Well, she has at least one Native American ancestor some ways back. But I wouldn’t exactly say that makes her a “Native American”—any more than nearly all American blacks are “white” because most of them have at least some white ancestors. I believe the average African-American has 20% of their genes from whites.) At this point you can claim what identity you want, as there are no rules.
Further, I never much cared whether Warren had such ancestry or not; I’d vote for her against Trump any day. The real miscreant was Donald Trump, who repeatedly called Warren “Pocahontas”, a stereotype used as a slur.
But, for the record, here’s one article from The Daily Beast (click on the screenshot):
There’s also a longer article from the Boston Globe, which says this:
WASHINGTON — Senator Elizabeth Warren has released a DNA test that provides “strong evidence’’ she had a Native American in her family tree dating back 6 to 10 generations, an unprecedented move by one of the top possible contenders for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president.
Warren, whose claims to Native American blood have been mocked by President Trump and other Republicans, provided the test results to the Globe on Sunday in an effort to defuse questions about her ancestry that have persisted for years. She planned an elaborate rollout Monday of the results as she aimed for widespread attention.
The analysis of Warren’s DNA was done by Carlos D. Bustamante, a Stanford University professor and expert in the field who won a 2010 MacArthur fellowship, also known as a genius grant, for his work on tracking population migration via DNA analysis.
He concluded that “the vast majority” of Warren’s ancestry is European, but he added that “the results strongly support the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor.”
. . . The inherent imprecision of the six-page DNA analysis could provide fodder for Warren’s critics. If her great-great-great-grandmother was Native American, that puts her at 1/32nd American Indian. But the report includes the possibility that she’s just 1/512th Native American if the ancestor is 10 generations back.
For you genetics mavens, the Globe gives more details on what genes they used and how they used South and Central American DNA as a stand-in for “Native Americans” (they are evolutionarily related, of course).
If it were my call, I wouldn’t call Warren a “Native American (I’d say “she had a small fraction of genes from Native Americans”); but of course calling her that satisfies the Daily Beast‘s political preferences as well as defusing Trump’s misogyny.
The Boston Globe is more reserved in its headline:
But is this of any import? Only if Warren claimed she was a Native American and benefited from it without knowing for sure whether she had any such ancestry.That would be a bit of a misstep. I’m not quite sure whether she did that, except that the DNA results take precedence over oral family history, which without documentation (and I don’t think she had any) is not convincing. Perhaps she misrepresented herself in the absence of good DNA data, but seriously, is that worth worrying about, much less making a campaign issue about? Not when the issue is Donald Trump and his attack on progressivism.
Nevertheles, the fact that Warren took a DNA test and released the results (would she have done so if she had no Native American ancestry, though?), tells me that she’s going to be a Presidential candidate in 2020. I’d be glad to vote for her, though her chances of winning seem slim at this point. It’s too easy for her to be dismissed as “another New England liberal” like John Kerry and Michael Dukakis.
It is exactly what she claimed, great, great great, great grandparent was part native American.
You added an extra “great” to her claim, so, no, the results don’t match.
From what I’ve read she’s made a couple of different claims. I think you’re both right.
If T calls Warren Pocahontas, can she call him Hitler?
I’ve heard “Shitler” slung around. I think she can call him that.
It’s such an insulting ethnic slur. I can’t believe people let him get away with that.
I don’t personally see it as a slur. More of a sneer.
Yes. He is mocking her claim. His clear implication is that she is not actually part American Indian.
“I can’t believe people let him get away with that.”
With Trump, it just gets lost in the flood.
If someone dumps a ton of garbage on your lawn, which particular piece of rubbish are you going to object to?
cr
Trump quite obviously used “Pocahontas” as a way to ridicule Warren’s attempt at garnering ethnicity points. That does not mean that he claimed she has zero non-white ancestry. I can’t believe people are even discussing to what extent Warren’s claims are true. 1/32nd native American DNA means absolutely squat in practical terms. Is she living on a reservation? It is utterly irrelevant and Warren’s sensitivity over it says more about her than Trump.
People love taking Trump’s trolling and humour and morphing it into something malicious more in line with their prejudices. What also gets “lost in the flood” is the dubious provenance of some of the talking points against Trump. The “grab them by the pussy” slur is based on a disingenuous reading of a partial transcript of a recording. He was shit-talking with friends about how some women react to celebrities in general in a context where they were confronted with a media personality in a provocative dress.
The Democrats are toast until they lose the unfortunate combination of smug moral superiority and OK-when-we-do-it tolerance of lies and violence. Trump is nowhere near the monster people like to say he is and the more hysterical the establishment gets the less traction they will have against him.
Trump is not being humorous and largely not trolling; he is a moral monster, a narcissist, and has a personality disorder. That you are able to excuse everything he does as being okay shows that your moral compass is pointing in the wrong direction.
Pointing out that someone is misunderstanding or misresenting Trump is not a defense of Trump. You are trying to moralize difference of opinion or interpretation. I agree with Zaphod about Trump’s reason for using “Pocahontas”; saying so expresses neither approval nor disapproval: it has nothing to do with any moral compass.
As for inflated claims about the horrors of Trump. Trump is routinely compared to Hitler. There is a great gulf between reprehensible and Hitler, and I agree with Zaphod that eliding the difference hurts Trump’s critics more than it hurts Trump. Again, saying so does not imply approval or disapproval of Trump.
“Trump is not being humorous and largely not trolling; he is a moral monster, a narcissist, and has a personality disorder.”
True, but this applies partly to the Clintons as well. What irritates many neutral observers is that many americans on the left have lost objectivity and perspective.
I partly became an atheist because I witnessed the disingenuous moral posturing of the religious – pretending to be so virtuous and caring – hiding their own shadows.
I am tired of upper middle class intellectuals giving sermons and dispensing fatwas. Identity politics is harming individuals and society and Trump is in the White House because the sensible left are too cowardly to reign it the postmodernist jacobin mob.
Warren deserves critisism because she plays the identity card for political gain.
And please, when people critisize this phenomenon on the left – do not respond with “but he/she is not as bad as Trump”.
No conversation can be had about Trump without some dishonest injection about the Clintons.
Not dishonest at all.
I think Americans should take constructive criticism from concerned impartial observers seriously.
I think he is not using it as a racial slur but mocking her as a fraud, which she is.
Oops, had to read other comments first that have already made the same point.
In Canada i think a whiter persona saying that would be considered an ethnic slur. We are working toward reconciliation and saying that would be very offensive to everyone.
“We are working toward reconciliation and saying that would be very offensive to everyone.”
I suppose the principle is that it SHOULD be offensive to everyone.
Do you really need to resort to that? You may disagree with his policies and the way he does things but that does not make him Hitler.
This way of reacting to Trump and the republicans it part of the problem. Frankly, it makes us liberals look dumb. Also it diminishes the events that happened in the second world war.
This is a Roolz violation; apologize and learn how to criticize with civility.
Merilee’s Remark might be referencing Trump’s historical family roots in the southern German town of Kallstadt – only 500 km from Herr Hitler’s Braunau am Inn in upper Austria. If Herr Drumpf wants to link Warren’s potential Cherokee/Delaware ancestry to Pocahontas then why can’t Warren link the Orange Pumpkinhead to Hitler? To link him to say Ludwig van B. instead would be absurd & deeply offensive to descendants of the piano meister. 🙂
“Only” 500 km? This is a large distance in Europe. 🙂 Different country, different history, different language (dialect).
Let her link him to Hitler, and see how it will play out in the elections.
She could pronounce it the way it sounds in Russian — ‘Gitler’.
No fan of Warren, but Pocahontas is a far more savory historical character than Hitler.
Sure, why not? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. (That guy is nothing more than a carpetbagger.)
I have 296 Neanderthal variants, which is somewhat high. I wonder how I can parlay this into politics and how it can make the centre of a controversy. I already know the smears Trump would use.
On the next census, I plan to self-identify as Neandertal American.
If Warren is 1/32 American Indian, that is more than a lot of enrolled tribal members in some tribes, like the Cherokee.
Drumpf said that if Warren had American Indian ancestry he would donate $1,000,000 to her favorite charity. He now denies that he ever said that.
Now I’m going to have my genes tested before the census — hope I’ve got some Neandertal genes, too, so I can self-identify as Neandertal American. One drop is good enough for me.
The Neanderthal part would be just fine, but the American part is getting more problematic.
Make America Neanderthal Again.
I thought Trump already had. 🙁
cr
(Actually, that is a shocking slur on Neanderthals. The same way ‘vandalism’ is a slur on the Vandals. But what can ya do?)
I meant to imply it would be an improvement – – trump has reverted to a state way back in evolutionary history
If you’re European, you most likely have some Neanderthal. I have a bit more than usual because my ancestors really liked those mousterian tools.
Right, about 1.8–2.4% (says wikipedia).
Which BTW is less than 1/32 but more than 1/64. In case that helps put Ms. Warren’s test results into perspective.
Trump was videoed making the $1 million offer in a campaign event. You lawyer types, can Trump be sued for payment by, for instance, the charity that Elizabeth Warren has now indicated?
I hope he can be made to pay up. But he would say he had and nothing he says is true so it should be paid in cash, or gold.
No, not likely. The offer was very conditional. In the last part of the statement he said the test had show she was Indian. Not that she had at least one Indian ancestor. But legal outcomes are hard to predict.
Probably depends on whether the judge is a republican or a democrat. Or whether or not the judge or judges had Indian ancestry and how much.
Hey hey!! Me, too!! I’m a Neanderthal-American!! A Neanderthal-American!! Otherwise I’m just a ho-hum generic white bread north European/British Isles specimen. Nothing interesting at all…at least that’s what 23 and Me says.
I’d love for my Sweetie to be tested. He’s half Eastern Band Cherokee via his mother. Although she was American Indian she lived in white society and her sons, other than my Sweetie, do not pay any attention to their Cherokee heritage. His dad is who knows what. There may be some Indian in him, and some Jewish.
Just congenially curious – what is your understanding of the meaning of the word “white bread”? Is it a compliment? Who came up with it?
Boring. Conventional
That us my understanding.
I don’t know who first came up with the term, “white bread”. And while I don’t think it’s specifically complimentary, I don’t know that it’s seriously derogatory either. I was speaking slightly tongue-in-cheek, pointing to my ordinariness and lack of any unexpected ancestors. Maybe someone else can tell us if “white bread” is insulting or not.
Depends on the context and the intent. It could be.
You can replace “white bread” with “vanilla” – it is usually a description of a person or family & it can be employed as a gentle, joshing dig right up to atomic bomb levels of disdain. If you like to listen to Barry White or Andy Williams on car journeys – that’s definitely white bread taste in the year of our lord 2018 – although there are probably hipsters who listen in an ironical way as they do Burt Bacharach [yes, he’s the height of cool yet again].
I don’t think that any of the tribes that require Blood Quantum percentage accept 1/32. The lowest I found was 1/16, and the highest was 1/2. However, the Cherokee and a bunch of other tribes go by Lineal Descent, which I understand means that you can go back as far as needed to find an American Indian ancestor.
With the Cherokee it all depends on whether you have an ancestor registered on rolls taken in the nineteenth or early twentieth century. I believe you have to be a one eighth descendant of people listed on the rolls. There are several rolls. That is all that counts.
Before the tools Cherokees would accept non Cherokees into the tribe. So you can be Cherokees with no Cherokee DNA.
Now, you could be 100 per cent Cherokee dna but not allowed in the tribe if your ancestors did not register.
Have you seen the tribal response? It was linked on this page.
Yup, and totally tangential, my blonde-haired, blue-eyed spouse and her two brothers are certifiably 1/256 Cherokee, with photos, names and the whole bit. While it is an interesting tidbit, it usually is a source of humor rather than a heritage claim.
He said if she was an Indian he would give her the money.
Is having Native American ancestry the same thing as being an Indian?
Wouldn’t matter how much or what percentage of anything she has. it will have the same result that Obamba got when he released his birth certificate. None. She played right into Trump’s hands.
I always like it when your comment fits the expression on your avatar!
I dunno, Barry got a sick burn on Trump <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eJpWOY3r18"at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner outta that one.
BINGO!
I have 354 Neanderthal variants. Each of my parents have over 300 variants, but clearly they’re not all from the same folks.
Welcome to Neanderthal club my Paleolithic cousin!
Are you short and stocky?
I’ve never understood the conservative disdain for New England liberals. I kinda sorta get the disdain for Berkeley liberals (I myself enjoyed my seven years living in Berkeley), for “limousine liberals”, etc., but New England liberals are about the most innocuous and generally wonderful people I know.
In particular, I have always had the highest regard for Elizabeth Warren, who never profited politically from all this.
I have a slight Schadenfreude now towards the Native American who criticized her.
When it comes to presidential politics, they say stuff like “who among us doesn’t like NASCAR?” and they don’t wear a tank and helmet very well.
Other than that, they’re Aces in my book.
Jon, in what regard do you hold Warren’s work for Dow-Corning, LTV Steel, and Piper Aircraft?
Every Oklahoman I’ve ever met, including blondes and redheads, claims native American ancestry. What were they getting up to out there?
It is very common in Oklahoma, also in Missouri and Kentucky. Some are, many are not. I have met many enrolled members of the Cherokee Nation who do not look a bit “Indian.” To be a member you have to trace your ancestry to someone who was on the Dawes Commission rolls.
I gather that they have that noble Christian, Andrew Jackson, to thank for that.
Most families with long histories in North Georgia have some Cherokee DNA. There was a lot of intermarriage in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Other than Arizona there are probably more Native Americans in Oklahoma than any other state. Lots of Indian reservation down there. Also casinos.
I once expressed doubt over a blond haired blue eyed American making this claim, and I soon learned that that is not a good idea. They can get a little defensive, to say the least. A conservative republican, never caring a whit over the the situation with Native Americans and their causes. Yes to the Keystone pipeline and all that. But their genetic identity with them is something highly personal.
When I was writing the screenplay for “The Cherokee Word for Water,” a biopic based on the life of Wilma Mankiller, first female chief of the Cherokee Nation, I visited Oklahoma several times to interview Wilma and her husband, Charlie Soap. Neither they nor other members of the tribe had anything good to say about that portion of the 820,000 people claiming to have Cherokee ancestry who are not enrolled members of any tribe. They consider most of such claims to be self-serving historical delusions, but the number of such claims just keeps on growing.
It is becoming very fashionable. But those on the rolls do not want to share the casino money with their credit cousins. DNA or not.
I think that this episode displays how different sides of the political spectrum respond. There are people on the left of the spectrum who are criticizing Warren for claiming Native American heritage without bearing the burden…saying this should end any thought of her as a viable candidate for higher office. Maybe it should and maybe it shouldn’t. I would also point to the swift dismissal of Al Franken. Compare this to how those on the right end of the spectrum respond to charges of abuse and inappropriate behavior by saying “it’s ok he is our guy.” This will probably be criticized but I think sexual assault is a worse offense than claiming that you had an ancestor who was from any particular part of the world. I don’t know if Warren deserves criticism from the Native American population…that isn’t for me to say. I do know that the left is MUCH more likely to eat itself….
Warren made no profit. She gained no benefit. However REPUBLICAN, second in command in the House, Kevin McCarthy’s relatives did gain both benefit and great profit in NO BID government contracts from claiming Native American ancestry. Will Trump call him Hiawatha or Geronimo? or will Limbaugh? or will FOX? No, the (R) trumps all ethics or fairness on the right. http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-na-pol-mccarthy-contracts-20181014-story.html
Warren said she was told by her family that one of her ancestors was Native American, in the same way as nearly all of us are told by our families what our ancestry is, and she had no compelling reason to disbelieve it. This is one of those utterly banal issues that for some bizarre reason registers with right-wing nuts, and is consistent with the same juvenile mentality that they displayed in haranguing Obama for eating Dijon mustard.
Of course, there is not a shred of evidence that Warren identified as American Indian to improve her college admission chances (as is usually the claim), or to obtain any other tangible benefit. None. This is just one of those fact-free Republican B.S. talking points that inevitably gains traction with its gullible base. It’s too bad that Bill Maher’s suggestion that Dolt-45 was the child of an orangutan didn’t gain as much traction, since there’s likely much more truth to that rumor.
There is plenty of undeniable evidence that Warren let it be known to prospective employers that she was a minority, and that two employers, Penn and Harvard, counted her and publicly announced her as such.
Warren should have her job applications released to prove she did not falsely claim minority status on them.
Can you cite us to the “plenty of undeniable evidence that Warren let it be known to prospective employers that she was a minority.” The Boston Globe investigation says that: (1) she changed her designation from Caucasian to Native American 2 years AFTER she was hired, and (2) it was unclear whether Harvard was aware of that claim but quite clear that it was not a factor in her hire at Harvard.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/09/01/did-claiming-native-american-heritage-actually-help-elizabeth-warren-get-ahead-but-complicated/wUZZcrKKEOUv5Spnb7IO0K/story.html
And again, she had been told she had Native American ancestry and had no reason to doubt it! At worst she was simply mistaken. This is not a case of fraud or dishonesty.
The Globe (now a subsidiary of the NYT) has been churning out non-stop puff pieces on Warren that willfully obfuscate and bury damning facts amid streams of hagiography.
Warren was told by her batty Aunt Bee that her grandfather was part Cherokee. Warren took that trivial bit of family lore — which others might consign to cocktail party banter — and turned it into a key, defining element of both her personal and professional identity. That in itself is bizarre.
In 2012, Warren was presented with extensive genealogical evidence that she was not of Cherokee descent. In response, Warren doggedly insisted, based solely on the disproven family lore, that she was Cherokee “down to my toes”. That, too, is bizarre and troubling. She also refused to meet with Cherokee representatives.
As your Globe link proved, Warren did falsely claim federal minority status on at least one job application (Penn). She also expressly announced her alleged minority status to prospective employers for nine years. Both Penn and Harvard listed her as a minority hire. It seems unlikely they would do so, without Warren having formally declared herself one on her application.
All this most definitely rises to the level of dishonesty and fraud (though I suspect an element of delusional fabulism as well.) NB: Knowingly making a false statement on a federal form disbars one from holding public office.
cf.
http://www.pollysgranddaughter.com/p/elizabeth-warren-information.html
Her DNA test shows that she is indeed part Indian, so there was no false claim. Her claim was based on family lore, which has now been proven.
1) All those tests can do is show that you have some markers that are commonly found among certain groups;
2) Finding as little as 1/1,052 genetics typical of American Indians is hardly ‘proof’. Maybe someone can run the numbers, but that seems like too many generations (i.e., before European arrival in the New World) to be possible;
3) A dog’s DNA was recently found by one of those tests to have American Indian ancestry;
4) In any case, the only valid criterion for claiming Cherokee ancestry is descent from a person listed on the Dawes Rolls. Warren never bothered to look up her ‘high-cheekboned’ paw-paw, and when genealogist Twila Barnes exhaustively researched Warren’s ancestry and found no Cherokee ancestors at all, Warren ignored it and refused to meet with Barnes;
5) Warren claimed minority (American Indian) status on at least one job application, despite not meeting the clearly defined, written requirements. That is most definitely a willful false claim.
Nice series of comments Matt. Trump’s transgressions do not excuse hers.
The New York Times sold the Boston Globe in 2013, so it’s inaccurate to claim (as you did) that the Globe is a subsidiary of the Times.
If one is throwing around claims of “dishonesty and fraud,” then one should be careful of ones facts, right? I mean, you can’t honestly say that the Globe is a subsidiary of the New York Times, and yet you did. Hmmm…
Oh for crying out loud; you’re going to accuse a reader of “dishonesty and fraud” because he was “inaccurate” in saying that the Globe is a subsidiary of the New York Times? And that haughty “hmmmm” at the end? Seriously what are you thinking to blow up a mistake into dishonesty and fraud.
You appear to be new here, so read the posting rules. If you can’t post civilly and without insulting readers, please go elsewhere. And you should apologize for the insinuation.
I was unaware of the change in ownership, so honestly believed the NYT to be the owner. That’s a mistake, not a lie.
But go right ahead and use this minor error to dismiss the copious, documented evidence I’ve produced regarding Warren’s willful falsehoods.
I mean, Christine Blasey-Ford was wrong about her two back doors, so nothing she said about BK could be true, amirite?
Part of the reason it gets traction is that some on the left are easily led, and they allow the conservatives to control the discussion.
Dunno if this qualifies Liz Warren as Native American or not, but I’m pretty damn sure Donald Trump is as likely to take the podium at his next Nuremberg rally and address the crowd in perfect Shakespearean iambic pentameter as he is to pay off on the million bucks he promised Warren if her test came back positive for Injun blood.
Precisely none of the conditions of that offer have been met. Truth matters, even when dissing Trump.
“Dunno if this qualifies Liz Warren as Native American or not,”
It obviously does not. Amazing how the hatred of Trump (fair enough) clouds people’s perspective.
Please don’t insult orangutans. Orangetans are fair game.
😎
Trump should be nagged to pay up. He said he would give 1 million dollars to a charity if she had any Indian blood. A million could be a real windfall to some Cherokee school or clinic. Fork it over, Donald!
There have been a lot of mischaracterizations of what Trump actually said and, unfortunately, he left himself some wiggle room. The actual quote is: “I will give you a million dollars to your favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian.” I’m not sure if the test did (or could) show that Warren is “an Indian.”
Even this caveat isn’t quite complete because it also omits context. The test he refers to there is a hypothetical test kit he would toss her if she mentioned her ancestry in debate. The tape is linked above and can also be found, with commentary, here https://althouse.blogspot.com/2018/10/does-trump-owe-elizabeth-warren-1.html
It’s not legitimate to misrepresent what people say.
For 100 bonus points, who, with around 3/8 Native heritage, was a heartbeat away from the US Presidency for 4yrs.
Charles Curtis?
Very good! We have a winner.
When was this, per favore?
A heartbeat away means a VP
Between the wars I & II
That makes it easy
When he was the Vice President. The *Republican* Vice President.
Warren has no ancestors on the Dawes Roll, therefore she is not eligible for membership in any of the three federally-recognized Cherokee tribes.
Warren listed herself as a minority in a law professionals guide from 1986 to 1995.
Penn and Harvard announced Warren as a minority / Native American employee.
Warren claims she told Penn & Harvard about her Indian ancestry only after being hired. Even if true, this is disingenuous, as she publicly listed herself as one.
The critical question is: did Warren check the “American Indian / Alaska Native” on her job applications? If so, Warren knowingly provided false information on a federal form, as the requirements are clearly stated as:
Instead of her dubious and irrelevant 23 and Me results, Warren should instead release her job applications.
Boston Globe: “Ethnicity not a factor in Elizabeth Warren’s rise in law” —
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/09/01/did-claiming-native-american-heritage-actually-help-elizabeth-warren-get-ahead-but-complicated/wUZZcrKKEOUv5Spnb7IO0K/story.html
1) Thanks for providing confirmation that Warren falsely claimed federal minority status on a job application. That’s a crime, but I suppose we should give her a pass as she’s ‘one of us’;
2) Only a Pollyanna would seriously think Warren’s minority status claim had no influence on the hiring decisions of the universities who subsequently proudly publicized Warren as a minority hire;
3) What the hell is wrong with someone who so doggedly insists on claiming to be an American Indian, when incontrovertible evidence has been produced that she is not?
4) If Warren is so fond of her imaginary Indian heritage, why did she do absolutely nothing to connect with Cherokee communities, or to respond to concerns from Cherokees?
5) What we should really be talking about is Warren practicing law without a license and her long track record of representing big corporations in workers’ comp, pension, and product liability cases.
1. Can you cite me to where it says that Warren “falsely claimed federal minority status on a job application”?
2. Only a someone who wants to make up his own facts would continue to insist in the absence of evidence that Warren claimed minority status to obtain employment, and that this status was a factor in obtaining that employment.
3. She claimed she had Native American ancestry — not that she was an Indian.
4. She never claimed to be “fond” of her Cherokee heritage. There are plenty of Black people who don’t belong to the NAACP.
5. Yada, yada, yada.
What other purpose would claiming minority status in an employers’ guide and on job applications serve?
The fact remains that Warren did claim minority status despite not meeting the explicit and clearly defined criteria printed on the damn form. That can only be due to either nefarious intent, or a delusional state of mind. Either are bars to her serving in public office.
“That can only be due to either nefarious intent, or a delusional state of mind. Either are bars to her serving in public office.” If that were indeed the case, Trump would be the first to be barred!
Not even trump’s extreme mental instability justifies a tu quoque.
I simply will not support someone like Warren with such a pattern disturbing behavior.
My point was to ask, using your own words, do you hold Trump to the same standard?
His behavior falls well within the bounds of the 25th amendment.
But I’m still not sure why trump matters here.
Trump matters everywhere 🙂
I just found it interesting the you would disqualify Warren for one lie when the Trumpster racks them up a dozen a day. And re the 25th, of course the Orange one falls within the bounds – none of his cronies would ever determine that he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”. A new Congress might think otherwise.
I still see this as a tu quoque — trump does it worse, so let’s give Warren a pass.
And, while this may be technically a single falsehood on Warren’s part, she’s repeated it over & over, dug up further ridiculous stories to support it, refused to even acknowledge genealogical evidence disproving it, and has now chosen to produce decidedly vague DNA test results to bolster her claim. (It’s interesting that Warren kept the test secret until the results were in.)
But no DNA test can alter the fact that Warren has never been a member of any American Indian tribe, and she knowingly lied about possessing federal minority status on at least one job application and to at least two employers. While she and her sycophants can swear to high heaven there’s no proof she gained any benefit from it, she has yet to explain her reason(s) for doing so.
Warren’s pretendian fetish is bad enough, but when set alongside her other fabulist tendencies — in particular, spinning her years of assisting corporate robber barons steal pensions and renege on workers’ comp & product liability damages as ‘helping the little guy’ — it paints a picture of a seriously disturbed and untrustworthy individual.
No where did I say give Warren a pass. I simply asked you if you are going to dismiss Warren, are you also going to dismiss Trump on the same grounds you stated.
Yes, but it’s a non sequitur. (Or perhaps you assumed that anyone who criticizes Warren must be a trump supporter.)
“I just found it interesting the you would disqualify Warren for one lie when the Trumpster racks them up a dozen a day.”
I cannot speak for him, but if someone dislikes a democrat it does not automatically follow supporting Trump!
Then I suppose that you/he can say so. I am no fan of Warren, and certainly no fan of Trump.
This sounds very impressive Matt, but then I saw you had no response to his strongest objection, “Yada, yada, yada”.
It occurs to me that the universities that hired Warren might have actually insisted she label herself a minority once they knew her family story. After all, the schools have a big incentive to keep the minority numbers up. Warren could have been a reluctant accomplice.
Except she’d already on her own listed herself as a minority in the AALS “Directory of Law Teachers”.
I believe that is what happened. She had no control over what they did.
Yes it was the Patriarchy
She claimed to be a Native American, and that claim seems to be false, but to be a crime it’d probably have to have been a knowingly false claim. Maybe she sincerely believed it, and it’d be hard for anyone to prove otherwise, though it does seem strange to claim an ancestry based on a great great, great grandparent being part Indian, especially when you claimed to be white just a few years before…
It doesn’t take a Rutgers law degree to comprehend the EEOC instructions that state: if you aren’t a formal member of an American Indian tribe, don’t check this box.
Right after Trump releases his tax returns for the last 50 years. Also, when he can go six days without telling 12 lies per day.
Maybe we should ask “John Baron” or “David Dennison” for an opinion on that.
Trump at one point said he’d donate a $1m to charity for her to take a DNA test, now she has he says “who cares”
https://tinyurl.com/ycolsfk3
A bigger question is should she run? Sure I think she’s a huge improvement on Trump but she’ll be 71/72 in Nov 2020, do we really need to be ruled by an out of touch gerontocracy. Frankly, I’d rather vote for someone younger than I am – so since Beto looks set to lose to Cruz 🙁 perhaps he’d consider running for a bigger job in 2 years.
Elizabeth Warren was a hardscrabble Okie before she was ever an effete New England academic.
Run, Liz, run!
Do they have the math wrong, i.e., 1/64th to 1/1024?
One generation back is 50%, not 100%. So 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64 (six generations), 1/128, 1/256, 1/512, 1/1024 (ten generations).
Frankly, anything in that range is a bit silly to be pointing at, unless you grew up in a separate culture. I have black ancestry at 4% and native (south) american at 3%, which gives me an ancestor for each roughly 4-5 generations back. If I were to lay claim to either as my race – for instance, adding myself to a roster – I’d be laughed at.
Interestingly, Snopes rates the issue “mixture,” suggesting there’s no evidence she benefited from the claims, but indicating that “while Warren was at U. Penn. Law School she put herself on the “Minority Law Teacher” list as Native American.”
The Boston Globe says that universities were under pressure to show more diversity in their faculty, and that 3 years AFTER she had been working there, she changed her status from Caucasian to Native American (whether on her own or at the suggestion of Penn State).
The University of Pennsylvania.
That’s a great argument that she didn’t benefit – a fact that I had already presented.
It’s not a great argument that she’s Native American as most people would define one, or that she should be identifying herself as such. Per Snopes, SHE put herself on the list, identifying herself as a minority.
And it wasn’t a university directory – it was the faculty directory of the Association of American Law Schools.
(And she wasn’t at Penn State, either, it was U. Penn.)
I’m just reporting the facts as reported by fact checkers. If they’re incorrect, you might want to update Snopes. Note that they just updated that page recently, given that it already covers her DNA results.
As for your initial question it does seem to me that the math is wrong. N generations back is 1/(2^N) and 2^6 is 64…
Unfortunately the whole thing about her ancestry will become highly divisive and heated and stupid in the next election should she run.
It will indeed. There are no good outcomes here.
I hope that, counting the importance of DNA results, our host will become a candidate for the office of Taoiseach of Ireland. As for me, I hope my Neanderthal roots will qualify for some Diversity points if I ever apply for admission to Harvard University.
“The analysis of Warren’s DNA was done by Carlos D. Bustamante, a Stanford University professor and expert in the field who won a 2010 MacArthur fellowship, also known as a genius grant, for his work on tracking population migration via DNA analysis.”
Are we supposed to be impressed by Bustamante’s credentials? Does his being an “expert in the field” and a MacArthur “genius” add credibility over and above whatever methods were used?
This sounds almost like an appeal to authority rather than to sound science. Or maybe a play for publicity? Is it mere coincidence that Bustamante has an interview (see below) in the MIT Technology Review that appeared just today, along with two rather posed photos of himself?
Or are these concerns of mine totally unwarranted?
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612278/dna-databases-are-too-white-this-man-aims-to-fix-that/
Maybe it was credential-mongering, but I know Carlos and he’s a good scientist. I’d take his word for what he found, though I’m sure other geneticists will look at his data and analysis.
Thanks for the reply, Jerry. That’s reassuring.
I don’t think it’s important that she has Native American DNA, but I think her getting the test and publicizing the results is a pretty strong indication that she’s going to run for President in 2020. After all, I doubt she needed to do it to win reelection in her own state, the only real reason to do this is to cut off one avenue of attack she might face if she runs against Trump for high office.
So, it’s ‘important news’ in that sense.
One of my great grandparents was Scottish. If I claimed I was Scottish, real Scots would laugh in my face.
When Richard III was found, there was a bit of a dust up about where he should be buried with some of his direct descendants (well, his brother’s direct descendants – he had no children we know of) claiming it should be York. Somebody calculated that nearly half of all English people are directly descended from Edward IV.
This idea that what matters is your “blood” is complete bollocks. Your upbringing and the environment you grew up in is important. Genes that come from several generations ago are not.
For a while Ireland and Scotland was providing land for people who left for the new world and that’s a while back now. I think Scotland charged you something for it though. I’m holding back cheapness jokes now. I can’t remember all the details of it but I was thinking – what do they have a population problem that they want us riff-raff back?
Ireland has a severe ageing population problem because less births per head & longer life, thus not nearly enough employed youth to financially service the welfare programs [state pensions included]. I suppose Scotland might be getting there too if they give up on the deep fried Mars bar & street kebab culture. 🙂
When I was last in Ireland [Republic of] twenty years ago you couldn’t turn around without knocking into German & Swiss families who had moved there to farm. Great enticements offered to do so plus the EU farming gravy train.
German car industry is crying out for apprentices & actively advertised among the refugee population – many German non-refugees not happy with that painful medicine!
The world is undergoing large movements of population – a lot of the shift isn’t noticeable & it’s absurd, futile & counter-productive to erect barriers for political popularity reasons when a region actually requires mass youthful labour.
“Genes that come from several generations ago are not (important).”
Wait….what?
You sure about that Jeremy? We are not the sum of our genes, that’s to be sure, but inheritance is the very basis of evolution. Alleles DO matter. How they assort matters a great deal and it’s true that we are the result complex interactions between genes, development and environment. All but all three matter, to greater or lesser degrees, including alleles we inherit from ancestors.
Your genes matter. But your being descended from someone sixth generations back means little because you have few if any dna from one particular individual that far back.
Well, Ol Gregor himself showed that inheritance is particulate, not blended (as Darwin thought); your nth generation ancestor, if direct, DOES contribute to you today. They must – it’s a mathematical certainty.
Senator Warren has 1/64th of her alleles (or is it 1/1024th?) from that long lost Amerind. That may not sound like much but our genome is YOOOGE and we have a lot of genes and non-coding regulatory regions. It seems remote to us, but 1/64th is very recent in genetic terms.
Anyway, her Amerind ancestor may very well contribute to who Senator Warren is today. Genes do matter. Over time alleles get somewhat diluted but not nearly as much as people believe; we humans have surprisingly low genetic diversity for there being so damn many of us.
Take it back twenty generations. You would have about a million ancestors, more or less. William the Conqueror would be one of them. What is the probability that you would have any DNA from William the Conqueror.
See that’s the thing OG, we don’t have that kind of genetic past. That’s because human reproduction is complicated by society. It’s been said that a significant number of modern Europeans are related to Ghenghis Khan. Frankly, I doubt it it, but it is plausible. It’s plausible because of the ways humans survive in society. There have always been social, religious, ethnic, political, and cultural – that is to say non-biological (in sensual stricto)- controls on reproduction. Throw in episodic plagues and famines and you wind up with narrow paths for gene flow. It’s just not as simple as arithmetic.
I did a little reading and got the information I needed to answer my question. Your responses helped. Thanks.
Khan traveled a lot and had hundreds of children. He and his sons went pretty far west leaving children where’re they went. Would not be surprised if his descendants and dna found their way into Europe and spread themselves around.
The context is whether you are part of some cultural group. It mattered not one whit that one of Elizabeth Warren’s ancestors from six generations back was a Native American. She doesn’t look like one and she was not brought up as one.
People get cracked ideas about ancestry. I know a woman who claims to be a direct descendant of one of the Plantagenet kings. I know a man who claims he can trace his Jewish ancestry, unbroken, back to Jerusalem to about year 1CE. (His name is Smith).
And I’ve seen genealogies whose owners trace
their ancestry back to Adam.
Perhaps they mean Adam Smith?
Matthew 1 and Luke 3?
Various kings of Europe used to do this – this is where the Divine Right of Kings is supposed to come in. John Locke was one of the first to say how the data quality here is, to put it mildly, poor.
It’s actually quite probable that this woman is a direct descendant of a Plantagenet King. But it’s not uncommon.It’s also not impossible for a man named Smith to have Jewish ancestry, it’s just unlikely to be through the male line.
After three or four generations it is pretty much meaningless. Interesting, but means very little.
A question that would bear on this is “what is the Indian ancestry of the average white American?” The DNA results put her at between 1/1024th and 1/64th Indian. One source I saw put the average at 0.18% (1/556). If accurate, then she’s probably a bit more Indian than the average white American, but to me it still seems a bit embarrassing to claim an ancestry that contributed less than 2% of your DNA while ignoring the 98+%, especially if, like Warren, you don’t participate in any particularly Indian cultural or tribal activities.
It’s a fun fact about family history, but doesn’t justify claiming to be a minority.
The range cited for her brackets the average fraction for Americans. I don’t see how that counts as “strong evidence”. If I say I am Ruritanian then a finding that I am just as Ruritanian as the average s home who has never heard of Ruritania does not seem like “strong evidence”.
I also wonder why a “proxy” was needed for Cherokee genes. Are there no Cherokees?
Cherokees often say how, if two Cherokees meet who are complete strangers, in about five minutes they can trace a link through relatives or folks they know in common — everybody knows everybody. Nobody knows Elizabeth Warren.
A lot of people know some of their ancestors back to the early 1800s.
If the two Cherokee are from the same part if Oklahoma they would probably find dime overlap.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/12/genetic-study-reveals-surprising-ancestry-many-americans
and
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/06/people-mexico-show-stunning-amount-genetic-diversity
The genetic link, it seems the idea of claiming this irks some sensibilities.
All things equal, if i was the 3 times removed grandparent and alive, i would be claiming that right to any of my grandchildren, no matter where and what they looked like. Whether i had a relationship with these individuals is another matter.
And let’s not forget the Ward Churchill saga in which one can claim to be an American Indian without any substantive proof; just simple self-identification as such.
From Wikipedia: “The [Virginia] Racial Integrity Act[of 1924] was subject to the “Pocahontas exception”—since many influential “First Families of Virginia” (FFV) claimed descent from Pocahontas, a daughter of the Powhatan, the legislature declared that a person could be considered white even if he or she had as much as one-sixteenth Native American ancestry.”
It does not matter if she gained from the claim, only if she tried to.
How on earth can CNN run this headline?
“Elizabeth Warren releases DNA test with ‘strong evidence’ of Native American ancestry”
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/10/15/politics/elizabeth-warren-dna-test-native-american/index.html
More Orwellian than fake news!
Warren claimed her father’s family objected to the marriage because they believed her mother was part Cherokee.
Sounds like bullshit to me.
It is complete nonsense:
http://www.pollysgranddaughter.com/2012/08/when-is-elopement-not-elopement.html
What’s most disturbing is Warren’s almost desperate clinging to her fantasy despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Francis Galton made a helpful diagram to visualize heredity in 1898:
(http://www.esp.org/foundations/genetics/classical/fg-98.pdf)
My 23AndMe results.
I am happy to claim Nigerian, San Bushmen, Malaysian and of course American Cherokee ancestry!
European 94.4%
Sub-Saharan African 2.7%
West African 1.9%
African Hunter-Gatherer 0.3%
Broadly Sub-Saharan African 0.5%
East Asian & Native American 1.8%
Southeast Asian 1.4%
Broadly East Asian & Native American 0.3%
Broadly South Asian 0.9%
I too had sub-Saharan African plus Middle Eastern.
Your ancestors really got around
Me too, I am a South African and have been living in Ireland for more than 20 year.
I don’t care about her ancestry, and it was a foolish mistake for her to bring it back up. It only shows she must have something to worry about. Next.
According to 23andme I have 0.1% Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry (an ancestor sometime in the 18th century) but I’m not gonna run out and buy a kippah.
I really think you should. It is your ancestry and genes are important.
Very interesting but it really means nothing. There are other reasonable to vote for or against her. Not what she put on a form years ago.
You mean there might be other felonious lies yet unknown?
This means
1. She plans to run
2. She will lose, badly, if she does. Just look at what Matt, a trump hater, has been able to do to her in a short period. Add in the sheer stupidity of trumpeting some arcane genetic test as proof of your character, and the offense this has already excited from Cherokee leaders and it adds up to unelectable.
There is always the possibilities of unknown felonies lurking around waiting to be discovered.
I don’t see her as electable either.
Possiblility
not possibilities
And if she gets the Democratic nomination, I bet Matt would vote for her regardless.
I should hope every thinking American would, were it to come down to a contest between her and Donald Trump.
Like Sam Harris, I would vote for a random name out of the phone book over Trump (and that’s really saying something). As he demonstrates daily, Donald Trump is completely unfit to be president — by experience and training, by intellect, by character, and by temperament.
Shades of WFB.
It sounds like you believe like the framers of our constitution that only thinking people should be allowed to vote.
I may have misunderstood your comment.
I will not.
+ 1. I think that, if she runs against Trump in 2020, it will do to the Democrats lasting damage far beyond the election loss. And we can only thank for term limits.
The jokes are beginning.
— Even Ivory soap is only 99.44%
— I have more bourbon in my blood than she has Cherokee in hers.
I wonder if Kamala Harris put her up to this?
The American rightwing — known far and wide for its knee-slapping sense of humor.
Where even a twerp like Greg Guttfeld can pass himself off as a funnyman.
Orrin Hatch tweeted that his DNA shows 1/1024 T Rex, “the rest other dinosaurs.”
OK, I’ll give the old reactionary (or whoever wrote it for him) props for self-deprecation that one; it’s even a little bit funny. 🙂
South park did the most perfect take on this sort of thing, a year ago:
“Unadmixed” is interesting- I know what an admixture is – does a friendly WEIT reader care to elaborate on “unadmixed” in this context?
It men’s even though your dna would add you genetically to the group (admixture) the fact that you have no cultural affiliation or other association prevents you from identifing with, becoming part of, or claiming to be part of the group.
In Cherokee speak if you are not on the Dawes rolls you can’t be admixed by dna. You are unadmixed by the failure of your ancestor to properly register.
Unadmixed means you can’t have a share of the casanio profits. To be crass. Regardless of your dna test.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at how colossally bad at Warren DNA math (and interpreting the math) so many, including those in the media, are.
Based on her results, estimating an ancestor eight generations back…
…of her 254 most recent direct ancestors (parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc., out to 5 “greats”), you could host a family reunion and fill a movie theater with them…and ZERO would have been native American.
Go one more generation back (great-great-great-great-great-great), take those 256 individuals, and fill a second movie theater with them…and the data suggest that ONE of them was a native american.
***
To account for the range of possibilities (6-10 generations), you might need to fill only half a movie theater to get to that relative…or it might take eight movie theaters. :p
This is why Menno Boldt, my friend Raven (and I, as an outsider) say that groups should set *merits* for inclusion, like professions and university degrees, etc.
For me, all things Trump or Republican can be reduced to the following statement, issued by Trump, regarding his view of Ford after Kavanaugh’s confirmation :
“It doesn’t matter. We won.”
Personally, this is deeply settling. It explains everything.
It’s not good – it’s bad – but I don’t need to sweat and fuss and lose sleep about trying to understand … how certain things, like the Warren thing … might change or not … the minds of … opponents. Because “it doesn’t matter.” They “won”.
I can of course work hard to understand things for myself.