Elizabeth Warren just released her DNA results. It turns out she has some Native American ancestry dating back 6-10 generations, making her somewhere between 1/64th and 1/1024th Native American. Hmm.
Contrary to popular belief, Warren didn’t claim minority status in her college applications. She did claim she was a minority in a commonly referenced directory called the Association of American Law Schools.
Then she recently claimed she didn’t know that her law school, Harvard, was publicly listing her as a minority from the years of 1986 through 1995.
I’m not a presidential candidate, but I believe I must be smarter than Elizabeth Warren, because the reason they were listing you as that is because they were referencing the directory in which YOU LISTED YOURSELF AS THAT.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Warren claims she identified herself as a Native American because she wanted to “connect with her (living) family members (who mathematically speaking must have been somewhere between 1/16th and 1/4096th Native American.)
Hmm. That’s obviously bullshit. I think she did it because it was considered trendy and exotic!
Now, if you’re on the neo-progressive side of things, you can’t really have a problem with Elizabeth Warren identifying as a Native American just because she has a dubious genetic claim to do so.
Caitlyn Jenner can call Caitlyn Jenner a woman, and Caitlyn Jenner was a man for fifty years and has a Y chromosome.
In fact, scientifically speaking, not culturally speaking, it would be more appropriate for Elizabeth Warren to don a headdress and do a rain dance than it would for Caitlyn Jenner to “use” the women’s bathroom.
Now, it seems pretty clear that Warren abused the system here. If the criteria for calling one’s self Native American were this low, what percentage of Americans would be able to classify themselves as Native?
I don’t know.
I am 1/16th Native American, as my great grandmother, whom I never met, was a full blooded Choctaw from Oklahoma.
Have I, as a fair haired pale white dude, ever checked “minority” status on an application or directory?
No, because people would google me and be like “Fuck This Guy.”
But I am still significantly more Native than Elizabeth Warren.
I don’t know, scientifically, what percentage of white Americans have Native blood. I believe that a lot do. I believe a very significant number of black Americans do as well.
I also believe that, easily, any Mexican person could accurately classify themselves as Native American because back before there were lines drawn on the globe there were a bunch of Native people boning each other, and Mexican people are simply a mixture of those Native people and Spaniards. Native Americans didn’t used to call themselves Native Americans or Mexicans or Mexican Americans. It’s not like someone stopped a Mayan guy in El Paso and asked him for his passport. In fact you’ll notice that Texas, Arizona, Colorado, California, Nevada… these are all hispanic names. The surrounding states, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, these are all Indian names. What’s in the middle? FUCKING NEW MEXICO!
So if everyone with a hint of Native blood such as Elizabeth Warren began to call themselves Native American, at this point the country would be verging on a Native American majority. 
But the situation with Native Americans doesn’t seem to indicate that they have this majority. In fact their situation is dire compared to any other group.
Any Native can tell you that it’s cool to be Native, until it’s not.
It was cool to be Native at Harvard. It wasn’t especially cool to be Native when that Keystone pipeline went down and those people were disenfranchised and subsequently ignored by corporate America and the government which it runs, and then brutalized by the police which that government runs.
And Elizabeth Warren never said anything about it.
Wasn’t she on the Native American text thread?
There are a few interesting issues I can identify here. Firstly, Elizabeth Warren is one of the best elected officials in the country. She founded the Consumer Protection Bureau, which seeks to protect consumers against corporate crime. This is heavily opposed by Republicans, who are opposed to human beings (consumers), protections of any kind for said humans, and are pro corporate crime. She has a strong record of supporting causes which actually have a positive impact on American citizens. Common sense stuff. Like, should we allow mega bank conglomerates to lose all of their money and pass that bill onto tax payers while not sharing their profits with said taxpayers. (No.)
If Elizabeth Warren were a typical Republican candidate, posing as a Native American thirty years ago would be about the ten thousandth most fucked up thing on her record. Compared to Donald Trump, who is a pathological liar and is using the presidency for his own business interests while acting as a Russian agent, defunding the EPA, and actively promoting xenophobia, she is an actual bob-headed Cherokee saint. Or, chief. Or, whatever.
But, Democrats have a much different standard than Republicans. Al Franken was forced to resign over some comical photos while Roy Moore, a veritable pedophile, continued on running (and nearly won.)
There are two factors at play. A) Republicans have no shame. And B) they are allotted the privilege of not having any shame because they are given so much more corporate money than Democrats.
This leads them (if you haven’t noticed) to heavily rely on the misinformation card and to create doubt.
It works, because people are lazy, gullible, and stupid.
Especially people who vote Republican.
Anyways, I have a friend who is a Native American and works with Native American groups on college campuses. He tells me that a big portion of the students who are active in these groups, and who call themselves Native Americans, don’t look like Native Americans, at all.
So, it’s pretty simple. I grew up in Alaska, and I can tell you whether or not someone is a Native American. Just assemble a small panel of people and use the eye test. Elvis? Yes. Johnny Depp? Fuck it, sure. Elizabeth Warren? Get the hell out of my office.
Caitlyn Jenner… Sir we don’t make a size 14 pump.