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| Elizabeth Warren at a campaign rally in 2012. Credit Tim Pierce |
My response to recent reports that Senator Warren has released DNA results proving she has a pure Native American ancestor appears in her family tree “in the range of 6-10 generations ago.” This would make her between 1/64th and 1/512ths Native American. However, without documentation it is unclear which percentage she is. For comparison, I can prove I am 1/16th French, 1/16th English and 1/16th German. None of which I claim as my identity or "race."
Here was my response:
And this response on Twitter really gets to the heart of the problem:
And this response from an epidemiologist about whether the DNA evidence ties her to actual documented Cherokee or Delaware citizens:To me, it seems like if they know nothing of the person they’re related to, their culture then or now, & need a blood test because they & they’re family have lived as white for generations, they’e evidence of genocide & that fraction is an artifact of genocide not indigeneity.— Ericka Twitty (@ErickaTwitty) October 15, 2018
I also edited my Facebook post (but cannot correct the tweet) because The Boston Globe corrected its math on her possible blood quantum from 1/512ths to 1/1024ths. Interesting tweet regarding this percentage:no, it doesn't. He didn't match her with people that claimed to be Native American. He looked at a sequenced cohorts from Latin American that had a history of admixture. She shared patterns of genetic variation (allele frequencies) with the Native American background— James Jaworski (@jaworskijim) October 15, 2018
So Elizabeth Warren is *possibly* 1/1024 (0.09%) Native American.— Michael Ahrens (@michael_ahrens) October 15, 2018
Scientists say the average European-American is 0.18% Native American. (https://t.co/XU0l1JQO1L)
That'd make Warren even less Native American than the average European-American.
On September 29, 2018, The New York Times reported "Elizabeth Warren Says 2020 Presidential Run Is On the Table." I've been working on a piece for a magazine about ethnic fraud and had alluded in my draft to the harm claims like Warren's alleged Native American ancestry does to Native nations. My editor claimed that Senator Warren could not really be held to the same standard because she had meant no harm by her claims.
What follows is my email response to the editor on U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren's continued championing of her unverified family stories:
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| Muskogee Times Democrat, August 13, 1906, |
If she were to do this with to any other nation, say India, for instance? Insist on Indian ancestry, even be listed in a directory of South East Asian scholars, and even after the government of India asked her to stop, continued to insist upon it? There’s a point where it is no longer innocent but a statement of arrogance and colonial rights over another people. And it is also very poor international relations. Always take an example of Native nations and ask yourself would it be acceptable to do so with any other nation? If not, then to do so is to most likely perpetuating genocidal policies that are encoded in the socio-cultural DNA of America.
And why wouldn't she do that to India, the country? Because they have the political boundaries and weight to demand respect and, of course, because she’d look like a kook. It is the infringement on our political status as nations that makes our identity so assumable. The two are directly related to each other. It is particular galling when it is also done under the cover of genocide perpetuated by the very same white families who benefited from it. And many did pretend to Cherokee ancestry when they thought they could make spurious land claims out of it.
Her need to claim this is simply not as great as the harm such claims create for Native Nations and Native people. The two are deeply tied to one another."
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And in answer to those who feel Native people don't have the right to ask her to honor their sovereignty in this way and that by doing so we could bring about another Trump win, I say let's turn that question around shall we? Would Warren throw the election in this way? Why wouldn't she simply respect Native people on this matter? Would she really throw an election thumb her nose at Native Nations? And if so, what does that mean exactly? And, I will certainly ask these same questions of other potential Democratic candidates like Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker.
Also, The Boston Globe has been doing some interesting coverage of her potential candidacy. They interviewed Harvard colleagues and found zero evidence Warren got her position as a Native American hire. And recent polling of Massachusetts voters shows support for her run for POTUS is still very weak.
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