Elizabeth Warren Ancestry Thread

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Yearbooks, cookbooks, politics has gotten pretty damn weird lately.

How about this: Warren claimed Indian heritage not as a scheme to gain professional or political advantage but because she's a plain old boring white person and it tickled her fancy to accept a family legend because it she thought it made her more interesting. Foolish? Indubitably. Intellectually vacant? You bet, because if she'd really been interested in history she'd have researched it further and gotten the genealogy. Insulting? Yes, to the actual people of that heritage, that others should apply to themselves because it sounds neat. Evil? No. A reason to not vote for her? Depends on how much importance you place on all that.

Personally, I think the whole episode indicates carelessness and foolishness on Warren's part, traits I don't favor in political office. However if she runs against someone worse I'd have to vote for her anyway. Such is politics.

Don't most families have some stupid grandpa who says his ancestor married 'an Indian princess'? Mine claimed that, and boy was he mad when my dad got into genealogy and disproved the Indians but found Africans! (I won't, on the basis of that, be indicating African heritage on any forms, though.)
 
Trump’s “Pocahontas” Mockery of Elizabeth Warren Is Racist. But It Also Reveals Something Profound About His Misogyny.

Trump’s sneering “Pocahontas” nickname for Elizabeth Warren is more than just a mind-bendingly racist accusation of dishonesty with regard to her claim of Native American heritage. It’s another expression of Trump’s fundamental misogyny.
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Also this:

Cherokee Nation chief tells ‘racist’ Trump to stop calling Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas’
Regardless of which side one falls on the issue of heritage, calling anyone of Native American ancestry “Pocahontas” is racist, and Chief Baker is sick of it. “I think it’s racist and I think he’s trying to use that as a put-down, and I think it’s inappropriate.”
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The second article is from two years ago. A number of people in this thread and in a certain house in Washington seem to want to paint Warren as the racist, while continuing, for years, to use a term for her that they have been told is racially offensive.

The disconnect is staggering.

Here's Slings and Arrows doing it: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=12466968#post12466968
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12465535&highlight=pocahontas#post12465535

Here's BrooklynBaby doing it:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12467765#post12467765
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12467807&highlight=Fauxcahontas#post12467807
BB has done it many more times than that, I just didn't bother linking to all of them. BB also called Warren a "Sq**w", which is also a racist slur.

But hey, let's just ignore all of that, because it is fun to hound a person for not being able to prove a thing they never claimed, and to exaggerate what they did claim so we can "disprove" that as well, and then crow on about victory and all that.

You guys just keep right on that self-righteous totally not-racist bandwagon. Such winning!
 
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Drewbot said:
I guess the main point for me is that you don't check the box claiming Native American minority status, simply because Great Uncle Ernie thought he heard something about a great great great grandmother being discriminated against, from his 4th cousin at a Bat Mitzvah.

It's slimy as can be. Taking away a true Native American's potential position in that directory, when you went through school, and practice, as a caucasian, recieving all of those privileges, but when you want to network with people interested in meeting a minority law professor, you put Native American next to your name.
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Citation that there is a quota or limit on the number of Native Americans in that directory? Because, if there isn't the part about "taking away a true Native American's potential position in that directory" is pure, unadulterated ********.
 
Dr. Keith said:
Look, they tracked down a charity cookbook, surely they can find some concrete evidence to back up your hunch. Surely. We'll just wait here patiently. For the last few years or so.

And when that evidence is lacking? Should we just go with your hunch?
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Even if it was simply the ability to tell Harvard "yes" when they asked to change her status, that would qualify as a "brownie point" to me. So yes.
 
The Big Dog said:
quadraginta said:
It isn't quite that simple.

To satisfy membership requirements for the Cherokee Nation there must be a record of an ancestor on the Dawes RollsWP.

This was an imperfect document as far as comprehensively listing NA bloodlines, not least because of the many who were left off.

​


The Cherokee Nation's real beef with DNA is not so much that they are offended by the idea that lineage can be demonstrated by such analysis, but rather that it threatens their control over who can call themselves Cherokee. Blood quantum isn't important to them. Neither is accuracy.
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wrong, as pointed out repeatedly before with citations to actual third party sources.
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I note that you excised the part of my post where I quoted Drewbot's actual citation of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma's own declaration of policy, where I highlighted the part where they say that they rely on the Dawes Rolls.

Is that because it was inconvenient to your narrative?

As in, proves you are dissembling?

Warren's test is junk science, her defenders are promoting "an outdated, harmful concept of racial blood—one that promotes the pernicious idea of biological differences among people."
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DNA analysis by one of the top experts in the field is not "junk science", no matter how much as you want to claim it is.

If there is any science at all involved in the methods used by the Cherokee Nation to determine valid descent, then those methods can clearly be demonstrated to be actual "junk science", and have been, by such examples as disallowing someone who is descended from a sibling of the ancestor of someone they had chosen to include. A circumstance which they have gone to court to preserve the right to do, even though there is nothing whatsoever scientific about it.
 
crescent said:
Trump’s “Pocahontas” Mockery of Elizabeth Warren Is Racist. But It Also Reveals Something Profound About His Misogyny.



Also this:

Cherokee Nation chief tells ‘racist’ Trump to stop calling Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas’

The second article is from two years ago. A number of people in this thread and in a certain house in Washington seem to want to paint Warren as the racist, while continuing, for years, to use a term for her that they have been told is racially offensive.

The disconnect is staggering.

Here's River doing it: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=12466968#post12466968
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12465535&highlight=pocahontas#post12465535

Here's BrooklynBaby doing it:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12467765#post12467765
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12467807&highlight=Fauxcahontas#post12467807
BB has done it many more times than that, I just didn't bother linking to all of them. BB also called Warren a "Sq**w", which is also a racist slur.

But hey, let's just ignore all of that, because it is fun to hound a person for not being able to prove a thing they never claimed, and to exaggerate what they did claim so we can "disprove" that as well, and then crow on about victory and all that.

You guys just keep right on that self-righteous totally not-racist bandwagon. Such winning!
Click to expand...

To be fair, there were only two Native American women to ever exist. The other was Sacagawea, but that's harder to pronounce.
 
quadraginta said:
DNA analysis by one of the top experts in the field is not "junk science", no matter how much as you want to claim it is.

If there is any science at all involved in the methods used by the Cherokee Nation to determine valid descent, then those methods can clearly be demonstrated to be actual "junk science", and have been, by such examples as disallowing someone who is descended from a sibling of the ancestor of someone they had chosen to include. A circumstance which they have gone to court to preserve the right to do, even though there is nothing whatsoever scientific about it.
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I have already explained with citations to numerous authorities why it is.

You appear to be under the gross misapprehension that because they use a dna result that it is "science."

The problem, as i have explained numerous times with numerous citations to authority is that they are taking those results and comparing them to data that WAS NOT GATHERED SCIENTIFICALLY:

"She is also reinforcing one of the most insidious ways in which Americans talk about race: as though it were a measurable biological category, one that, in some cases, can be determined by a single drop of blood. Genetic-test evidence is circular: if everyone who claims to be X has a particular genetic marker, then everyone with the marker is likely to be X. This would be flawed reasoning in any area, but what makes it bad science is that it reinforces the belief in the existence of X—in this case, race as a biological category."

Oh, they use DNA test results so it must be SCIENCE!

It is junk science. Show me a peer review paper supporting ethnic heritage determinations using the datasets they are comparing the dna results to.

I'll save you a step, there ain't any because the data sets are not collected scientifically.

i have cited several articles from different sources already.
 
The Big Dog said:
She is also reinforcing one of the most insidious ways in which Americans talk about race: as though it were a measurable biological category, one that, in some cases, can be determined by a single drop of blood. Genetic-test evidence is circular: if everyone who claims to be X has a particular genetic marker, then everyone with the marker is likely to be X. This would be flawed reasoning in any area, but what makes it bad science is that it reinforces the belief in the existence of X—in this case, race as a biological category.

The conclusion: "Warren, meanwhile, has allowed herself to be dragged into a conversation based on an outdated, harmful concept of racial blood—one that promotes the pernicious idea of biological differences among people—and she has pulled her supporters right along with her."

And that is more than evident by this thread.

There is more about why ancestry determinations using dna are junk science, but I have made that point a half a dozen ways already.
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I don't think that is quite accurate. Lately she has been referring to it as her heritage. That isn't the same as claiming to be that thing. She did claim minority status 20 years ago. People were less woke about racial issues at the time. That's why we have the term woke now.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Yearbooks, cookbooks, politics has gotten pretty damn weird lately.

How about this: Warren claimed Indian heritage not as a scheme to gain professional or political advantage but because she's a plain old boring white person and it tickled her fancy to accept a family legend because it she thought it made her more interesting. Foolish? Indubitably. Intellectually vacant? You bet, because if she'd really been interested in history she'd have researched it further and gotten the genealogy. Insulting? Yes, to the actual people of that heritage, that others should apply to themselves because it sounds neat. Evil? No. A reason to not vote for her? Depends on how much importance you place on all that.

Personally, I think the whole episode indicates carelessness and foolishness on Warren's part, traits I don't favor in political office. However if she runs against someone worse I'd have to vote for her anyway. Such is politics.

Don't most families have some stupid grandpa who says his ancestor married 'an Indian princess'? Mine claimed that, and boy was he mad when my dad got into genealogy and disproved the Indians but found Africans! (I won't, on the basis of that, be indicating African heritage on any forms, though.)
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I have similar family stories about a Native American ancestor. Since I never got any more detail about which ancestor, what tribe, or any other such information, I don't take it too seriously, and I have never represented myself as Native American. For that matter, I don't really see much point in ethnic identity anyway. My inclination when asked my race is to say "human" or "none of your business". Aside from stories of a Native American ancestor, my ancestry is, as far as I know all European, and my appearance is certainly consistent with that (brown hair, blue eyes, fair skin).

I would tend to agree with you that it was somewhat foolish of Elizabeth Warren to set so much store in some nebulous family stories, but I would say that it is a pretty minor bit of foolishness, and by no means a deal breaker were she to be a candidate for some office for which I would be voting, and it pales to insignificance relative to the foolishness of Republicans in trying to score political points from it, or imply, in the complete absence of credible evidence, that she somehow gained an unfair advantage by doing so. If anything, my reaction to that is, as with many lame political smears is, "Is that really the worst thing you could find about her? If so, she must be pretty good."
 
TragicMonkey said:
How about this: Warren claimed Indian heritage not as a scheme to gain professional or political advantage but because she's a plain old boring white person and it tickled her fancy to accept a family legend because it she thought it made her more interesting. Foolish? Indubitably. Intellectually vacant? You bet, because if she'd really been interested in history she'd have researched it further and gotten the genealogy. Insulting? Yes, to the actual people of that heritage, that others should apply to themselves because it sounds neat. Evil? No. A reason to not vote for her? Depends on how much importance you place on all that.
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See, we can agree sometimes.
 
Drewbot said:
I guess the main point for me is that you don't check the box claiming Native American minority status, simply because Great Uncle Ernie thought he heard something about a great great great grandmother being discriminated against, from his 4th cousin at a Bat Mitzvah.

It's slimy as can be. Taking away a true Native American's potential position in that directory, when you went through school, and practice, as a caucasian, recieving all of those privileges, but when you want to network with people interested in meeting a minority law professor, you put Native American next to your name.
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Why slimy??

How did you learn of your own ethnic heritage? From your family, right? Was it only Great Uncle Ernie? Or weren't there memes that circulated among many family members, including your immediate family? Dad at a pizza parlor, "Oh, did you know - there's some Italian background in our family on your mother's side. One of her grandparents, or something like that, came into New York in steerage from Florence." You ask your Mom. "Oh, it was my great grandfather alright. I never met him before he died. But my mom told me he was from Italy. Although I think it was Naples." Next family get together Uncle Sal starts talking about how your family has Polish roots. So you ask him about this Italian background. He says, "Yep! I don't quite remember how, but sure. Somewhere in there. Probably why you love garlic, ha, ha." Etc...

That's how it worked in my family. Yours? How else could I have learned any of this stuff? Did I demand documents? Did you? I checked (and check) the Caucasian box on the forms because that is what these family stories told me I was. Assuming you checked an ethnicity box at some point, how did you choose? There were no DNA tests for most of the time I (and I presume you) was checking these boxes. Family memes. I haven't felt the need to run any DNA tests on me now before I fill out the next form. In fact these boxes are for the ethnicity with which one identifies. They do not require physical proof (before very recent DNA testing none was available) and there is no genetic minimum that qualifies one.

These exact same considerations apply to Senator Warren. She learned of her Native American ancestry through the exactly same type of family memes we all learn of our own ancestry. At a time when there were no DNA tests, and family stories were the only way to learn of such things. And although family stories are usually a bit vague and differ a little from teller to teller they all indicated there was some Native American ancestry in her. And she was proud of that enough to tell that part of her story to others from time to time when the issue of ethnicity came up. Just as I would. I check the Caucasian box on most forms, but if a waiter at a Jewish deli asks me, "Hey where did you learn to like gefilte fish?" I would tell him the other ethnic truth about me, I am Jewish too. And most significant of all, now, with DNA testing available to her Warren's family stories have been confirmed as true. In contrast, my Caucasian/Jewish family stories have never been confirmed by DNA testing although I still accept them. Yours?

"Taking away a true Native American's position" from that directory? Was there a limit on the total number of listings? Warren had and has every reason to identify as having Native American heritage (she does). In contexts where her Native American heritage was not relevant she indicated what she always maintained was the majority of her heritage, Caucasian (based on her family stories of course). But when the issue was relevant, a directory of Native American attorneys, she said, hey, that includes me, and was listed. Notably clients are comforted by being able to connect to their attorneys, and Warren's correct identification as having Native American ancestry was something she could offer as a re-assurence and a comfort to potential clients who are traditionally underserved by the legal profession. You see it as her illegitimately lying to attract more clients. I see it as her reaching out to a under-represented group using her own family story (a true one). In fact I doubt that Native Americans are a large enough, wealthy enough population to be a much of a target for a greedy lawyer.
 
Drewbot said:
I guess the main point for me is that you don't check the box claiming Native American minority status, simply because Great Uncle Ernie thought he heard something about a great great great grandmother being discriminated against, from his 4th cousin at a Bat Mitzvah.

It's slimy as can be. Taking away a true Native American's potential position in that directory, when you went through school, and practice, as a caucasian, recieving all of those privileges, but when you want to network with people interested in meeting a minority law professor, you put Native American next to your name.
Click to expand...

How does that work?

Does Harvard say, "Well, we were going to hire you, but you're Native American and we've already got one?"
 
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