Here’s a reasonable take on Warren’s DNA results:
Using this data, the original analysis, which was prepared by a respected geneticist, determined that five segments of Sen. Warren’s DNA — totaling about 12.3 million bases (“letters”) — are of Native American ancestry. That might sound like a lot, but the human genome contains more than 3.2 billion bases, which means that only about 0.4% of Sen. Warren’s DNA sequence can be attributed to Native American ancestry.
Thus, the vast, vast majority of her DNA is of European descent. Though her pedigree probably contains a Native American ancestor, he or she existed six to ten generations ago. If a generation is roughly 25 years, that means that Sen. Warren’s (possibly one and only) Native American ancestor lived 150 to 250 years ago.
While that means that Sen. Warren is technically correct that she has Native American ancestry, it falls far short of her rather boastful claims: “I am very proud of my heritage… These are my family stories. This is what my brothers and I were told by my mom and my dad, my mamaw and my papaw. This is our lives. And I’m very proud of it.” Alex Berezow, “Elizabeth Warren’s DNA Test Tells Us Nothing” at American Council on cience and Health
Yes, that was the problem.
It’s true, people sometimes make up stuff about themselves and come to believe it, and it doesn’t usually matter. As Berezow adds, “I’m proud of my heritage, as well. I might be related to Charlemagne. And Nefertiti. And you probably are, too.” We could all make up stories about ourselves around the marshmallow roast if we wanted to.
But in the age of legal affirmative action and identity politics, it does matter when a major politician makes such claims because they involve entitlements, benefits, and the historical record. Or, as in her case, they do but shouldn’t.
It’s been a curious controversy. For example, there was Warren’s supporters’ tone-deafness to statements like this:
In a stunning rebuke, the Cherokee Nation released a statement saying, “Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage,” and that Warren’s DNA test “makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven.” Ben Shapiro, “Democrats Know They Can Always Count on the Media” at Townhall
“When my momma was 19, and my daddy was 20, they eloped,” she said of her parents, because her father’s family did not approve of his marriage to Warren’s mother, “because my mother’s family … was part Native American”. Jamiles Lartey, “Elizabeth Warren’s DNA release proves it: she’s running for president” at The Guardian
This is a dramatic claim about events in living history. That is, if Warren is 69, her parents were contemporaries of mine (O’Leary for News). If her parents had to elope in the mid-twentieth century because of racism—based on so slight a connection as they must have had to any “race” other than the current census majority in the US—they, and later she, must have lived in an odd community indeed. Yet none of her supporters seem suspicious…
No wonder it is hard to get people’s attention for the progressive war on science.
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See also: Elizabeth Warren Agrees With the Ku Klux Klan on the “One Drop Rule” (Barry Arrington)
and
Science writer: Academia is in meltdown Berezow: A new survey by Gallup shows that only 48% of U.S. adults have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in academia, down from 57% in 2015.
For years Cherokees have been fighting against Warren’s lie, yet she refuses to apologize
I’ve seen this claim that Warren has benefited from her claims about having Native American ancestry, but I haven’t seen anyone say what these benefits are, other than being listed as being a member of a minority, and waved around as one. Does anyone have any evidence that she has benefited beyond this?
I think this is what most people are referring to. That’s certainly been central to her political career.
Additionally, I *think* that one school she taught at used her minority status to fill minority requirements for their school.
Timeline of Elizabeth Warren’s Minority Claim
Politicians are notorious for making claims about themselves that are not true. Trump claims to be a genius, and claimed to have bone spurs, and claimed that he didn’t have sex with Stormy Daniels. 🙂 Clinton claimed that he “never had sexual relations with that woman”. How many claim to be religious who are not?
This item, from one of Warren’s former students at Harvard, Jennifer Braceras, provides much-needed context: Harvard was under enormous pressure to hire visible minority female profs.
Braceras stresses that Warren was an excellent teacher but it does appear to be a historical fact that the “Native American” attribution was a selling point.
Did Warren allow various academic institutions to list or represent her as a “woman of color” or a member of a minority group such as Native American.
Yes.
Did she identify herself on various forms as native American or a minority group?
Yes.
Should she have done that based on stories told her by relatives?
No.
Did she ever claim to be a full-blooded Cherokee?
No.
Did she ever claim her native American heritage qualified her for membership of the Cherokee nation?
No.
Did she ever apply for membership of the Cherokee nation?
No.
Has she ever drawn or obtained significant benefit from her claim of native American heritage?
No.
The more serious issue is not the claim itself – it’s a storm in a teacup – but the fact that it has handed Trump a weapon with which to belabor her and distract attention from his more pressing problems. Worse than that, though, I think it has seriously undermined her credibility as a potential Democratic candidate for the Presidency. She looks as if she has been tactically outmaneuvered by Trump and thrown on the defensive. Unless she can get out in front of this quickly and effectively, she will be seen a just another ivory tower academic totally out of her depth in the dirty, backstabbing, cut-and-thrust of politics at this level.
What she should have done is admit what she had done, say she was sorry but, at worst, it was an exaggeration based on what she had been told by her family. When Trump challenged her with his million-dollar bet she should have countered immediately with an I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours offer, in other words, I’ll release the results of a DNA test when you release your tax returns.
Even worse for Warren is that a pornstar, Stormy Daniels, is already showing herself as more effective at this sort of infighting. When Trump called her “horseface” she shot straight back with “Game on, Tiny!” If she ever ran she’d get my vote.
It just keeps getting even more bizarre:
Truth truly is stranger than the fiction that lives inside Warren’s head.
Really? You quote someone not involved in hiring Warren who says it might have been Warren has wheeled out several people who were involved in hiring her who say it was not.
And this argument is nonsensical:
If her ethnicity was a part of why she was hired, it would, pretty much by definition, have to have come up in discussions. That’s how these things work.
Bob O’H at 9, you wrote, “If her ethnicity was a part of why she was hired, it would, pretty much by definition, have to have come up in discussions. That’s how these things work.”
No, that is not how these things work. When people are being hired in part because of a “sensitive” qualification that is widely known, no one mentions it because everyone knows it and discussion can be risky. If you don’t know, you aren’t supposed to be at the meeting.
News – sorry, but I have been part of these discussions, so I know first-hand how they work. Even when there have been these sorts of biases, they have been raised (either directly or indirectly). If they are not, then people will tend to make the decision based more on what is mentioned in the discussions.
I see you haven’t responded at all to my point that several people with direct knowledge of the discussions have said her ethnicity wasn’t relevant to the decisions. If you can’t give a convincing response to that, then perhaps you’re backing the wrong horse.
Bob:
How about: “We are not going to make ourselves look even more like idiots than we already have when we touted this blonde, blue-eyed woman as a “woman of color,” by flat out admitting that one of the reasons we hired this blonde, blue-eyed woman was to tout her as a “woman of color.” This is rather obvious Bob. That you can’t see the obvious is sad.
It is also sad that you insist on defending the indefensible.
Seversky
Lie.
She signed her contribution to the Pow Wow Chow cookbook “Elizabeth Warren — Cherokee.” This is widely known.
Barry – even people who aren’t full-blooded Cherokee can claim membership. This is from their own instructions:
So I don’t see how the fact her name was listed as “Cherokee” can be used to infer she claimed to be a full-blooded Cherokee: even the Cherokee Nation don’t say their members have to be full-blooded.
LoL. What a fraud.