Elizabeth Warren refuses to take DNA test

[JoeMorgue]

I'm not 100% getting why the 'Does anybody care?' argument seems to apply to people wanting Warren to prove she's a Native American but not to Warren for repeatedly bringing it up in the first place.

No I don't care. About any of this. But am I sort of confused as to why to Warren it's important enough to bring up on multiple occasions but not important enough to back up with evidence.

The whole version of this story playing out as suggested by some that Warren bring up her Native American history then... intentionally no support it as a "take that" to the Republicans because "they wouldn't believe her anyway" or "it wouldn't matter" just... doesn't make any kind of sense of all to me.

But I've never been able to grove on any variation on the "It's a big deal until the other side counters it, then my entire argument turns into 'What's the big deal?'" style arguments. "It was a big deal when I said it, but OMG why are you making such a big deal out of this by asking me to support/defend it" is just bad argumentatives.

Warren claiming she's has Native American ancestor and the Republicans demanding she prove it are... pretty much by definition equally a big deal (which is to say none at all in my book.)

This isn't the Republicans latching on to some claim that Warren made once in passing. This is something she's brought up "officially" (for lack of a better term) multiple times in public, prepared speeches and interviews. It's something she obviously expects to mean something.

So given that I don't see how the Republicans asking Warren to support her claim can somehow be making a bigger deal out of something than Warren making the claim.

 

[ahhell]

A. Warren claimed to be part Native American and uses this as part of her humble background story that all politicians seem to affect these days.
B. Republicans, conservatives, and occasionally even liberal comedians have made fun of her for it.
C. The Washington Post, a paper of little repute, has asked for proof.
D. I'm with Joe.

This story doesn't matter, its not a big deal that she claimed native american ancestry nor is it a big deal that she's gotten **** for it nor that a paper has asked for proof. It is however, mildly amusing to call her faux-cahontas.

Edit similar to the Mitt Romney's verbal gaffs that highlighted how rich he was,(some of my friends own NASCAR teams and what not.) or Trumps small hands. Those are also stories that didn't really matter but they were mildly amusing.

 

[applecorped]

She "identifies"


That's enough for some.

 

[Belz...]

She "identifies"

Wait, what? Where did she say that?

 

[applecorped]

Wait, what? Where did she say that?

She didn't, I did. It is what she is exactly doing.

 

[Belz...]

She didn't, I did. It is what she is exactly doing.

Oh, ok. You made it up. It would've been amusing otherwise.

 

[Darat]

(Disclaimer, my biology education is limited to AP Bio in high school plus some required college level classes that I don't remember anything about)

Yeah, you don't get a full chromosome from your parents. You get half of one. Which is the point being made - if i have half of a chromosome with markerA and the other half has markerB, and I only pass on the half with markerA, markerB is lost.

So that was the question - if by luck, all the halves of the chromosomes your great-great grandfather don't get passed to you how would you be able tie a lineage to him with your DNA?

That's a serious question BTW.

You can't.

I found this article useful in the past. https://dna-explained.com/2017/06/27/ancestral-dna-percentages-how-much-of-them-is-in-you/

 

[Darat]

I'm not 100% getting why the 'Does anybody care?' argument seems to apply to people wanting Warren to prove she's a Native American but not to Warren for repeatedly bringing it up in the first place.

No I don't care. About any of this. But am I sort of confused as to why to Warren it's important enough to bring up on multiple occasions but not important enough to back up with evidence.

The whole version of this story playing out as suggested by some that Warren bring up her Native American history then... intentionally no support it as a "take that" to the Republicans because "they wouldn't believe her anyway" or "it wouldn't matter" just... doesn't make any kind of sense of all to me.

But I've never been able to grove on any variation on the "It's a big deal until the other side counters it, then my entire argument turns into 'What's the big deal?'" style arguments. "It was a big deal when I said it, but OMG why are you making such a big deal out of this by asking me to support/defend it" is just bad argumentatives.

Warren claiming she's has Native American ancestor and the Republicans demanding she prove it are... pretty much by definition equally a big deal (which is to say none at all in my book.)

This isn't the Republicans latching on to some claim that Warren made once in passing. This is something she's brought up "officially" (for lack of a better term) multiple times in public, prepared speeches and interviews. It's something she obviously expects to mean something.

So given that I don't see how the Republicans asking Warren to support her claim can somehow be making a bigger deal out of something than Warren making the claim.

Disagree in saying there is a parity. All the "proof" she needs for the claims she has made is to say "my family has always said we have Native American in our ancestry". That would be parity in this case.

Saying she has to prove her ancestry via DNA is something way beyond that.

 

[Ranb]

the one-drop of blood rule used to be enough for Americans...

There were always exceptions to the rule.

The Pocahontas exception; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Integrity_Act_of_1924

The Racial Integrity Act was subject to the "Pocahontas exception"—since many influential "First Families of Virginia" (FFV) claimed descent from Pocahontas, a daughter of the Powhatan, the legislature declared that a person could be considered white even if he or she had as much as one-sixteenth Native American ancestry.

 

[Whip]

A committee of two. Each of whom were also designed by a committee of two, who were also designed by a committee of two...well, you get the idea.

pyramid scheme?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Disagree in saying there is a parity. All the "proof" she needs for the claims she has made is to say "my family has always said we have Native American in our ancestry". That would be parity in this case

Yeah but here's the thing, and yes there is plenty of room here for just differences in how you read the tone and context so maybe this is just me.

Warren didn't just say she had Native American ancestry as some passing bit of personal background trivia and the Republicans latched onto it as a pedantic gotcha, yeah that would have been across the board stupid on their end.

She's made the claim multiples times in contexts (that to me anyway) read more like it's supposed to mean something to us when she says it.

"Brag" has negative connotations I don't think apply but her statements about her Native American ancestry are not meaningless, context-less bits of minutia either. They are, again as seem to me, statements with a purpose behind them.

 

[Mumbles]

*walks in, sees a bunch of nonsense*

Uh...huh.

As I recall, First nation tribes generally don't care much about DNA tests in the first place, relying instead on ancestral records, and Warren has openly said that she does not claim membership in any tribe.

And "Pocahontas", as used by Dolt 45, is still a racial slur.

 

[Upchurch]

I'm not 100% getting why the 'Does anybody care?' argument seems to apply to people wanting Warren to prove she's a Native American but not to Warren for repeatedly bringing it up in the first place.

Does she though? I only ever hear about it when someone is disparaging Warren.

This isn't the Republicans latching on to some claim that Warren made once in passing. This is something she's brought up "officially" (for lack of a better term) multiple times in public, prepared speeches and interviews. It's something she obviously expects to mean something.

What is the context of these times she's brought it up officially?

 

[WilliamSeger]

As much as demagogues depend on character assassination to rile up the reactionaries, and as much as they'd like to bring down Warren, you might think they could come up with something less *********** pathetic than "she believes her family's oral history." But it does remind me that Trump never took that DNA test to prove that he isn't half orangutan.

My own family's oral history also mentions Cherokee blood several generations back, and I always thought that was cool, but Ancestry.com's DNA test didn't report any. There are too many gaps in the surviving documents to be sure, so I guess it's a good thing I didn't run for public office.

 

[ahhell]

Does she though? I only ever hear about it when someone is disparaging Warren.



What is the context of these times she's brought it up officially?

According to the article in the OP, at least once in a speech in front of a group of Native Americans.

Other than that, mostly when asked about but, it comes up because she formerly advertised herself as a minority professor. Dubious even if she is part Indian because she was raised with all the advantages of being white folk. Any rate, she did bring it up first and its funny so.... She is from the Oklahoma Territory so, its not unlikely she is 1/32 native.

 

[Pterodactyl]

I like how these DNA ancestry tests can tell what percentage neanderthal you are, or which specific part of europe your ancestors came from before crossing the atlantic, but somehow cant tell if you're 1/32nd native american.

 

[Upchurch]

According to the article in the OP, at least once in a speech in front of a group of Native Americans.

Wherein she makes the distinction that she's not a member of any tribe. That hardly sounds like she's claiming any special privilege.

Other than that, mostly when asked about but, it comes up because she formerly advertised herself as a minority professor.

That doesn't seem to be true.

Any rate, she did bring it up first and its funny so....

She did bring it up first when/where? In law school before ever being in the public eye, hardly ever to be mentioned again until political opponents dug it up to use against her?

 

[Upchurch]

I like how these DNA ancestry tests can tell what percentage neanderthal you are, or which specific part of europe your ancestors came from before crossing the atlantic, but somehow cant tell if you're 1/32nd native american.

They can tell you if your DNA has chromosomes traceable to certain areas or neanderthals. They cannot, however, prove a negative. They cannot prove that there have never been certain chromosomes in your ancestry in the past.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Does she though? I only ever hear about it when someone is disparaging Warren.

It, to the best of my knowledge, gets weird.

According to Politifact's breakdown of it outside of a weird and out of left field incident with a cookbook back in 1984 (no seriously) this whole thing started because Warren sent a formal notice to a couple of law schools (Harvard and University of Penn) claiming either Cherokee or Delaware blood in what appears to be a bid to get a teaching job.

And this was pretty much it (outside of a one off reference in a 1996 University newsletter from Harvard touting the schools diversity) until 2012 when it got brought up... somehow in some context during her Senate race and sort of just snowballed from there.

 

[phunk]

But the genes don't get all mixed together like that. You have 23 pairs of chromosomes, each with a bunch of genes in them. In each pair, you inherited one chromosome from your mother, and one from your father. There might be some genetic drift between one and the other, but it would be the exception, not the rule.

Genes do get all mixed together. A sperm or egg doesn't just have one or the other of each pair of the parent's chromosomes. It has a new chromosome built of parts of both the copies that the parent had. Every gamete is a unique combination of the genes from both chromosomes in every pair.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_recombination