Elizabeth Warren Ancestry Thread Part 2

varwoche said:
How Jewish are you? My mom is Jewish and my dad's mom is Jewish. (Both secular.) Will the Orthodox let me in?
Click to expand...

Both mom and dad Jewish. As were grandparents and all other ancestors as far as I know from the family narrative.. Haven't checked my DNA because Trump has not demanded it of me. How do you know about your own Jewishness? Probably the same way as I: you learned about it from family lore, the same way Warren learned about her more distant connection to Native American ancestry. None of us had any reason to question it but unlike me (and maybe unlike you) Warren has DNA proof. As I see it Warren has more proof of a Native American ancestry than I do of a Jewish one.

Again I return to my original statement. The facts are clear but the interpretation is subjective. Warren indicated Native American as ethnic identity on one form. She does have Native American ancestry. But you do not believe she is adequately Native American to justify it and she "knew so" and was knowingly lying. But the latter is NOT a fact; ethnic identity is complex and very subjective. Mny people have very mixed ethnic backgrounds. I work at a university and forms asking ethnic identity are common. We are repeatedly told that it is the person filling out the form who solely determines their own ethnic identity: there are no other criteria or tests of any kind. If they see themselves as Native American that is who they are. I can see many scenarios wherein Warren felt at the time her answer was appropriate. In fact she appears to have learned more since then, apologized, and now shares your view she should not have filled out the form as she had.

Nonethelessless you feel that Warren's behavior in this regard is inexcusable and questions her character.. Fine, that is one possible opinion. I have a different opinion. But the facts are not different.

BTW: my point about the orthodox was related: interpretations of the same facts can differ. My mom was Jewish, I was nipped at birth, I was bar mitzvahed, etc. Many people consider those facts enough to subjectively agree with me that I am Jewish. But the ultra orthodox who live near where I grew up strongly disagree: in their subjective opinion these facts are not adequate to establish me as Jewish because I fall short in other criteria (chiefly because I am not observant enough in the other ways they believe are necessary). Am I lying if I knowingly wrote in "Jewish" on a form? An ultra-orthodox would think so but that is an opinion, not a fact.

But my most important conclusion right now is that we both have a legitimate right to our opinions and I don't think there is much more to debate.
 
Last edited:
Silly Green Monkey said:
She's native enough that the US Government would have rounded up her family and marched her to Oklahoma if she had been born at that time.
Click to expand...

Yeah, with all these "she isn't native" claims, the question is this: How much Native American ancestry is required in order to describe oneself of Native American heritage? I'd really like to hear where that line is, and, more importantly, why it has to be there?

There was a nice post above that talked about the things taken into consideration in this assessment (blood vs tribal tradition, etc), which seemed reasonable, and certainly did not make it clear that she was wrong. But apparently, others disagree. So where is the line, and how is it determined legally?
 
pgwenthold said:
Yeah, with all these "she isn't native" claims, the question is this: How much Native American ancestry is required in order to describe oneself of Native American heritage? I'd really like to hear where that line is, and, more importantly, why it has to be there?

There was a nice post above that talked about the things taken into consideration in this assessment (blood vs tribal tradition, etc), which seemed reasonable, and certainly did not make it clear that she was wrong. But apparently, others disagree. So where is the line, and how is it determined legally?
Click to expand...

I don't care how it is determined legally. My answer is 25%.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I don't care how it is determined legally. My answer is 25%.
Click to expand...


Some people probably don't even have a 25% plurality of any ethnicity. Now, I don't think it's necessary that we label anyone as being a certain ethnicity, but it's absurd to put universal minimum standards to claim an ethnicity:

It's entirely possible for a person to be exactly 1/64 Native American and for that 1/64 to be a plurality of his/her ethnicities. It's absolutely asinine to claim such a person is lying when they say they are NA.
 
Ziggurat said:
Her family actually did the rounding up at that time.
Click to expand...

1. That's not mutually exclusive with Silly Green Monkey's claim.

2. I couldn't find a solid cite of this, anyway. I saw a reference to "maybe" one of her ancestor's was involved in the rounding up.

Did you have a point, or is this simply another example of your perpetual bitching and whining about Democrats? Open your eyes, man: If, as it seems to me, that bitching and whining is simply your thing, there's a lot more bitching and whining to be done about Republicans.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I don't care how it is determined legally. My answer is 25%.
Click to expand...

1) You don't get to determine that. The tribes do. This is important to them of course culturally and historically, but it really matters legally when it comes to things like eligibility for Tribal benefits, who is affected under treaties, etc.

2) Twenty-five percent is indeed a minimum criterion for many tribes. Others – including the Cherokee and Delaware relevant to Warren's case – do not have a blood quantum criterion. If one can trace an ancestor to the Dawes Rolls* or otherwise have an elder vouch for their lineal descent then they could potentially become a Tribal member with as little actual 'Native DNA' as Warren has – or even less.

*Note that there are lots of reasons one's family could have been left off the rolls 1898–1914.
 
The Shrike said:
1) You don't get to determine that. The tribes do. This is important to them of course culturally and historically, but it really matters legally when it comes to things like eligibility for Tribal benefits, who is affected under treaties, etc.

2) Twenty-five percent is indeed a minimum criterion for many tribes. Others – including the Cherokee and Delaware relevant to Warren's case – do not have a blood quantum criterion. If one can trace an ancestor to the Dawes Rolls* or otherwise have an elder vouch for their lineal descent then they could potentially become a Tribal member with as little actual 'Native DNA' as Warren has – or even less.

*Note that there are lots of reasons one's family could have been left off the rolls 1898–1914.
Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about tribes. 25% of anything.
 
Cabbage said:
Some people probably don't even have a 25% plurality of any ethnicity. Now, I don't think it's necessary that we label anyone as being a certain ethnicity, but it's absurd to put universal minimum standards to claim an ethnicity:

It's entirely possible for a person to be exactly 1/64 Native American and for that 1/64 to be a plurality of his/her ethnicities. It's absolutely asinine to claim such a person is lying when they say they are NA.
Click to expand...

I didn't say a person not hitting 25% but saying that thing would be lying. I would just reject their assertion.

And in your example that person would be absent an ethnicity. That would be pretty cool.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I didn't say a person not hitting 25% but saying that thing would be lying. I would just reject their assertion.

And in your example that person would be absent an ethnicity. That would be pretty cool.
Click to expand...



I'm almost 25% Swiss - one of my distant ancestors in the Swiss part of my family was actually German (a man called Heinrich Baumgartner - not the actor). If I called myself Swiss despite "not hitting 25%", would you reject that assertion?.
 
Last edited:
smartcooky said:
I'm almost 25% Swiss - one of my distant ancestors in the Swiss part of my family was actually German (an man called Heinrich Baumgartner - not the actor). If I called myself Swiss despite "not hitting 25%", would you reject that assertion?.
Click to expand...

Yes
 
BobTheCoward said:
Yes
Click to expand...

Good.

Now I'll further add, that I hold a Swiss passport (I have Swiss citizenship) and I am therefore entitled to live and work there as of right (and I would be required to serve in their armed forces too). Were I to go to Switzerland to live, I would be entitled to receive a government pension.

Still think I don't meet the criteria to call myself Swiss?
 
Last edited:
smartcooky said:
Good.

Now I'll further add, that I hold a Swiss passport (I have Swiss citizenship) and I am therefore entitled to live and work there as of right (and I would be required to serve in their armed forces too). Were I to go to Switzerland to live, I would be entitled to receive a government pension.

Still think I don't meet the criteria to call myself Swiss?
Click to expand...

Yes, I still think that. You are not ethnically Swiss. Not a hard concept. I wouldn't call Giannis ethnically Greek either.
 
This thread has turned into such a *********** that I want everyone to know that I have just placed this entire thread on ignore.*




*Don't bother responding to this because thanks to User Control Panel I won't even be able to see my own comments in this thread. Thanks for your Verständniß!**



**Yes, I know it was deprecated in 1902 and obsolete but I still like the eszett.
 
varwoche said:
I would need to know the specifics of the scenario. It sounds dubious.

You're on the verge of conflating tribal affiliation with ethnic background which confuses things.
Click to expand...

Yeah. No.

One drop rule. the way she supposedly Identified herself was the exact way that certain powerful white people wanted. And given that "race" isn't only minimally about ancestry, and much more about sociopolitical concerns (money, political power, etc.), I see no problem whatsoever here.

Now, the fact that she can't actually guarantee that she has any actual Native American tribe, which is not done via genetic test, is a separate issue, but I have little issue with unimportant family legends that were, at most, used to get a recipe into a cookbook.

(This reminds me of people who used to say "Obama's not black, he's bi-racial!" Shut up, he had a white mother and a black father, in the US that means he's black, don't go trying to claim he, and only he, isn't, just because he won the democratic primary in 2008...")
 
Stacyhs said:
No. I didn't say the weren't in some way related. The family story is that they are direct descendants of Penn. They are in no way biologically related to Penn and certainly not direct descendants.

But thanks for explaining about 'related through marriage'. I've never have understood the concept otherwise.
Click to expand...

I despair.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom