessantly by people of Warren's ilk, payback is a bitch. Third is that this can either be used to damage Warren, or if that is unsuccessful it might be a useful wedge issue to drive certain minority groups away from the Dems. I think the first one is by the far the biggest at present but the third is what prompted Warren to make what seems to be a colossal blunder.

 

[cincymma79]

I don't know what her strategy will be but it can easily be put to rest by saying, "Family lore had us as being part Native American, and that's what I always mentioned. DNA evidence shows that the percentage of NA genes are very small." Case fucking closed, let's move the hell on.

Furthermore, I'd like to think this sort of shameless race-baiting is what right-wingers do. I'd be surprised if any Democrats bring it up as a serious issue.

She could have done that but she didn’t. SHe went the other way with it. She made herself into tubgirl

 

[lfd0311]

I don't know what her strategy will be but it can easily be put to rest by saying, "Family lore had us as being part Native American, and that's what I always mentioned. DNA evidence shows that the percentage of NA genes are very small." Case fucking closed, let's move the hell on.

Furthermore, I'd like to think this sort of shameless race-baiting is what right-wingers do. I'd be surprised if any Democrats bring it up as a serious issue.

Dude. For real? She got a f**king DNA test done, then made a political ad out of the results thinking they vindicated her. But yeah, Right Wingers are shameless Race Baiters and stuff....

 

[Amerikuracana]

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.

Every post you make is well written and completely on point, in this thread.

 

[AlexDB9]

Whoever came up with “Chief Spreading Bull” you the real MVP

 

[spamking]

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.

Keep on underestimating the tribal population in the US and our ability to band together over common concerns and issues . . . rationalize it however you want.

 

[spamking]

I don't know what her strategy will be but it can easily be put to rest by saying, "Family lore had us as being part Native American, and that's what I always mentioned. DNA evidence shows that the percentage of NA genes are very small." Case fucking closed, let's move the hell on.

If by very small you mean not actually there then yes . . . that's what the DNA evidence shows.

 

[andnowweknow]

This subject is pathetic. Trump is an absolute trash human being generally and the people who cheer him on are suckers. Warren is an opportunist and bringing this back up was dumb politically and exposed her as the pure politician she is...a shitty one at that.

 

[Mark Hunts FIST]

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.

Have we lowered the bar for politicians?
Compared to Trump, no one has as many skeletons in their closet.
Should he be our barometer now?

 

[Rational Poster]

Have we lowered the bar for politicians?
Compared to Trump, no one has as many skeletons in their closet.
Should he be our barometer now?

Considering you voted him you lowered the bar.

 

[Hit-N-Run]

I like Warren but claiming she's native american is just fucking stupid. It's WAY too far back in her ancestry to claim it.

 

[voxom]

"Bustamante's analysis places Warren's Native American ancestor between six and 10 generations ago, with the report estimating eight generations"

lol, so liberals all of as sudden go by the "one drop rule"?

retards.

if white privilege exists, elizabeth warren has it.

 

[voxom]

Why?

Would that have been the same cutoff, 100 years ago?

if i gave you a glass of milk that has .031% apple juice in it. would you call it a glass of apple juice?

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Obama and Hillary were both pretty good on avoiding race baiting. Warren has shown some rather clumsy efforts to capitalize on it, by contrast (recall her grandstanding against Sessions on MLK grounds). I expect her handlers will help her purge that going forward.

I think we have different definitions of "race baiting."

Mine is something like "the use of racial fears and prejudices for political gain." So bringing race-based police brutality, or racial inequality isn't race baiting. Constantly bringing up racial legitimacy (as if you gave a shit about that) to downgrade your opponent, is race-baiting.

 

[Mark Hunts FIST]

Considering you voted him you lowered the bar.

Why can't we have a conversation? Do you act like this in real life?