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Is Elizabeth Warren part Native American?

Is Elizabeth Warren part Native American?

  • Absolutely not -- part of her family denies it.

    Votes: 6 7.7%

  • Absolutely -- part of her family says it's true.

    Votes: 1 1.3%

  • How the hell would I know?

    Votes: 21 26.9%

  • I don't see why this is so unbelievable.

    Votes: 6 7.7%

  • Who cares?

    Votes: 53 67.9%

  • No, seriously, this is the least important issue in the history of anything ever.

    Votes: 26 33.3%
  • Total voters
    78
The word "Indian" continued to be used to instill that Native Americans were outsiders and foreign, for which white people were the true Americans. It is a slur, but one generally accepted.

It is curious how "Indian" remains acceptable to most, while some howl that "redskin" is bigotry - as the people furious about "redskin" still call African-Americans "black" and it entirely ok to refer to "white people." But "red people" and "yellow people" is bigotry.

You try to figure out the PC rules of the moment.
 
Cardinal said:
People with a secondary education or greater generally know to use different words for the indigenous people of the Americas and the people of India, so sure, go ahead and use the word "Indian."
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People who are brainwashed by political correctness are the only ones who get hung up on terminology.
 
Cardinal said:
People with a secondary education or greater generally know to use different words for the indigenous people of the Americas and the people of India, so sure, go ahead and use the word "Indian."
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Indigenous people is the most correct and Indian the most inaccurate.

The power of Hollywood. Do you think there was ever a real occasion where Indians rode in circles around a ring of wagons as the settlers picked them off like a shooting gallery?
 
joko104 said:
The word "Indian" continued to be used to instill that Native Americans were outsiders and foreign, for which white people were the true Americans. It is a slur, but one generally accepted.

It is curious how "Indian" remains acceptable to most, while some howl that "redskin" is bigotry - as the people furious about "redskin" still call African-Americans "black" and it entirely ok to refer to "white people." But "red people" and "yellow people" is bigotry.

You try to figure out the PC rules of the moment.
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It's really nothing to me, I just wanted to help apdst out because he might not have been aware they were two different people from different continents.
 
joko104 said:
Indigenous people is the most correct and Indian the most inaccurate.

The power of Hollywood. Do you think there was ever a real occasion where Indians rode in circles around a ring of wagons as the settlers picked them off like a shooting gallery?
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No idea. Probably not, though.
 
Cardinal said:
It's really nothing to me, I just wanted to help apdst out because he might not have been aware they were two different people from different continents.
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Your track here is quite... entertaining. You're being willfully obtuse to portray political correctness as a virtue.

Carry on.
 
radcen said:
Your track here is quite... entertaining. You're being willfully obtuse to portray political correctness as a virtue.

Carry on.
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Not at all, it's just that some members may be interested in presenting themselves as though they learned a viable trade, got a secondary education...read a book...and I'm just offering my help. I'm certainly not here to judge.
 
Scott Brown is a good guy. However, for him to try and make a big stink out of this is pretty ridiculous. Specially when the GOP base is made up of evangelicals who don't look kindly upon nudies on Cosmopolitan. He really made himself look like a fool by focusing on this "issue". The majority of Americans don't care about the circumstances around Elizabeth Warren's employment 20 years ago anymore than they care about who won the Super Bowl in 2010. It's simply not relevant.
 
Hatuey said:
Scott Brown is a good guy. However, for him to try and make a big stink out of this is pretty ridiculous. Specially when the GOP base is made up of evangelicals who don't look kindly upon nudies on Cosmopolitan. He really made himself look like a fool by focusing on this "issue". The majority of Americans don't care about the circumstances around Elizabeth Warren's employment 20 years ago anymore than they care about who won the Super Bowl in 2010. It's simply not relevant.
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I don't care what she is or thinks she is.

My criticisms aren't based on her self identifying as part Native american for financial gains.

She a hack leftist shill and a rallying point for people that are gullible enough to believe her rhetoric.

Apparently, the Democrats still believe the majority of the American voters are still idiots or they wouldn't be pushing her as a candidate.
 
Fenton said:
I don't care what she is or thinks she is.

My criticisms aren't based on her self identifying as part Native american for financial gains.
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Allegations at best.

She a hack leftist shill and a rallying point for people that are gullible enough to believe her rhetoric.

Apparently, the Democrats still believe the majority of the American voters are still idiots or they wouldn't be pushing her as a candidate.
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So in other words, you don't like her cause she's a leftist? What else is new. Moving on.
 
If you use the criteria natives use then no.
If any % qualifies then maybe depending on hiw long her family has been here. Been here long enough and anyone could have an indian in the woodpile
 
Hatuey said:
Scott Brown is a good guy. However, for him to try and make a big stink out of this is pretty ridiculous. Specially when the GOP base is made up of evangelicals who don't look kindly upon nudies on Cosmopolitan. He really made himself look like a fool by focusing on this "issue". The majority of Americans don't care about the circumstances around Elizabeth Warren's employment 20 years ago anymore than they care about who won the Super Bowl in 2010. It's simply not relevant.
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They care about her integrity. It is relevant to most people.
 
dogtowner said:
If you use the criteria natives use then no.
If any % qualifies then maybe depending on hiw long her family has been here. Been here long enough and anyone could have an indian in the woodpile
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Not me.
 
Sabanist said:
They care about her integrity. It is relevant to most people.
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Integrity is determined by whether a person believes they have heritage which they don't? Look, either way this goes, Elizabeth Warren has plausible deniability. She wouldn't be the first person who believes she has a certain ancestry only to find out years later, that she does not. She stated she had Native Americans in her background and she listed herself as a minority based on the stories she had heard from her family. For you to prove that there was an intent to deceive people (A-la-Iron Eyes Cody) would not only be incredibly hard, you'd literally have to show what she was thinking at the time she made statements about what the stories her family told. Then again, there are literally millions of blacks who claim that they're black when in reality they're a mixture of East Indian, European, African-American and Asian. Are we going to hold them hostage for their politics too? What about Piyush Jindal, Ludmya Bourdeau Love, and Nimrata Nikki Randwana Haley? Are we going to attack them for distancing themselves from their ethnic heritages and shortening/changing their name to seem more American? Are we going to hold them accountable for how they've dealt with their ethnic heritage? Of course not. It's stupid and a personal issue that has had no bearing on why they got elected or their politics. As I said, this is such a minute issue, I just don't care about it anymore than I care that Scott Brown was a nudie for Cosmo 30 years ago. It's irrelevant to his politics, and it's irrelevant to what I think of a person's character. :shrug:
 
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Sabanist said:
They care about her integrity. It is relevant to most people.
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Unless Warren runs for president whether or not she is or isn't, lied or not, is only relevant to the people of MASS. She is their senator and they had to decide and apparently they decided they didn't care. I don't either.
 
Cardinal said:
Pretty cut and dried. Have at it.
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She was part indian when it came to time to apply for a job at Harvard. The rest of the time she didn't talk about it.

Identity politics has gotten to be pretty silly when a woman who looks, acts, and thinks like a typical urban WASP and has never been within 100 miles of an indian reservation can get credit for Native American ancestry on a job application.

There's an indian tribe in Massachusetts that long since all left their reservation for city life, intermingled with the population, and therefore lost the land. Now they are trying to get the tribe rehabilitated and get their land back because they have this vision of building a casino within 30 miles of a major metropolitan area. So they have all these "indians", some of them as blond, blue eyed, and white as you can imagine, demonstrating for their native lands and rights.

If we reward stupid behavior we get more stupid behavior.
 
LowDown said:
She was part indian when it came to time to apply for a job at Harvard. The rest of the time she didn't talk about it.
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It's interesting you would claim to know this. Are you a close friend or family member?

LowDown said:
Identity politics has gotten to be pretty silly when a woman who looks, acts, and thinks like a typical urban WASP and has never been within 100 miles of an indian reservation can get credit for Native American ancestry on a job application.

There's an indian tribe in Massachusetts that long since all left their reservation for city life, intermingled with the population, and therefore lost the land. Now they are trying to get the tribe rehabilitated and get their land back because they have this vision of building a casino within 30 miles of a major metropolitan area. So they have all these "indians", some of them as blond, blue eyed, and white as you can imagine, demonstrating for their native lands and rights.

If we reward stupid behavior we get more stupid behavior.
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Nice rant.
 
I never ended up voting in the poll. I think the most likely option was not included.

There should have been an option " Elizabeth Warren believed she was part Native American."

I think she believed family lore.

I never thought to challenge my own family lore, but when creating a family tree, I discovered some of my own family lore was accurate, other was at best, unprovable. If I repeated my own family lore, I would not be lying. If after I found out the lore was highly questionable, that is a different issue.

I consider this whole topic to be desperate attempts to avoid speaking to issues by way of character assassination.
 
year2late said:
I never ended up voting in the poll. I think the most likely option was not included.

There should have been an option " Elizabeth Warren believed she was part Native American."

I think she believed family lore.

I never thought to challenge my own family lore, but when creating a family tree, I discovered some of my own family lore was accurate, other was at best, unprovable. If I repeated my own family lore, I would not be lying. If after I found out the lore was highly questionable, that is a different issue.

I consider this whole topic to be desperate attempts to avoid speaking to issues by way of character assassination.
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Let's go with the "family lore" angle. Presuming that is indeed what she did, at what point is one of "X" ethnic class vs merely having some of "X" heritage in their family background?

Or, would it not matter? If it wouldn't matter, then anyone with an ancestor 8 generations ago, for example, as an "X" ethnicity would qualify me as being "X" also. The fact that every single other person in my lineage before and after was "Y" would be irrelevant. I'm "X".
 
radcen said:
Let's go with the "family lore" angle. Presuming that is indeed what she did, at what point is one of "X" ethnic class vs merely having some of "X" heritage in their family background?

Or, would it not matter? If it wouldn't matter, then anyone with an ancestor 8 generations ago, for example, as an "X" ethnicity would qualify me as being "X" also. The fact that every single other person in my lineage before and after was "Y" would be irrelevant. I'm "X".
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Well, the question isn't "Is Elizabeth Warren a Native American?" but "Is Elizabeth Warren part Native American?" As to the question of whether that part of her is significant is entirely subjective. It's like asking "How many rituals and rules must you observe before you can be considered a Christian?" For everyone you ask you'll almost certainly get a different answer. For such a subjective thing as this, it's enough for me that someone considers that part of themselves significant for them.

Likewise if someone considers that one Jewish relative they had a hundred generations back important, then it's not up to me to say they shouldn't consider it so. That person wouldn't be as Jewy as me, but then in all fairness there probably aren't any Orthodox Jews who would recognize my Jewishness at all.

And let's be fair regarding the tribes' decision to not recognize Warren as Native American. They are perfectly free to do so, and in most ways I not only respect but sympathize with their reasoning, but at the end of the day they're still ultimately using a subject standard as well.
 
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Hatuey said:
Integrity is determined by whether a person believes they have heritage which they don't? Look, either way this goes, Elizabeth Warren has plausible deniability. She wouldn't be the first person who believes she has a certain ancestry only to find out years later, that she does not. She stated she had Native Americans in her background and she listed herself as a minority based on the stories she had heard from her family. For you to prove that there was an intent to deceive people (A-la-Iron Eyes Cody) would not only be incredibly hard, you'd literally have to show what she was thinking at the time she made statements about what the stories her family told. Then again, there are literally millions of blacks who claim that they're black when in reality they're a mixture of East Indian, European, African-American and Asian. Are we going to hold them hostage for their politics too? What about Piyush Jindal, Ludmya Bourdeau Love, and Nimrata Nikki Randwana Haley? Are we going to attack them for distancing themselves from their ethnic heritages and shortening/changing their name to seem more American? Are we going to hold them accountable for how they've dealt with their ethnic heritage? Of course not. It's stupid and a personal issue that has had no bearing on why they got elected or their politics. As I said, this is such a minute issue, I just don't care about it anymore than I care that Scott Brown was a nudie for Cosmo 30 years ago. It's irrelevant to his politics, and it's irrelevant to what I think of a person's character. :shrug:
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Integrity is not claiming something you are not. If you do not know, dont claim you are. You can defend her, thats your right, but she is dishonest and most americans can see it.
 
Buying into family lore and actually being recognized in a publication as a member of a minority group are far different.

Its family lore in my family that we descend from germany. Ive never seen any evidence if that so i do not tell people im german.
 
Perotista said:
Unless Warren runs for president whether or not she is or isn't, lied or not, is only relevant to the people of MASS. She is their senator and they had to decide and apparently they decided they didn't care. I don't either.
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Wrong. She is a us senator. She influences national legislation, not just mass. Its relevant to everyone.
 
Cardinal said:
Well, the question isn't "Is Elizabeth Warren a Native American?" but "Is Elizabeth Warren part Native American?" As to the question of whether that part of her is significant is entirely subjective. It's like asking "How many rituals and rules must you observe before you can be considered a Christian?" For everyone you ask you'll almost certainly get a different answer. For such a subjective thing as this, it's enough for me that someone considers that part of themselves significant for them.

Likewise if someone considers that one Jewish relative they had a hundred generations back important, then it's not up to me to say they shouldn't consider it so. That person wouldn't be as Jewy as me, but then in all fairness there probably aren't any Orthodox Jews who would recognize my Jewishness at all.

And let's be fair regarding the tribes' decision to not recognize Warren as Native American. They are perfectly free to do so, and in most ways I not only respect but sympathize with their reasoning, but at the end of the day they're still ultimately using a subject standard as well.
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May not have been the original question, but that was indeed my question in response to the other poster. Where's the line?
 
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