I have no idea why there were so many Deplorable-tinged comments in yesterday’s Elizabeth Warren story. Let’s try this again: Senator Elizabeth Warren never claimed to have Native American ancestry to get ahead professionally. All she ever did was repeat some stories she had always heard about her family, stories which had been passed down for generations about a long-lost great-great-great-grandmother who was likely Native American. And for that, the Republicans waged one of the nastiest and most racist campaigns I’ve ever seen, slurring Warren, slurring her family and slurring Native American people throughout this country. The only reason she took a DNA test was to see if her family lore was correct, and to correct the record once and for all. This was the campaign ad she released:
The word that came to mind was “thorough.” As in, she thoroughly destroyed the racist Birther president and his deplorable minions with this ad. On Monday, Trump and his people tried out some new lines of attack. Now they say that because Warren’s relation is so distant, she… like, never should have said anything? Again, she was merely repeating some family stories. When Trump was first asked about it Monday morning, his reaction was suddenly “who cares?”
“Who cares?” You do, you orange monster. You’ve spent the last two years calling a sitting senator “Pocahontas” because she dared to believe some family stories, stories which turned out to be TRUE. After the “who cares” moment, Trump was asked about his promise to write a check for $1 million if Warren took a DNA test. This is what happened:
Asked about Elizabeth Warren, Trump now says that he'll only give her the money he promised if he can do the DNA test himself.
"I'll only do it if I can test her personally, OK? That will not be something I enjoy doing either." (via ABC) pic.twitter.com/BujiKgjakz
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 15, 2018
This man is so foul, so ignorant, so racist and so misogynistic. Of course it doesn’t matter to him that he’s mocked this woman with disgustingly racist rhetoric for years. Now that she’s taken the DNA test, he’ll just move on to mocking her for something else. He’s so petty and small.
Update: Trump started tweeting about Sen. Warren this morning. What the everloving f–k is this.
Pocahontas (the bad version), sometimes referred to as Elizabeth Warren, is getting slammed. She took a bogus DNA test and it showed that she may be 1/1024, far less than the average American. Now Cherokee Nation denies her, “DNA test is useless.” Even they don’t want her. Phony!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2018
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Oh FFS, I am so over it, its like talking to an enigma,wrapped in dementia, tossed with pure stupid, wrapped in a suit and presented as a fait accompli. STOP interviewing him.
You and me both!
Where did he get his degree to do genetic testing? Trump University?
LOL!!!!
Why is this still a thing?
I think the “even they” in his tweet should be a thing, though.
Is “test her personally” some sort of euphemism??
Seriously. What a gross thing to say.
Kaiser-Your write-up about this is great. On yesterday’s post about this topic, people were literally saying that they wouldn’t vote for Warren if she was the candidate because of *this*.
*This* being the right-wing lie that she used her NA ancestry to get into Harvard. I mean, come the f*ck ON, guys. It really blows my mind that so many of us haven’t learned a damn thing from 2016. Like, what the f*ck will it take for people to get it?!?! Maybe in 2040 when the planet is completely f*cked from climate change and a collapsed economy and maybe even nuclear war.
WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW MUST BE STOPPED at all costs and before it’s too later. So maybe if Warren is our candidate in 2020, you people can put your hurt feelings aside and vote to save our country. Because clinging to bullshit stories like this one and using that as a reason not to vote for a capable candidate like Warren is how we end with another 3 years of GOP thuggery.
ENOUGH.
And if they’re going to use this as their pathetic excuse, at least get their damned facts straight. She didn’t use it to get into Harvard or get financial aid intended for Native Americans. She didn’t go to Harvard. She never used it on a financial aid form. She only told Harvard AFTER she was hired. She did not use it for political gain. Massachusetts doesn’t have a large Native American population and she’s not the one who put the issue into her Senate race – her opponent Senator Centerfold Scott Brown and his buddy Howie Carr, a Rush Limbaugh wannabe, did. Carr is the one who started calling her Pocahontas, Fauxcahontas and Liawatha.
All of this.
And finally, they go after Warren so mercilessly because her record is nearly impeccable and because her regulatory work on big banks, credit agencies, mortgage brokers, loan companies, etc. makes her a huge threat to the rich white Republican donors that fund the GOP. That’s a good thing, people–she’s a threat because she’s effective.
Exactly, Lightpurple and Kitten. Warren checked a box on a form at some point indicating Native ancestry, and Harvard put that info in one of their directories AFTER she was already working there. This has gotten spun up into a ridiculous, racist conspiracy theory in order to smear Warren because she is, horrors, an effective legislator who was instrumental in bringing about legislation that protected consumers and reduced the profit margin of financial services companies ever so slightly by reining in predatory practices. And in repayment for that good deed, she will be vilified and slandered by the RW propaganda machine until the day she dies.
Right on. 100%.
They have attacked her for years over this because they FEAR her. She has a unique ability to discuss economic policy in a way that is easy to understand. She has the skills to communicate why the GOP economic policies are harmful to the middle class.
They attack her because she calls them on their sh*t in a way that really cuts through.
We can’t let them drive the narrative about her.
Be aware that the paid bots never left the net and surface periodically when Trump needs a boost. They use keyword searches to find and insert themselves into any forum discussing the matter of concern, just like the Scientologists do when Scientology or Tom Cruise is mentioned.
So when you see a flurry of posts repeating Trump’s current fantasies and claiming they “would never vote for ….” because of what Trump says – remember the disinformation campaigns throughout the 2016 election.
Just keep providing rational responses debunking the nonsense without wasting time actually engaging with someone who might well have to vote absentee from Moscow…. The idea is to simply put sensible thinking out there, so anyone who reads the propaganda will also see a more reasonable post as well.
Seriously, the implications are nauseating.
I believe her 100%, and it’s time for Donnie to hand over the million he was heard on tape promising to donate if she took the test. She’s just a really small bit of Native American, but she never said she was half,or entirely Native American. My family has a tiny bit of British, but it is what it is, no matter what the percentage, and British is part of our heritage, and Native American is part of Elizabeths.
Donnie Dumbass probably doesn’t even know how to spell “DNA”or know what it means
Trump even has the numbers wrong.
She is actually 1/32 Native American, because the ancestor was her grandmother’s grandmother. That’s a little more than 3%, well within the range indicated by the test. It’s a range because the test isn’t precise, especially in the low percentages.
But her grandmother certainly knew who her own grandmother was, and if not – her parents certainly knew. Any genetic expert would say to just use the test as a guide to see if the family stories are feasible, which in her case they are. You don’t take the percentages reported as exact, which a stable genius like Trump should know…. What a maroon.
And how exactly, pray tell, is Trump supposed to be able to test her himself? He obviously knows nothing about how it is done or how to interpret results. His mindless tweets are just being added to the evidence pile when we have him committed to a psychiatric facility.
As if that pig knows what is actually involved in a DNA test. He just wants to joke about touching a woman against her will.
^THIS^
The hottest fires of hell are too good for this piece of sh!t.
She’s not good looking enough for him to touch and she’s past his expiration date.
Sexual assault is not about the attractiveness of the victim.
Swack is saying that because those are words trump used about women, saying they were not good looking enough, he wouldn’t have done it
@Snowflake, exactly.
You can’t win with borderline’s, not that trump is one, he’s a malignant narcissist, but his boss, putin is a vengeful self-obsessed soulless borderline. They change the rules and live to be hateful bullies.
They were always going to move the goalposts. Do the test himself, too far back, not a high enough percentage …. Don’t jump through hoops to prove something to people who don’t care about truth! It was never about not believing her, it was about seeing an opening to pour their racsist vitriol through. And they’ll just keep moving those goalposts back so they can keep doing it.
Of course they were. I tend to think Warren should have just let it go because now the mocking seems to be even worse. And I don’t know what that will mean for the midterms.
Don Junior is obsessed, he tweeted about Warren all day yesterday. He threw in some bonus mockery of Beto O’Rourke for his nickname. I can’t, I just can’t with him and his followers.
I’ve never seen a presidents son or daughter try so hard to divide our country. The idiot is so dumb that he thinks Beto came up with the nickname while running for office no matter how many times its been pointed out he’s had it since he was a child. I thought Junior had a job. All he does is tweet and host rallies like his daddy. Jobless Junior definitely didn’t fall far from the rotten orange tree
I’m glad she took the DNA test. @Esmom-if you recall, when Liz was on PSA a while back, Lovett really pressed her about that: “why not just take a DNA test and put the whole thing to rest?” She never actually answered him and it made me wonder why she seemed so averse to the idea. Anyway, I don’t GAF about the TERRIBLE hot takes from MSM claiming that Warren “went low” or whatever. She did the right f*cking thing and if this impacts the mid-terms adversely then maybe we’re just not as organized on the Left as we thought. Eyes on the prize everyone. Don’t let this nothing burger become a distraction.
Beth, I know, I loathe Junior with the fire of a thousand suns. He’s just so nasty. And unlike his dad, who is who he is, I believe Junior made this choice consciously, to be a divisive punk instead of a decent or at least neutral figure as the offspring of the POTUS. It kills me that anyone gives him the time of day.
Kitten, You’re right. I agree that we can’t let it be a distraction. The GOP is determined to make it one, though. Gah.
this is the dead-end that results when we do identity politics instead of actual politics. Warren should have never gone down this wormhole to meet trump on his level. she was naive thinking this would somehow help and put a nail in his stupid taunts, and instead it’s only fanned the flames and she’s now pissed off the tribal nations because now they are coming out to say they are the determiners of who gets to say they have native blood.
when we start needing DNA tests to do politics, we have a big big problem.
I would have suggested that she test not only herself, but her siblings, cousins, and any older relatives in her line who are still living or whose DNA might be accessible. That could make it easier to interpret the tests and harder for idiots like Trump to dismiss them.
If she could find intact DNA from a parent or aunt or uncle, for example, they would have something with a higher percentage (1/16 instead of 1/32) to work with. Also sibling/cousin tests could help confirm her own results, since different siblings get different gene mixes.
The goalposts are on freakin wheels now.
I would be so much better for her to not even engage with this. The Cherokee Nation is not digging it. It’s pissing people off. I do understand why she took the DNA test (at his goading), but she needs to drop it. It’s going to make her look desperate, and she has no reason to be.
A lot of people are taking DNA tests today out of curiosity. The registries for the tribes are a different thing entirely, and if there is any truth to their complaints (consider it’s Trump saying this) then they are playing into the hands of a guy who wants to destroy them. He probably thinks there is a way to deport them all….
It’s ridiculous to say that nobody has the right to say that they had a Native American ancestor unless a tribal council has put its stamp of approval on it. At that distance of ancestry, nobody is asking to get any benefits from it that the tribes do legitimately want to control. We all own our own ancestry and don’t have to ask anybody’s permission to discuss it and claim it. DNA testing has limits because of the nature of genetics (not all markers are reliably passed on) and the limited databases for non-Europeans as well as the limits of the test process itself. But it’s a new tool for tracking down ancestry that we didn’t have before.
Yes, I’m not knocking DNA testing. I’m saying she’s stuck in a real quagmire here and it’s not reflecting well on her.
Courtesy of the Meat Puppets
Where do bad folks go when they die; they don’t go to Heaven where the angels fly
They go to the Lake of Fire and FRY
Won’t see em’ again till the Fourth of July
Hey Emperor Zero:
You don’t get to swab Mrs Warren’s DNA personally. It sounds like you’re under the impression that taking a DNA sample requires you to expose your 2” Mario Kart mushroom tool. Keep it in your pants, microdick.
Can’t wait for the “DNA” test on you. 66% orangutan, 22% Oompa Loompa, 10% Jack-o-lantern, and 2% Drumpf. 100% asshat.
He did make it sound sexual right? And throwing in that ” it’s not something I’ll enjoy believe me” was another one of his slurs. He always reduces women to whether or not they are f’able to him. It’s so degrading and I don’t understand how these white women support him.
The Orange Maroon probably thinks genetic testing involves swabbing the genitals…. He is so stupid, it’s amazing that he knows how to breathe.
Thank you, @Eric!
LOL @ Mario kart mushroom
Haha @Eric! Stormi Daniels has seen a lot of 🍌 in her career and wasn’t impressed by his wee willie winkle. Such a dick, (pun intended). How many years was his birther movement. So now its Mrs. Warren. God he hates women, nah, I guess he just hates. Bartone, please remove the mushrooms from my plate.
Two inches!!?? Eric, you exaggerate.
It sounded sooooo creepy when he made those comments.
“Microdick”. I’ll have to remember that, that’s just precious! He certainly represents the GOP (Greedy Old Pricks) well. I think people should just keep urging him to “whip it out” – he’s disinhibited enough that sooner or later he’ll do it.
I’m atheist but lately I find myself wondering if we have offended some terrible vengeful god. Otherwise how the hell does one explain this mess?
3 straight tweets from bigly now on this. He just can’t stand that a woman dared embarrass him by calling out his bullsh*t.
It not that…he knows it riles up his base and he gets to attack a woman. this actually goes in his favor and she feeding into exactly what he wants, to distract from his last fews weeks and to do more rallies where he can mock her. He is loving every minute of this and wants her to keep it up.
Oh look! Do my eyes deceive me or is that the most bullied woman in the world standing there laughing while her pig husband bullies a woman.
Right!!!!!!
Someone on twitter came up with a good one-melania is an anagram for am alien.
SMDH F*cking GARBAGE woman. Straight-up trash, just like her husband.
They’re obviously renegotiated the prenup.
@Jeru-Ding ding ding!
Trophy Wife got her pay-out so now she’ll play nice.
Great point, Darla. I forgot about that amid all of the stupidity.
This man is so foul, so ignorant, so racist and so misogynistic — and you know this how? Oh of course because you read/watch the news across the spectrum of news stations and papers.
Thanks for following this xenophobic, imbecilic, woman hater. I appreciate your take on these situations that have me feeling like I need to be living under a blanket. It is warm under here but it beats putting my fingers in my ears and loudly singing la – la – la while the world watches our country fall apart. As Elizabeth Warren said, “He is not what America stands for.”
PS — the whole Kavanaugh debacle reminded me of a teenager trying to explain to his grandparents all of the shit about him in his yearbook. BUT he got away with it! Sure grandpa I like beer and women, just like you!
OMG, I said that exact thing about Kavanaugh’s to the staffer at my Republican senator’s office — his explanation of the yearbook entries sounded like the b.s. you would tell your grandma when she was worried that you were getting up to shenanigans at college in the big city! I’m glad to know I’m not the only person whose mind went there.
I’m curious if at any point in this debate, we’ll hear from what actual Native Americans have to say about this?
I honestly don’t quite care as i think out of all the issues on the table, this is the least consequential, but Native American tribes have already released statements and they haven’t been supportive (at least from the ones i’ve seen).
I was chocked the Cherokee Nation weighed in on this. She never claimed to be part of the tribe. I gotta believe the GOP was behind it in some way, they do not want to let this go.
I have no idea why my reply to you, @Esmom, keeps getting deleted because i’ve been diplomatic and have abided by all commenting rules.
In any case, here is my reply for the third time. I think that waiving any criticism of what Senator Warren did as something that the GOP is behind is a little conspiratorial to me, and it makes me uncomfortable. Native Americans have agency too and they, more than anyone, should get to weigh in and have their voices heard on this issue. The criticisms were also not just from specific nations but also Native American individuals.
@esmom, I agree. She took a DNA test, but didn’t claim to be part of any tribe after the test,so I didn’t understand why the Cherokee Nation were so offended. I thought Trump and the GOP must’ve done something to get them to weigh in and make everyone think what Elizabeth did was so offending to every Native American.
I don’t know, tifzlan. It’s not that I don’t think the Cherokee nation doesn’t have agency, I guess I was surprised that they would jump into such a fraught, political mess. I don’t think it’s conspiratorial to think someone in the GOP encouraged them to speak out…who knows what the real story is. I do know that this has been blown beyond any reasonable proportion — and that is directly on Trump and the GOP.
Tifzlam – The Nations only have a say in who is considered a member of the tribe. That is more than just ancestry – it involves certain rights and benefits and the percentage of Native ancestry is just one part. For example, Sarah Palin’s husband has enough Native ancestry to qualify for free healthcare in Alaska and so do his children but not his grandchildren. There is a cutoff point. The same would be true for participation in tribal government.
The Nations do not have the right to tell anybody that they can’t take a dna test and find markers for a Native American ancestor in their line, or that they can’t do genealogy studies and come to the same conclusion. 1/32 (grandmother of a grandmother) does not make Warren a member of any tribe and she has never claimed that it does.
They should instead be loudly complaining about Trump calling anybody Pocahontas and such when they have mentioned a small amount of Native ancestry. He is trying to insult her and them that way.
For whatever reason, Trump gave up on his birther nonsense, his claim that Obama was not born in the US (although he could have been born in the moon and it wouldn’t matter, since his mother was a native-born US citizen). This nonsense about Warren’s little bit of Native ancestry is just his substitute for that. He’s a despicable man and has been a bully since he was able to walk and talk. This is what bullies do. They twist and distort anything they can use as a weapon.
No, they don’t like Elizabeth Warren, and they don’t like how she presented herself racially. And I get it, she’s a white woman with marginal NA ancestry so it’s weird she’d identify as this at all.
But here’s the thing, the Cherokee at least DO have a problem with Warren’s racial identity. You think the Republicans care? Elizabeth Warren is a liberal woman and they hate her for that. This is just the excuse they made up to justify it. Honestly, I don’t even get it. We’ve all seen the Republican’s true colors these years – why don’t they just say it out loud? “I hate Elizabeth Warren because she’s a liberal and a woman”. We all know that’s the truth, and we all think you ARE gross enough to say that casually. Hell, saying you hate a woman for being a woman wouldn’t even enter the top 50 grossest things the Republicans have said in this administration.
As one of the “they” I am amazed that Elizabeth Warren’s family kept the stories of their Native American roots alive. There are so many of us who are not tribal recognized or lost our rights to a tribe because of European concepts of what constitutes a Native American that our own tribes have lost their ways. My People – on both sides – are matrilineal people. That changed with European laws where it had to come from your father. That broke many laws in Indigenous communities where they were equal and suddenly the women were subservient to men.
There were so many of our women taken from our communities and used by European men, who knows how many of our People don’t know or hid they’re one of us.
The fact that the stories of her ancestors was passed down from generation to generation even though the system and laws were setup to die and fade into non-existence, is a testimony to our resilience.
Also, I admire her fortitude in all of this. Let’s not forget that the current sitting president uses a Native American girl who was kidnapped and raped as a slur about Senator Warren. Let that sit with you for awhile on the implications made by referring to her as Pocahontas.
Point of clarification: i am in no way, shape, or form condoning GOP behavior. Never have, never will. I’ve just not seen any mention of discussions by Native American communities and individuals themselves on this issue in the two articles that have been published since yesterday. I think those perspectives are important to consider too, especially because I am not Native American.
Thank you for giving your perspective on this, Tania. I appreciate your thoughtful response and your perspective regarding Senator Warren’s Native ancestry, and Native American communities/histories in general.
Thanks Tania.
Your post is very informative, Tania. Thank you for sharing.
Weird, I made a comment here which also was deleted for reasons unclear to me. Anyway, Esmom, I made a comment on the other Warren post talking about some of the possible reasons why the Cherokee tribal government isn’t keen on this DNA sideshow. Basically, the politics around the intersection of DNA and tribal membership are very complicated for a lot of reasons, and tribal governments typically don’t like any suggestion that DNA test results may have *any* bearing on someone’s tribal affiliation. Some of the reasons are good and altruistic and some are not, just like with any political issue, but they have absolutely nothing to do with Trump and the GOP, I promise.
I do understand the tribal government’s concern about DNA tests. But I still think it doesn’t and shouldn’t reflect poorly on Warren. She didn’t do the test to claim tribal affiliation — she did it to try to shut Trump and the others screaming “Pocohontas” tf up. Trump is the one who put out the challenge to her! To me the fact that they insist on perpetuating this horrible stereotype to “smear” her is more offensive than her answering Trump’s challenge to take a DNA test. And reneging on his promise to donate to charity on her behalf.
I’m not understanding why Warren is now coming out with this before midterms. This will 100% work in Trumps favor, it gives the sexist segment in this country fodder for their rhetoric and it lowers her to his level. It will help turn out the Republican vote even moe because he will hold more rallies, mock an intelligent woman (which they love) and bounce off of Brett Kavanagh. As women, we can’t afford to make issues out shallow non-issues. We are still sexist of a country for women to have that voice and social media will rip us apart when we do it. Trump will use it to push his mean heart and it will work.
Did nobody notice the ‘even they’ in Trump’s tweet?
Just another distraction and Sen. Warren should have known better than to feed into it.
+1
Especially before mid-terms, she made a very bad decision TBH.
I agree 100%.
If the Cherokee have a problem with the way Elizabeth Warren has presented herself racially, I can respect that. Considering how small her heritage is, it’s weird to me she’d bring this up at all.
But I can’t respect Donald Trump and the Republicans making a big deal about this. When Native Americans were protesting the Dakota pipeline they called them terrorists, when they complain about cultural appropiation they call it liberal nonsense. But when they complain about a democrat woman? Oh, the Republicans are ALL about Native American rights all of a sudden.
Agree with you 100%. Her heritage is SO small, that I’m guessing if every American had their DNA tested, a good number would have the same percentage or even more. I don’t understand why her “heritage” was even in the discussion. That being said, Trump is a piece of sh*t. He’s calling her “Pocahontas” for God’s sake. And yes, of course the Republicans don’t give a crap about Native rights, until it benefits them.
Warren’s family originally settled in a Western frontier area where interaction between whites and Native Americans was common (was it Colorado? ). Anyway, the reason many people in that area can find a Native American ancestor in family stories (and now DNA) is because intermarriage happened often enough but wasn’t generally recorded as such. But some families did pass along the information within the family, as hers did. Warren’s percentage of Native may seem low, but it isn’t unusual and means the ancestor is pretty close to her generation (grandparent of her grandparent, so the people telling the story would have known the woman). This isn’t like claiming descent from a king who lived centuries ago.
Many other Americans whose families settled elsewhere rarely if ever came into any contact with Native Americans. By the time they arrived on this continent, the government had pushed Native tribes from all over the country into very small areas. More recent immigrants especially would have had to meet up with one in Europe to have the 3% Warren has (1/32, grandmother of a grandmother). Claiming that many Americans fit that category doesn’t make any sense to me for that reason.
I am a scientist myself (physicist and chemist) and think this is a gross misuse of statistics. They are talking about averages that really do not even have good data to justify them, and the average is not representative of many and often most in the population because of how it is calculated. We’re not talking about a uniformly distributed attribute of cans of soup on an assembly line.
My impression is that perhaps everyone is making a bigger deal about her “claiming” this heritage than she ever did herself. I mean, my family anecdotally has some native heritage. I haven’t done a DNA test or genealogy, but my father has shared photos of his great-grandmother who was “an Indian” and I have no reason to doubt him or that story. When someone asks me what my family’s ethnic background is, I list her along with the other dozen (white) ethnicities I’ve been told I am by my family without actually researching myself. I think that’s pretty common. I’m not claiming membership of any of these groups or trying to get anything out of it.
Can we test the orange white supremacist for brain worms? Seriously, he is beyond explanation. 💩
But he’d have to actually have a brain to have brain worms
It’s so obvious that she as an educated, honorable, ethical, articulate, independent woman is a threat to these elected male public servants. They wish they had a 24th of her credentials. That’s the crux of it – she challenges and scares the living daylights out of their establishment.
There are plenty of educated powerful women on both sides of the political spectrum. They criticize Warren because she lied.
What lie?
Okieopie, it’s because of all the lies told by the Republicans that I have zero respect for them. Your comment is yet another designed to smear and I don’t believe a word you say.
The means fudging the results to one he likes and can use to abuse her.
Thanks Kaiser. I had to leave yesterday’s post alone because of all the misinformation and I felt like I would become the token Native American and I don’t speak on behalf of my race! It’s not my job. There are far too many of us from diverse cultures and communities to have a standard response to one person.
The only person that we should collectively have a standard response to is the “person” occupying the highest office in the US and uses racist language about our People, and the comments about Senator Warren were discouraging and I couldn’t spend the entire day responding to dog whistling and misogyny.
+1
I absolutely understand your point about Native Americans not being a monolith. That being said, I have to admit that I was looking for you yesterday, curious about your opinion on this topic.
I really respect and appreciate everything you said here today, Tania.
Democrats always misjudge the optics and can’t seem to grasp they are playing chess with people who will just flip the table over and say we win.
They don’t care about truth or decency or civility. Just power. That’s their only currency.
I am Cherokee and this is what my tribe says about her claims.
“A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship,” Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a statement. “Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America.”
This issue that I have with that is, North and South America is a European concept. It’s not a concept of Native American People. My People traveled from what is now Alaska to parts of Mexico for trade. Who knows what bloodlines followed that. Who knows how much further south than Mexico they went, and how much further south Indigenous People of Mexico went. The borders were setup to divide our People and the Cherokee Nation did themselves no favors by resorting to us v. them mentality.
Beyond DNA, you can have ties to a Nation based on shared experiences. Our history is full of stories of people being adopted because they grew up with us, followed our customs and laws and respected our Nation as if it were their own. We shouldn’t be getting into DNA fights with those who have stories a century or so back based on what they learned from their ancestors and minimizing their experience. Once again, she never claimed to be Cherokee. She said she had stories from her family about Native American ancestors.
Why any Nation would give the president ammo in something like this is ridiculous to me. He’s used their statement – made by a man no less – against her when they have other more pressing issues at hand. But to each their own.
“Once again, she never claimed to be Cherokee.”
This is what I keep coming back to. She isn’t trying to have tribal citizenship.
It has been suggested by archeology and dna that the first Americans settled down the west coast into central and South America before spreading into the woodlands east of the Appalachian mountains. But I know most tribes have belief systems that have them created and placed on their ancestral land at the beginning of the world. Discussing this science with my longhouse practicing relatives can be fraught.
That’s a reasonable statement and true, the DNA tests don’t have anything to do with tribal citizenship. That sounds like an answer to a question that was asked about how tribal citizenship is determined.
But Warren isn’t claiming citizenship in the Cherokee Nation, but rather one person in her direct line (her grandmother’s grandmother) who was Native American and possibly Cherokee. She was told that was the woman’s affiliation by her family, which included people who knew the woman or her children personally (such as Warren’s grandmother). In any case, Native American markers were found in her DNA that match the family histories as passed down to Warren’s generation, in a range that is consistent with 1/32 (3%) Native American ancestry as her family stories claimed.
But Trump and the Republicans are twisting that statement in a way that was likely not intended. I find it hard to believe that an official statement from a Native American government would trash Warren for simply verifying she had a Native American ancestor. It sounds as though they are simply explaining that they determine citizenship in other ways, because media or others are probably asking them about it.
She’s not claiming or seeking enrollment in any tribe. Just that she has an ancestor. It’s like the Irish consulate issuing a statement about a specific person that claims Irish-American identity. It would be ridiculous. I know so many people that hyphenate, Italian-American, German -American, whatever. They celebrate St Joseph table or October fest or a Greek heritage festival. And their ancestors came here in the 1800’s. No one is asking them for proof. Can the world just stop and let people identify how they want.
I loathe 45 and his supporters but she never should have claimed Native ancestry. FYI, this does not sit well with Native Americans specifically since she has aligned herself with a specific (Cherokee) tribe. The Cherokee Nation actually releasesd a statement. I havr family lore that sites Apache ancestry but I don’t go around spouting off about that dh*t. She knows she messed up and she’s trying to fix it for a 2020 run.
I agree with you. When in Law School, she literally changed her ancestry from “White” to “Native American”. Like wth? How are you allowed to just do that? Don’t tell me she didn’t do it to somehow benefit her. I’m not taking Trump’s side at all in this but I really can’t side with Sen. Warren either.
As I said above, I really wish people would get the facts on this instead of contributing to the false narrative created by Howie Carr and spread by Scott Brown and Donald Trump. No, she did NOT do this in law school.
I don’t listen to Carr, Brown or Trump. Harvard Law School did in fact tout Sen. Warren as being “Native American”. Warren herself admitted to listing herself as a minority in an Association of American Law Schools directory. You can look it up if you want. I’m not saying she didn’t deserve to get hired…she had the education and experience to get the position of professor.
“Don’t tell me she didn’t do it to somehow benefit her.”
Actually, yeah I’m gonna tell you that she didn’t do it to benefit her. And it didn’t benefit her.
“When in Law School, she literally changed her ancestry from ‘White’ to ‘Native American’”.
LITERALLY, that never happened.
Please PLEASE spend the four seconds it takes to research this.
I just want to bang my head against a wall at this point. People on the Left doing the work for the Republican party FFS. Who needs Russian bots, amirite?
Sigh. I really love when people tell those of us who have lived through something for years to look it up and then repeat the error. Kitten and I and others have been hearing all this almost daily since she announced her Senate race. She did not do this while in law school. She did not change it while in law school. She did not attend Harvard Law School. She listed it on her paperwork AFTER she was hired at Harvard. Over the past 7 years, local papers have covered this ad nauseum. The attached link contains one of the best summaries of the issue. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/09/01/did-claiming-native-american-heritage-actually-help-elizabeth-warren-get-ahead-but-complicated/wUZZcrKKEOUv5Spnb7IO0K/amp.html
@Kitten
I usually really like your comments on here. You always seem so educated and sensible. Sen. Warren may or may not have benefited by saying she was “Native American”. We don’t really know. She probably didn’t though. I’m full Democrat by the way ! She DID change her ancestry in Law School. She was also listed in the A of A Law Schools Directory as a “minority”. The kicker is the contribution she made to a Native American cook book years ago “recipes passed down through the Five Tribes families” called Pow Wow Chow. Warren added five of her own recipes to the book listing herself as “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee” !
@Lightpurple
My initial comment should have said “while working at Harvard Law School” instead of while “in law school”. That is the only thing I am willing to change. I’ve done my research and you’ve done yours. I’d vote for Warren because she’s a dem and she’d do a great job.
That’s a right wing myth. She did not change her identification to Native American in law school or anywhere else. That’s ridiculous.
And contributing family recipes to a booklet that her family attributed to the Native American ancestry is hardly a crime (although the name of the booklet should be….). She was asked to contribute, and so she did. It was a part of her family lore. She was simply identifying the ancestry according to how it was explained to her. She wasn’t joining the tribal council.
People often will mention that they have a small part of some ethnicity in them. That doesn’t mean they are claiming the right to vote in the Old Country… It’s just an interesting part of their family history and can make them feel a little more connected with that ethnic group, that’s all.
When asked about my own ancestry, I say that I’m 3/4 Irish and then mention all the other different groups that I know about in the remaining quarter. If I were into genealogy, I could go to the places of origin for those immigrants and find some records supporting it, since our immigrations occurred during the past couple of centuries and so there probably are written records (I know there are for some of them, and for the non-Irish 1/4 one of my father’s older relatives self-published a little book about those for the family, probably in the early 1900s or late 1800s). My brother found out accidentally that his landlord’s ancestor showed up at Ellis Island on the same boat as one of ours – both their names were on the ship’s passenger list that his landlord had tracked down.
But many people lack records for some ancestors because of the circumstances. This is certainly true for Native American ancestors who married into a predominantly European-American family like Warren’s, especially on the frontier (which is where they originally were). Many people did not get recorded in tribal registers because they were keeping a low profile, trying to pass for white or hoping their children could do so. It was a liability to have Native ancestry back then. So DNA testing can be helpful guides for people in that situation.
Are people really acting like you should “let it slide because she’s a Dem and a woman” or are they acting like you should let it slide because it is seriously one of the least important things happening in a country where TERRIBLE things are happening right now, including the abduction, rape and trafficking of NA women in Minnesota and elsewhere?
At least Liz Warren has used her platform to raise awareness about this tragic epidemic–several times, actually. https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/sen-warren-discusses-sexual-violence-against-native-women.html
Anyway, I’m so f*cking done even arguing about this. I hope she doesn’t run in 2020 because I want her to stay here in Massachusetts where she has been phenomenal in terms of delivering for her constituents. You guys can have Biden or whatever, we’ll keep Liz.
Kitten, I’m assuming the only part you read of my comment was the one you quoted since I went on to say the Republicans have done a lot of damage to this country and explicitly said I’d vote for Warren.
I’m not losing any sleep over Elizabeth Warren’s racial identity. I’m only talking about it because that’s what the article we’re commenting on is about.
I’m done arguing too, I don’t know why I’d go on with this topic when my counterpart can’t even bother to read 3 paragraphs of text.
“Democrats always misjudge the optics and can’t seem to grasp they are playing chess with people who will just flip the table over and say we win.”
*hand clap emoji x32″ say it louder for the people in the back, aly!!!
This is exactly right. The old rules don’t apply here. They won’t play fair. They cheat to win.
And the other truth is that Cheetolini does not HAVE One Million Dollars. He has paper assets, but he’s cash poor and broke as a joke. It is only money from Saudi Arabia and Russia that is keeping him afloat. Oh, and the money he is managing to grift while in office.
Glad the Cherokee Nation called her out. White people need to stop indulging their romantic fantasies through cultural appropriation. Tribal citizenship is a matter of national sovereignty and not bloodline or genetics.
But I will still use science as well to verify family lore- on both sides. I don’t claim to belong within any tribal structure, but I will embrace my ancestors- Cherokee and Hopi – and no one can take that away from me. Not racist rightwingers, nor their idiot president, nor the Cherokee president. To do as the latter wants would be to deny my ancestors. And I won’t do that.
The issue I have with them calling her out is, where does it stop? Should my Tsimshian Nation call her out and say she’s not a member of a tribe that she never claimed to be a part of? I need to google this so-callled leader of the Cherokee Nation. I guarantee you, he didn’t have a matriarch teach him.
Tribal citizenship has been colonized and politicized to the point that it’s okay for a man to tell a woman what her place is. That would never have happened in my family, and if it did, there would be a shame feast to follow shortly thereafter.
Was she having “romantic fantasies through cultural appropriation”, though?
It wasn’t a “fantasy”, she did have a Native American ancestor(s). And she wasn’t trying to appropriate their culture. It isn’t as if she started wearing associated clothing or mimicking ceremonies. She just acknowledged the LEGITIMATE history of her family. Additionally, she wasn’t seeking tribal citizenship.
Your critique seems more appropriate for someone who actually did those things.
So people are supposed to pretend that any Native American ancestors never existed? This isn’t about citizenship in a tribe, but just talking about your own ancestors. Which everybody has the right to do. That is definitely not cultural appropriation. Nobody operates like that. Our ancestry belongs to us.
Maybe the best retort of 2018 is Stormy stating
Game On, Tiny!
😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😁😁😁😁😎
Let’s test his DNA! Bet it’s 100% PURE ASSHOLE.
I try every day to be a good person. I help others, I try to never hurt anyone or anything. I have love in my heart for humanity.
But I’ve made a life-long exception for Donald Trump. I have allowed myself this one person. I want to see every bit of evil he has put out into the world, every bit of harm he has caused others come back to him one hundred fold.
I want him to live a very long time so that he can watch what history decides about him. I want him to be witness to the final judgment on him from other human beings: that he is and was pure hot garbage. A vile cowardly asshole who did nothing with his miserable life but take from others and harm others.
I don’t even give a crap about Warren’s DNA. This is why you should never play their games–they’re just that–GAMES. Republicans don’t care about anyone but themselves and money.
Didn’t he pretend to be Swedish instead of German for years so that he could get more Jewish investors? Why doesn’t he get nailed for that? The problem is that he can get away with everything that is horrible and yet people on the left need to meet some human perfection purity test. I actually don’t think Warren did anything that bad regarding the native issue and she certainly was clear in her video that she isn’t claiming tribal affiliation or anything close to that. Simply that the family lore was accurate. The left loses every time they fight with each other over non issues because the bs racist narrative of Dump prevails.
I am not 100% sold on Warren being the best candidate for the Dems, but not because I don’t think she has great ideas. I just think she is a bit of a policy wonk like Hillary and that Americans go for charisma over brains. Even if that charisma is coming from a gaping hole of garbage. Also the misogyny is just too prevalent. I don’t think a woman has a real chance in 2020 if they have to go up against this idiot toddler.
These past few days on Celebitchy have been troubling because everyone has an opinion on blood quantum and what Senator Warren is entitled to do or should have done. Then they use a statement issued by the Cherokee Nation’s whomever and take it as gospel that all Native Americans feel this way. No. One man, using his perch, felt that way. I am sure you’ll find many members of the Cherokee Nation who feel he’s full of crap. Much like many will think I’m full of crap too. That’s the crux of being one of many different Nations from many different backgrounds and many different interests and experiences.
The idea of blood quantum is divisive. Same with the politicization of Tribal membership. There are tribes that want to keep their circle of membership small so they don’t have to divide up the small pot they get with more members and needs. Every Nation has the right – whether right or wrong – to decide who is a member. The issue I have is not following the system their Nation engaged in before colonization.
Please know that all of these “blood quantum” and “membership” is designed by governments to weed out members to the point there are no “recognized” members therefore they can continue stealing land, resources and extinguish a race of people they’ve tried getting rid of since columbus.
Theoretically, I could be denied membership to both Nations if they had a 51% blood quantum rule, even though I am 100% Indigenous because my parents each belonged to different Nations. This is the problem with bringing “blood quantum” into the mix of ancestry and tribal belonging.
As for Senator Warren. Please, for the love of all things pure, stop quoting misinformation that has been debunked many times over. It’s painful to read and it causes me rage that so many people believe right wing bigotry and news KNOWING that they’re a party of racists and misogynists. Please STOP.
Senator Warren is a woman who has Indigenous ancestry in her DNA and to say she “benefited” from being Indigenous is a load of crap. Indigenous People are being disenfranchised from voting, “security” forces are trying to drown them in Louisiana because they’re fighting against big oil. Women and girls are missing with little to no investigation. Women who are the backbone and breath of our Nations. That’s entire lineages and generations that are disappearing. That’s the future evaporating. There is no advantage to saying you are Native American.
I would vote for her as a Senator and as a presidential candidate because she’s smart, she’s shown grace, humility and has lived a life on the outskirts of power and knows how to survive. She would represent ALL of us, not corporations, not insurance companies, and not billionaires. Can you say that about any republican candidate?
You can’t see it, but I am giving you a standing ovation. Very well written, many good points.
This especially:
“Indigenous People are being disenfranchised from voting, “security” forces are trying to drown them in Louisiana because they’re fighting against big oil. Women and girls are missing with little to no investigation.”
It seems to have flown under the radar, but North Dakota passed a voter ID law that says you MUST have an ID with a street address. However, on the reservations, they don’t have street addresses and get mail via a PO Box. This law actively and intentionally DISENFRANCHISES the indigenous people of North Dakota.
I’m from MA and like Warren a lot. That said, I think she should drop this. DNA testing is flawed and, culturally, she has little to do with Native Americans .
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/nation/2018/10/16/elizabeth-warren-angers-prominent-native-americans-with-politically-fraught-dna-test/
Charlottesometimes – Culturally, I have little to do with Irish culture in Ireland today or when my Irish ancestors came here. That doesn’t mean I deny my Irish ancestry. It’s part of me regardless.
It sounds as though Warren’s Native ancestry was important to her family. They passed on the stories. I wouldn’t be surprised if that connection shaped her views on how the Native populations were treated by the US government then and now. I know that my own Irish ancestry gives me that sense of connection with what happened to my distant cousins in the struggle for independence.
I even paid more attention to the history of Alsace-Lorraine because I have a bit of German and French ancestry from that region.
Ancestral connections, however tenuous, often have that effect on people. They should be celebrated, not suppressed.
If anyone is interested, Jezebel has a really good post on this. Long(ish) read but worth it.
My problem with the continued support of Warren on this blog over this issue is that NUMEROUS chiefs of tribes have released statements that are NOT in support of Warren. The Cherokee chief, a democrat, released a statement criticizing Warren on behalf of the tribe. It is not his own opinion as some here have said but rather was an official statement from THE TRIBE. Other leaders have followed suit. If the tribes and various nations have a problem with Warren’s claims, why has this blog continued to support her on the issue? You do not have to blindly support everyone who Trump has an issue with. Warren made claims she shouldn’t have made. I will follow the example of the tribe chiefs and refuse to support her. I recall this blog having a problem with Blake Lively taking about her Cherokee grandmother in a Loreal ad and heavily criticizing her, a white woman, for daring to claim native ancestry. Now this blog supports Warren, also a white woman, for exploiting an ancestor 5 or 6 generations removed? Total hypocrisy. I think it is time for this blog to revert back to celebrity gossip and royal gossip instead of constant political posts. We come to this blog for gossip. If we want politics, there is a ton of blogs for that. Perhaps the blog authors shoUld start a separate offshoot site for the political stuff. Flame me all you want for daring to have a differing opinion which is apparently not acceptable around here anymore.
Okieopie, it’s clear from your earlier comment that you are on the Republican side. You wanting to see only gossip here is just an excuse for wanting people here to be silent. You can easily avoid the political pieces if you only want to read gossip, after all.
Finally, where does anyone say you can’t have an opinion? You seem to not understand that people having a different opinion from yours is not the same as being forbidden to have an opinion.
My opinion is that I don’t believe a word anyone on the Republican side says: too many lies. Too much racism, sexism and homophobia. Too many people hurt for the benefit of angry nitwits.
If tribal officials have made statements as you have said, then those tribal officials are simply dead wrong. She has an absolute right to claim her grandmother’s grandmother as her direct ancestor and as a contributor to her genetic make-up and her family history.
Possibly they simply have not yet come to terms with modern genetic testing that makes it possible to actually look for ethnic markers to identify remote ancestors. They do have control over actual membership in the tribe as a separate Nation, but they cannot tell people to deny their own ancestors simply because they are not registered in a particular tribe. Many people never registered and so their descendants would not show up in tribal records. Registration was pushed by the US government for the US government’s own reasons.
Update: From the actual statement by Cherokee Nation officials someone else posted, it seems that they were simply explaining that dna testing does not determine citizenship. But Warren is not claiming citizenship in the Cherokee Nation, just one ancestor who was Cherokee (and the dna test helped to verify that). So once again Trump is trying to claim more than what was actually said by the officials.
It is normal for Americans to use the shorthand “I am Welsh” to mean they have Welsh ancestry, for example. I have some tiny bit of Welsh ancestry myself, but am not claiming Welsh citizenship. I have a lot of Irish ancestry (75%) but do not expect to vote in Irish elections…. (Does County Cork have absentee ballots? Half of my Irish ancestors came from there.) But I say I’m Irish without hesitation. That’s all Warren ever meant when she said she was Cherokee in that cookbook – not claiming citizenship, but referencing her known ancestor in that context.
Trump, of course, went around telling people for years that he was Swedish when he actually was half German and half Scottish. His father told him that Jews wouldn’t rent apartments from a German…. So he knows the way we talk about our ancestry, he’s just being a bully.
Okieopie -nobody has a gun to your head – if you don’t want to read the political posts, they are easy to avoid.
If you are at a party and are not interested in one conversation — just move on to another one of more interest to you. Don’t try to shut down the conversation that is not of interest to you but obviously is of interest to others.
You know who exploited the system to benefit their family? That congressman’s family in California who received federal contracts based on a non-existent Native tribe. I belong to a Nation that has in excess of 50 hereditary chiefs on my Dad’s side and I can’t tell you how many hereditary chiefs on my Mom’s side. Each chief belongs to a clan and each clan has a variety of number of house groups. Heck, my house group can’t even get a unified message most times, let alone my clan and my Nation. Which is to say, I don’t take statements being made by one person to heart when I know they don’t speak on behalf of an entire Nation. Look at the commander in chief. He doesn’t speak or represent even 51% of the US but he acts like he does. So it goes with tribal politics that has been breached by colonization.
As a Native American I support Senator Warren because SHE is not the one spreading false information about her heritage or using it to advance herself. She followed through on a dare by the pos president and confirmed she has ANCESTORS that are Native American. That’s it.
It’s just so troubling that the only race that has to prove themselves are Native American. Imagine if someone said they were Italian and they had to prove it, or Greek, etc.. Why do we hold the Indigenous population to things like blood quantum and proof needed?
The next time I go hang out at the indian center, should I demand blood quantum levels of all those that say they’re Native American but don’t look it?