Elizabeth Warren Ancestry Thread

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Belz... said:
Well, he's right. Too many people assume ...
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Yeah, too many people assume too much.



Belz... said:
For a very broad definition of "unethical", sure. But I didn't make the claim that the two are one and the same. Again, that's you trying to fit me into a box.



...what?
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It's not that hard. For the conventional definition of "yes," that puts you on the yes side of the resolution I proposed. Keep that hammer handy if I try to force you into a box with other people who also say yes, but my original point was, there is a considerable "faction" on the right whose answer is "hell yes" who really want to use a ridiculously overblown version of that assertion to inflame a resentful reaction against "identity politics" such that it's almost impossible to discuss Warren's specific case rationally: People who react to that resentment don't even care to get the basic facts straight. If I accuse you of agreeing with them on other issues just because you answered this question, smack me with that hammer, but from what you've posted, I already assume that you don't agree with their tactics of using abject ******** and misdirection to demonize a potential Trump challenger.
 
WilliamSeger said:
It's not that hard. For the conventional definition of "yes," that puts you on the yes side of the resolution I proposed. Keep that hammer handy if I try to force you into a box with other people who also say yes
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You're really desperate to label me as an enemy, aren't you?

Tell you what, once you've made an entire argument without personalising the issue, I'll respond.
 
xjx388 said:
So, to sum up my thoughts after this very interesting and eye opening (seriously, I think it is) discussion:

It was kinda dumb for Elizabeth Warren to ever hold herself out to be a minority or claim connection to the Cherokee people. She only had her family lore to go on and we all know, based on our own experiences, how tenuous that lore can be. It is obvious that Warren herself never really made that big a deal of it -checking a box is pretty meaningless. There is no evidence that she ever gained anything from it other than, perhaps, a write up by Harvard touting their own diversity. Releasing this DNA test was a dumb move when she should have just left well enough alone and never spoken publicly about her ethnicity again. Rise above it, so to speak.

However, as dumb as it was, it cannot be argued -in my view- that Elizabeth Warren is a bad person; in fact, I'd say she's a pretty great person even if I disagree with some of her political positions. One good thing that has come of this is that I've had a chance to really look at Warren and her life and career. We should be proud to have her as a legislator because she, herself, has lived a distinguished life. Isn't she the kind of person we WANT in office? Someone who has served admirably and done some pretty great things, especially in her efforts towards consumer protection. That's what matters, her own experience and accomplishments, not the ethnicity of a distant ancestor -that is a total non-issue.

What I have learned is that we need to stop allowing ourselves, myself included, to become distracted by these kinds of irrelevant issues. Nothing will ever get better by continuing to engage this nonsense. I apologize for calling her a liar. I apologize for getting mixed up in this, ultimately, stupid and irrelevant debate over ethnicity.
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I agree with all of that except "she should have just left well enough alone." That wasn't really an option: Trump made it quite explicitly clear that if she runs against him, it's gonna be "Pocahontas" a hundred times a day, regardless, so she decided to start hitting back now. I guess we'll never know which path is dumber, but not responding to his taunts and not taking the DNA challenge was already being used to say she must be lying.
 
xjx388 said:
It was kinda dumb for Elizabeth Warren to ever hold herself out to be a minority or claim connection to the Cherokee people. She only had her family lore to go on and we all know, based on our own experiences, how tenuous that lore can be. It is obvious that Warren herself never really made that big a deal of it -checking a box is pretty meaningless. There is no evidence that she ever gained anything from it other than, perhaps, a write up by Harvard touting their own diversity. Releasing this DNA test was a dumb move when she should have just left well enough alone and never spoken publicly about her ethnicity again. Rise above it, so to speak.

However, as dumb as it was, it cannot be argued -in my view- that Elizabeth Warren is a bad person; in fact, I'd say she's a pretty great person even if I disagree with some of her political positions. One good thing that has come of this is that I've had a chance to really look at Warren and her life and career. We should be proud to have her as a legislator because she, herself, has lived a distinguished life. Isn't she the kind of person we WANT in office? Someone who has served admirably and done some pretty great things, especially in her efforts towards consumer protection. That's what matters, her own experience and accomplishments, not the ethnicity of a distant ancestor -that is a total non-issue.

What I have learned is that we need to stop allowing ourselves, myself included, to become distracted by these kinds of irrelevant issues. Nothing will ever get better by continuing to engage this nonsense. I apologize for calling her a liar. I apologize for getting mixed up in this, ultimately, stupid and irrelevant debate over ethnicity.
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I agree with this as well, especially the highlighted. I don't ever do it on Facebook or in real life, but somehow I get sucked in here once in a while. I'm going to try to do this less.
 
The Big Dog said:
You are aware (of course you are because I have already linked it) that many NAs do not consider Warren's tone deaf stunt to be stupid or irrelevant?

One example

A timely tweet from the same source:

"all my whitesplaining trolls the last 2 days are warren supporters. Indigenous people are not going to just sit down, shut up, and let all of you tell us what are the actual issues we should focus on in your nation built on the blood, bones, and stolen land of Indigenous people."

-Kim Tall Bear
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All that illustrates is that releasing the DNA results was a dumb move. That has been established. No DNA results, no statement from the Cherokee Nation reps. Eh . . . good people do dumb things sometimes, especially in the political world.

You are free to judge her however you want to. I prefer to look at her record and I can tell you this much: Had she run against Trump in 2016 and this discussion took place back then? I would have voted for her easily. What's sad is that this issue in an election may have derailed her. It's sad because other than this minor ethnicity brouhaha, you cannot argue that her public service record reflects badly on her. She's a good Senator, politics be damned. She'd probably be a good President too.
 
WilliamSeger said:
I agree with all of that except "she should have just left well enough alone." That wasn't really an option: Trump made it quite explicitly clear that if she runs against him, it's gonna be "Pocahontas" a hundred times a day, regardless, so she decided to start hitting back now. I guess we'll never know which path is dumber, but not responding to his taunts and not taking the DNA challenge was already being used to say she must be lying.
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That's a good point. Maybe it was smarter to do this now and get it over with rather than let it become a huge campaign issue if she runs against him. I think it does send a signal that she might be stepping up in 2020. I hope she does.
 
WilliamSeger said:
I agree with all of that except "she should have just left well enough alone." That wasn't really an option: Trump made it quite explicitly clear that if she runs against him, it's gonna be "Pocahontas" a hundred times a day, regardless, so she decided to start hitting back now. I guess we'll never know which path is dumber, but not responding to his taunts and not taking the DNA challenge was already being used to say she must be lying.
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What's really frustrating about all this is that, with Trump, you have very few options. If you ignore him, the media ignores you. Even if they don't, his challenges and lies remain unchallenged and grow. If you don't ignore him and fight him on his own terms, he wins. If you fight him on yours, he ignores that and continues to fight on his terms.

It's lose-lose.

The only way to win is to field someone just obviously more popular and engaging than he is, and immune to mudslinging and devoid of obvious character flaws.
 
xjx388 said:
All that illustrates is that releasing the DNA results was a dumb move. That has been established. No DNA results, no statement from the Cherokee Nation reps. Eh . . . good people do dumb things sometimes, especially in the political world.

You are free to judge her however you want to. I prefer to look at her record and I can tell you this much: Had she run against Trump in 2016 and this discussion took place back then? I would have voted for her easily. What's sad is that this issue in an election may have derailed her. It's sad because other than this minor ethnicity brouhaha, you cannot argue that her public service record reflects badly on her. She's a good Senator, politics be damned. She'd probably be a good President too.
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Did you actually bother to read anything I linked to at all?

Stupid... irrelevant... minor.

May I rebut?

"all my whitesplaining trolls the last 2 days are warren supporters. Indigenous people are not going to just sit down, shut up, and let all of you tell us what are the actual issues we should focus on."

Kim Tall Bear
 
The Big Dog said:
Did you actually bother to read anything I linked to at all?

Stupid... irrelevant... minor.

May I rebut?

"all my whitesplaining trolls the last 2 days are warren supporters. Indigenous people are not going to just sit down, shut up, and let all of you tell us what are the actual issues we should focus on."

Kim Tall Bear
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No, of course not. They're gonna vote for the guy who dredged up the Pocahontas taunts again, despite their previous express disapproval, to score points with his reactionary base, then not only "legitimized" the very thing the Native Americans are upset about but bet a million dollars on the result. Yeah, Donnie's got a lock on that vote.
 
Belz... said:
I'm sure The Big Dog will be along shortly to criticise Trump for ignoring Native American concerns and trying to score political points off their backs...
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I can't speak for TBD, but let me say here and now: Shame on Trump for ignoring Native American concerns and trying to score political points off their backs.
 
The Big Dog said:
Did you actually bother to read anything I linked to at all?

Stupid... irrelevant... minor.

May I rebut?

"all my whitesplaining trolls the last 2 days are warren supporters. Indigenous people are not going to just sit down, shut up, and let all of you tell us what are the actual issues we should focus on."

Kim Tall Bear
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I realize that the issue is not stupid, irrelevant or minor to Native American people. But it is stupid, irrelevant or minor when judging Elizabeth Warren herself.

And in the larger scheme of things, ethnicity itself is stupid, minor and irrelevant. All Americans -whether their ancestors were white, black, asian, hispanic, native american, etc- are Americans now, living their lives in this cooperative effort. We forget that in all the noise. The big question we have before us now is: How do we put us all on equal footing going forward so that we can all benefit together? That is a difficult problem, admittedly, but one we have to figure out. I think it starts with admitting to ourselves that ethnicity is very much like religion -just a way to create divisions among us.
 
WilliamSeger said:
No, of course not. They're gonna vote for the guy who dredged up the Pocahontas taunts again, despite their previous express disapproval, to score points with his reactionary base, then not only "legitimized" the very thing the Native Americans are upset about but bet a million dollars on the result. Yeah, Donnie's got a lock on that vote.
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Oh well, that again has nothing at all to do with what I posted or what the objections were in the various articles, but we all knew that there was zero chance of any Warren supporter actually doing that, right?
 
I will give a million dollars to your favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you're an Indian.

-- President Donald J. Trump (July 5, 2018)
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By the way, Donald Trump: Remember saying on 7/5 that you’d give $1M to a charity of my choice if my DNA showed Native American ancestry? I remember – and here's the verdict. Please send the check to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center.

-- Elizabeth Warren (Oct 15, 2018)
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"If you take the test and it shows you're an Indian."

The only thing the test shows is that Elizabeth (Crockagawea) Warren is 0.09% Cherokee, and 99.91% idiot.
 
Slings and Arrows said:
"If you take the test and it shows you're an Indian."

The only thing the test shows is that Elizabeth (Crockagawea) Warren is 0.09% Cherokee, and 99.91% idiot.
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For perspective, that's the same percentage ancestry that would qualify someone for the Daughters of the American Revolution. The other end of the range would qualify someone for the Daughters of the Confederacy.

Of course, the percentage isn't the important part, but what they found and the confidence level.
 
xjx388 said:
So, to sum up my thoughts after this very interesting and eye opening (seriously, I think it is) discussion:

It was kinda dumb for Elizabeth Warren to ever hold herself out to be a minority or claim connection to the Cherokee people. She only had her family lore to go on and we all know, based on our own experiences, how tenuous that lore can be. It is obvious that Warren herself never really made that big a deal of it -checking a box is pretty meaningless. There is no evidence that she ever gained anything from it other than, perhaps, a write up by Harvard touting their own diversity. Releasing this DNA test was a dumb move when she should have just left well enough alone and never spoken publicly about her ethnicity again. Rise above it, so to speak.

However, as dumb as it was, it cannot be argued -in my view- that Elizabeth Warren is a bad person; in fact, I'd say she's a pretty great person even if I disagree with some of her political positions. One good thing that has come of this is that I've had a chance to really look at Warren and her life and career. We should be proud to have her as a legislator because she, herself, has lived a distinguished life. Isn't she the kind of person we WANT in office? Someone who has served admirably and done some pretty great things, especially in her efforts towards consumer protection. That's what matters, her own experience and accomplishments, not the ethnicity of a distant ancestor -that is a total non-issue.

What I have learned is that we need to stop allowing ourselves, myself included, to become distracted by these kinds of irrelevant issues. Nothing will ever get better by continuing to engage this nonsense. I apologize for calling her a liar. I apologize for getting mixed up in this, ultimately, stupid and irrelevant debate over ethnicity.
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Respect! A bloody outstanding post :thumbsup:

No-one should ever be defined by a single, small, honest error of judgement they might have made once in their life.
 
quadraginta said:
In view of Europe's history I'm not sure that a DNA test could reliably separate German ancestry from Danish.
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My DNA test came back with specifically Scandinavian heritage. When researching the genealogical documents it was backed up when I discovered my gr grandmother's maiden name was "Jensen" which is Danish and my grandfather's surname, which is very unusual, overwhelmingly was found in Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein which was Danish before being ceded to Germany by war. So, yes, it did distinguish it correctly as being Scandinavian.
 
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