Elizabeth Warren, Native American?

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In the Scott Brown/Elizabeth Warren race in Massachusetts, it has come to light that that Ms. Warren "minority" status in her academic and legal career. Apparently, her great-great-great grandmother was listed on her marriage certificate as Cherokee more than 100 years ago, which would make he 1/32nd Native American presuming her great-great-great grandmother was full blooded Cherokee which apparently is the only proof she has any Native American heritage. Nothing on the tribe rolls or anything like that. Warren claims that she did so as way to "make friends" and 'share her ancestry' while at Harvard but Harvard used her as an example of a minority hire when they were under criticism for lack of diversity amongst faculty. She also listed herself as Native American in legal directories for 9 years. Some are claiming she did this as a way of advancing her career.



Here's a picture of Ms. Warren, blonde hair blue eyes.

So what do you guys think? Can you claim minority status when you are 97% white? Does the one drop rule still apply?

Honestly, I've thought about making claims like this myself. It always annoys me when I see race asked on an application when it's obviously not just for identification purposes.

The public will hear about this and after a great big yawn, it will be over.

Nowadays, on government forms (such a birth certificates and census forms), you enter what you want for race, and the government can't decide for you. No-one is going to take cranium measurements, like the Nazis used to do.

Quite a lot of members of federally-recognized Indian tribes have European or African ancestry. Probably most Americans who self-identify as mixed race have American Indian ancestry.

Ummm, ummmm. What you mean We, paleface?

ruveyn

http://blog.nmai.si.edu/main/2011/01/wh ... ndian.html

If her great-great-great grandmother (all on the mother's side) had been Jewish rather than Cherokee, then she could be enrolled as a Jewess, could she not?

Enrolled? Are you reading anti-semitic literature again?

ruveyn

She can self identify as whatever she wants although I do find it pretty funny to be claiming such miniscule heritage based on rather dubious sources to begin with. My family has always joked that we had Jewish heritage for various reasons(looks, unusual surname, change in given names) but I would never make such a claim.

The problem arises when she tries to claim some sort of special minority status in a professional or academic setting because of it when the reality is that she is white. About as lily white was they come. It's not surprising that one of the Occupy bandwagoners, who is actually a member of the villainous 1%, would also misrepresent herself as something else she's not.

This is just a distraction from the issues. Get over it, move on. What do you really not like about her, that she's against the super rich not paying taxes?

I self-identify as part Danish, even though it's a small part of my heritage compared to the Irish and English parts, and the reason is that it was important to my mother and to her mother. There was an awareness of it, growing up, that I didn't have of my Irish and English backgrounds. What's important to us about our heritage IS our heritage, whether anyone else likes it or not.

Her misrepresenting herself is relevant to the race. She's already for all intents and purposes lied about her own considerable wealth(lives in a $5 million dollar home with a total net worth upwards of $14 million) and now it's coming out that she misrepresented her race possibly as a way to advance her own career. Fortunately for her, she still has a ways to go to be on the same level of Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut who lied about serving in Vietnam and still won his race.

I have some Mediterranean in me, but I don't go around saying I do because it's so little.

Maybe I will when free college is given out to people of that descent, or when I want to illustrate my sympathises for the struggles of those (my) people.

No. Wrong term? Would that be "considered" a Jewess, instead?

Isn't there some sort of authority that determines who is Jewish?

I'm pretty sure that I couldn't just walk into any Synagogue, and say "Look at me! I'm circumcised! From now on, I'm a Jew!" Unlike becoming an Evangelical Christian, for which there are no formalities for joining--just show up and give your tithe.

I've heard of Asians applying to Harvard who hide their Asian-ness and self-identify as White, to make it more likely that they will be accepted.

I'm an enrolled member of the Cherokee Tribe [the main group in Oklahoma] and can say that she is really no different than a lot of others out there. and unless she has an ancestor on the tribal rolls taken a little over a century ago there probably is no way to really determine the truth of her claim. The government took a count of the tribal members back then and those who participated in it are the only ones whose descendants can officially be called Cherokee today. There are people back then who did not want to participate and I believe their descendants have a very hard time proving their Indian ancestry, even in cases where they obviously *are* Indian.

1/32 may not seem like much, but I have heard of tribal members with even less [something like 1/512.] The Cherokee tribe [especially the group that was moved to Oklahoma] was always very pro-assimilation and intermarriage with whites was commonplace. The principal Chief of the tribe [our equivalent to President, basically] during the removals was only 1/8 Cherokee. The Cherokee have never had any kind of minimum blood quantum, which is why they are one of the larger tribes.

I think if she does not have an ancestor on the tribal roll [and they do not mention which of the three officially recognized tribes of Cherokee in the US she is claiming] she should not claim it.

I'm 5/16 Cherokee by the way, although apparently I also have another tribe, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs only allows a person to "officially" be one tribe. I do believe I could enroll in the second tribe, it would depend on each tribe's rules., although I believe it is allowed because my grandfather is enrolled in both tribes.

If that was true, she'd look like this:



I've never seen a white person in my life, and there are remarkably few black people on this planet. If anything proves that race is mostly a social construct, it's the fact that people look at a person with peach-colored skin and think "white". This doesn't happen when we look at a peach-colored wall that has the exact same shade of peach as Ms. Warren's skin tone. This demonstrates that learned racial stereotypes can alter our perception.

A bit more on topic: I can understand the reasoning behind affirmative action policies, but I think they keep racial stereotypes alive and prevent us from overcoming racism. It might not be the best way to address social inequality, which is the real problem behind the underrepresentation of social groups (not "races") in academic and other settings.

One advantage to official enrollment is free medical care from the Indian Health Service.

I wonder if some tribes will allow non-members to enroll, through adoption or other means? As one may become a naturalized US citizen? Perhaps they could think of selling enrollments, for people who want the free medical care.