Elizabeth Warren Ancestry Thread

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RecoveringYuppy said:
Yes, yes, I left out a keyword, I noticed and edited. "not" makes a big difference. I hope this is clear from my earlier posts.
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Huh? It's the very epitome of self-identification in the universe I occupy.

When left-leaning people indulge in this sort of absurd fact-free nonsense, they forfeit a powerful rhetorical advantage.
 
d4m10n said:
If we choose to use Aussie politics as the baseline for centrism while discussing U.S. politics, yes. Otherwise, no.
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It would be sort of similar in any European or Scandinavian country (except Hungary), really. And New Zealand.

FYI, Australian politics looks far more like California. That state has been denigrated by various sectors in the USA as some sort of lefty socialist haven. To us, it looks "sorta normal".

She has been creating progressive reforms designed to protect citizens against unbridled corporate power for quite awhile now.
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I'm not saying her policies are right or even good. Just that they are more or less par for the course for candidates seeking to hold the center of politics in most other countries. Protecting the majority against the extremes of the extremes, so to speak.
 
varwoche said:
Huh? It's the very epitome of self-identification in the universe I occupy.
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Which of these constitutes identifying yourself to someone:
1. Saying your name to them.
2. Writing your name down in a secret location you expect they will never see.
 
Mumbles said:
It's almost funny watching people (who almost always non-black) try to separate Obama, and only him, from other black people, by desperately searching for reasons why he isn't actually a black American.
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To understand this behavior you have to know why they are doing it.

It actually has nothing to do with race. Under normal circumstances they would have no trouble identifying Obama as black. But Obama has another attribute that makes everything else 'pale' in comparison - he's a Democrat.

They may be racists, but in this case they will ignore their feelings because the most important thing is to never let the 'other side' have anything positive. So Obama is both black and not black, depending on the slur being aimed at him. And they don't care that we can see right through their nonsense, because we are not the audience - they are. The goal is to prevent them from ever wavering in their total disdain for the 'other side'.

By why act in such a hyper-partisan manner? The answer is simple. Having to find solutions that actually work is hard, and having to compromise is even harder. Blindly supporting whatever your side does while demonizing the other (even if they have same ideas) is much easier, because then you don't have to think. Just stick to the principle of "four legs good, two legs bad" and everything is so much simpler!
 
Norman Alexander said:
I'm not saying her policies are right or even good. Just that they are more or less par for the course for candidates seeking to hold the center of politics in most other countries. Protecting the majority against the extremes of the extremes, so to speak.
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But Australia is extreme. From abortion to gun laws to welfare to taxes, Australia is about as extreme as you can get!

I mean, how much more extreme can you get than killing babies, taking guns away and taxing the rich at 45%?
 
Roger Ramjets said:
But Australia is extreme. From abortion to gun laws to welfare to taxes, Australia is about as extreme as you can get!

I mean, how much more extreme can you get than killing babies, taking guns away and taxing the rich at 45%?
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Taking guns away is not extreme. Most things are not guns, so it isn't taking very much.
 
d4m10n said:
How exactly does that matter, given the topic at hand? Warren isn't trying to appeal to either economic conservatives or social conservatives, so far as I can tell, and certainly not yet.
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In this case, the actual problem is that your version of "the left" is mostly a caricature of college students and "SJWs" that gets bandied about by the likes of Dave Rubin or Ben Shapiro.

In this case, it's mostly Native Americans that are upset with her, since

1) Being a native American is not defined by DNA tests, and

2) She should have known that the white supremacist president (who, for reference, pushes Identity Politics far more than most other people) wouldn't only act worse, particularly since he's outright hated them since he decided to blame them for his own crappy casinos running each other out of business in the 1990s.

And even there, opinions differ. Although I can see exactly where those that are upset are saying.

It's like how Dolt 45 called on Rep. Omar to resign - any right-thinking person knows that it's because she's black and muslim, since he's also an overt antisemite himself. Warren should have known better.
 
Roger Ramjets said:
To understand this behavior you have to know why they are doing it.

It actually has nothing to do with race. Under normal circumstances they would have no trouble identifying Obama as black. But Obama has another attribute that makes everything else 'pale' in comparison - he's a Democrat.

They may be racists, but in this case they will ignore their feelings because the most important thing is to never let the 'other side' have anything positive. So Obama is both black and not black, depending on the slur being aimed at him. And they don't care that we can see right through their nonsense, because we are not the audience - they are. The goal is to prevent them from ever wavering in their total disdain for the 'other side'.
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Eh, I don't see any actual difference between this and plain racism. And for reference, I include the few black people who said this in the lot (as well as the hoteps saying this about Kamala Harris now - although their disdain for women plays into their claims about her).

I don't particularly care for the "what's in their hearts" argument. The answer is "blood and fatty deposits". I care about what people do, and...yeah, they're plainly acting exactly like racists.
 
Silly Green Monkey said:
I am still puzzled by why checking the box for a portion of her ancestry counts as Identifying As That. I checked all the boxes that applied, or I thought applied, until it started including tribal membership and it sounds like Warren stopped about the same time.
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Once again, she did not check a box or multiple boxes. There was a blank line next to race, where she wrote Native American.
 
Mumbles said:
I care about what people do, and...yeah, they're plainly acting exactly like racists.
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You don't understand. If Obama was a Republican you would not have heard a peep from conservatives. Instead of impugning his character, they would be defending it.

Imagine if Obama, as a Republican president, had...

- expanded the use of drones to take out terrorists.

- captured and killed Osama Bin Laden.

- deported more illegals than any other president in history.

- set a 'red line' over Assad's use of chemical weapons in Syria.

- told Russia that he would have 'more flexibility' after the election.

- introduced a healthcare plan based on Romneycare, using private insurers.

- added 12 million jobs and reduced unemployment by 58%.

- boosted corporate profits by 57% and the stock market by 166%.

- saved the gun industry by increasing demand for handguns by 192%.

- increased crude oil production by 77%.

- played golf 333 times during his presidency.

Of course Obama didn't do most of things by himself, but you can bet that if he was a Republican they would give him credit for it. And his racial mix would not be an issue.
 
Mumbles said:
In this case, the actual problem is that your version of "the left" is mostly a caricature of college students and "SJWs" that gets bandied about by the likes of Dave Rubin or Ben Shapiro.

In this case, it's mostly Native Americans that are upset with her, since

1) Being a native American is not defined by DNA tests, and

Being Native American is defined by DNA tests. Being a member of a tribe is not.
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The whole "Oh she said she was Native American but she didn't claim the identity of a Native America" was sort of the corner I figured this would get argued into.

This whole stupid "Identity being this separate and distinct thing apart from all the characteristics and features you have that you can just self-create" kick that we've gotten on in the last few years make zero sense to me.

I don't care what Elizabeth Warren considers herself in her heart of hearts.
 
Mumbles said:
In this case, the actual problem is that your version of "the left" is mostly a caricature of college students and "SJWs" that gets bandied about by the likes of Dave Rubin or Ben Shapiro.
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I'm talking about "the sort of activists who caucus for the Democrats or primary voters who choose to vote in the Democratic primary," as I said upthread. Does this strike you as a Rubinesque caricature, or as a highly relevant population for someone running in a Democratic primary?

Mumbles said:
1) Being a native American is not defined by DNA tests
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Being descended from ancestral populations of aboriginal Americans is detectable by a DNA test, as explained here. Tribal membership is another conceptual category altogether, generally determined by tracing one’s ancestry to a specific member of a specific tribe at a specific time.

My children, for example, can trace their ancestry to the great Lenape War Chief Buckongahelas. That’s cool and all, but if one of their ancestors didn’t happen to show up on the final Dawes Rolls, they wouldn’t be enrolled in the tribe.

Mumbles said:
2) She should have known that the white supremacist president . . . [would] only act worse
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Whatever any given Democratic candidate does, Trump is going to just keep on Trumping. It is in the GOP’s best interests to keep Democrats talking about racial identity, at any rate.

Mumbles said:
Warren should have known better.
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Yes, she should have known that the wokest bits of the left would come after her for culturally misappropriating her own ancestry.
 
d4m10n said:
I'm talking about "the sort of activists who caucus for the Democrats or primary voters who choose to vote in the Democratic primary," as I said upthread. Does this strike you as a Rubinesque caricature, or as a highly relevant population for someone running in a Democratic primary?
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Your version strikes me exactly as I said it did before. The great majority are unconcerned with "cultural appropriation", but are concerned with serious issues like police brutality, health care, and education.

The fact that Republicans attack the first as a "war on cops" or "identity politics" is simply one of many severe examples of *them* dismissing serious concerns when they are put forward by nonwhite people. IOW, more racism.

Being descended from ancestral populations of aboriginal Americans is detectable by a DNA test, as explained here. Tribal membership is another conceptual category altogether, generally determined by tracing one’s ancestry to a specific member of a specific tribe at a specific time.

My children, for example, can trace their ancestry to the great Lenape War Chief Buckongahelas. That’s cool and all, but if one of their ancestors didn’t happen to show up on the final Dawes Rolls, they wouldn’t be enrolled in the tribe.
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And if they couldn't do so, but claimed to be a tribe member based on some old family story, what would many Native Americans say?

Whatever any given Democratic candidate does, Trump is going to just keep on Trumping. It is in the GOP’s best interests to keep Democrats talking about racial identity, at any rate.
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It's a good thing dems keep discussing other issues while Dolt 45 keeps spewing standard-issue white supremacist crap then.

Yes, she should have known that the wokest bits of the left would come after her for culturally misappropriating her own ancestry.
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There's that stereotype again. The only thing her DNA test showed is that she had a far-off ancestors who lived in the Americas. Doesn't even mean that the ancestor was from the region that is currently the US. But We've got Dolt 45 openly mocking/celebrating genocide now, with much of the GOP following his lead.
 
Mumbles said:
The great majority are unconcerned with "cultural appropriation", but are concerned with serious issues like police brutality, health care, and education.
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I sincerely want you to be correct about this, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Mumbles said:
And if they couldn't do so, but claimed to be a tribe member based on some old family story, what would many Native Americans say?
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Good question, but not one that you can answer by talking exclusively to tribal leadership, they are community activists with strong incentives to preserve a bright-line membership test, even one as patently absurd as the Dawes Rolls (a top-down process designed by the federal government to serve its own interests in the process of privatising the communitarian reservation system).

Mumbles said:
It's a good thing dems keep discussing other issues while Dolt 45 keeps spewing standard-issue white supremacist crap then.
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Evidently, you didn’t click the link.
 
d4m10n said:
I sincerely want you to be correct about this, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
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As someone who knows quite a few activists, it's just not something that many people care about. It's like the howling over "trigger warnings" - aside from PTSD and others who've been through truly traumatic things, it's just not a thing. It's sometimes added voluntarily, much like a tv news program well say "hey, this video contains violence, so you may want to get your kids out the room.", but the number of people clamoring for them is negligible.

Good question, but not one that you can answer by talking exclusively to tribal leadership, they are community activists with strong incentives to preserve a bright-line membership test, even one as patently absurd as the Dawes Rolls (a top-down process designed by the federal government to serve its own interests in the process of privatising the communitarian reservation system).
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Yes, but I've also seen quite a few tribal leaders who have accepted her apology, and a few people online that are still upset about it.

Evidently, you didn’t click the link.
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I did - DJ Envy asked her Harris to respond to idiots like Tariq Nasheed who think having a white husband, or a parent from Jamaica and one from India, means you aren't black but who insist that Barack Obama *is*.

This is the same group that claim Bill Cosby was framed for multiple rapes because he was about to buy NBC. Not the brightest bunch.

Since these people are basically unknown outside of the same circle that listens to Breakfast Club, it was a decent place to DJ Envy bring it up and have her slap it back down. The vast majority was other morning show banter, or delving into policy issues - criminal justice reform, the rumor of her locking up parents for truant children (jail was a last resort for children who has missed 30days, and whose parents refused all assistance to correct the issues).

This doesn't have much of anything to do with Warren, though.
 
Brainster said:
Once again, she did not check a box or multiple boxes. There was a blank line next to race, where she wrote Native American.
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Where she was told it would not be shared with anyone.

That makes me wonder about how seriously I should take the State Bar of Texas when they make promises of confidentiality, but it hardly makes me think "what was she trying to gain by anonymously noting her race as NA?"
 
Mumbles said:
As someone who knows quite a few activists, it's just not something that many people care about. It's like the howling over "trigger warnings" - aside from PTSD and others who've been through truly traumatic things, it's just not a thing.
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You have inadvertently picked one of the least convincing analogies possible, given your current interlocutor. I happen to hold an admin role in a large private atheist group. We periodically have giant blow-ups about whether and when to include trigger warnings on our posts. The most recent of these was just last July, resulting in a few hundred comments and not a few rage-quits. (Feel free to PM me if you're an atheist and you'd like to see all the intranecine drama for yourself.)

wareyin said:
What could anyone possibly gain by anonymously answering a question about race?
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A sense of subjective personal identity, perhaps?
 
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Dr. Keith said:
Where she was told it would not be shared with anyone.

That makes me wonder about how seriously I should take the State Bar of Texas when they make promises of confidentiality, but it hardly makes me think "what was she trying to gain by anonymously noting her race as NA?"
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I thought she said she did it for networking purposes.
 
mgidm86 said:
Hillary was never liberal. She may have worn a mask at times (can't think of when) but I see nothing about her that is liberal, now or ever.

Bill Clinton was in office decades ago. He was pretty liberal with his wedding vows ;) but other than that? Not so much.
<snip>
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Thank you for supporting my point.

Although what you say about Hillary and Bill is true, this did not prevent certain people and groups from describing them as "liberal" or "very liberal".

This is why the use of such terms carries little real content unless put in perspective by knowing exactly just what the speaker actually intends by them.

In the cases mentioned it is reasonably clear that the only intent was pejorative.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Are you seriously asking how a person can think a thought?
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No. If I were asking that question, I would have typed "how can a person think a thought?"

Actually, that question seems about as useful as "how can someone invested in wrongly interpreting something fail to understand their error?" For examples, see conservatives attempting to claim some sort of gain from answering a question described as "The following information is for statistical purposes only and will not be disclosed to any person or organization without the express written consent of the attorney".
 
wareyin said:
No. If I were asking that question, I would have typed "how can a person think a thought?"

Actually, that question seems about as useful as "how can someone invested in wrongly interpreting something fail to understand their error?" For examples, see conservatives attempting to claim some sort of gain from answering a question described as "The following information is for statistical purposes only and will not be disclosed to any person or organization without the express written consent of the attorney".
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You asked the question 'what does that mean?' in response to someone answering 'what did she gain?' with 'a subjective sense of personal identity'. The proposal, which I agree with, is that Warren simply felt a little special to have a (precarious) claim to exotic ancestry. A thoroughly human peculiarity shared by millions.

Her mistake was in a) believing it so strongly, in the face of excellent reasons not to, and b) defending the belief so strongly, in the face of even more excellent reasons not to. The result is that she now appears not only silly, a fault which could be forgiven, but incapable of admitting error and terrible at managing controversy. The latter two are rather important skills for would be leaders, in my opinion.
 
I rather think this particular 'controversy' was manufactured to be impossible to manage. Tar Baby and all. The more she struggles to push away the Tar Baby, the more it will stick to her and those who shoved it on her can slither away.
 
TragicMonkey said:
You asked the question 'what does that mean?' in response to someone answering 'what did she gain?' with 'a subjective sense of personal identity'. The proposal, which I agree with, is that Warren simply felt a little special to have a (precarious) claim to exotic ancestry. A thoroughly human peculiarity shared by millions.
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Thank you for answering with an explanation of what "subjective sense of personal identity" means. It comes across as a group of buzzwords, which when spouted off together like that doesn't actually mean anything.

As for whether or not Warren or millions of others feel special by answering a statistical question that will not be (or rather is not supposed to be) ever disclosed to anyone else? I rather doubt that. It seems the opposite of special when done in an anonymous manner for statistical purposes only.
 
Belz... said:
How can you identify yourself to someone if no one can ever see it?
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I fail to see how that has anything to do with SELF identification.

If I'm in private and I write (in sincerity) "I'm a surly clown", and nobody sees it, and I toss the paper in the trash, I have self identified. Sharing my self identification has no bearing on the price of bread.
 
wareyin said:
Thank you for answering with an explanation of what "subjective sense of personal identity" means. It comes across as a group of buzzwords, which when spouted off together like that doesn't actually mean anything.

As for whether or not Warren or millions of others feel special by answering a statistical question that will not be (or rather is not supposed to be) ever disclosed to anyone else? I rather doubt that. It seems the opposite of special when done in an anonymous manner for statistical purposes only.
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It does confirm however, that Warren (just as I did) felt that her Native American heritage was an important part of her ethnic makeup. The dominant culture can seem invisible to those raised in it, which makes the more exotic parts (Irish and Italian and NA for me) stand out more strongly.
 
Belz... said:
Nor I but that wasn't the question you were directly responding to.
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Oh, sorry about that. I revise my answer thusly: You can't, obviously.

Add: OK, I'm back at a computer where I can type away. Inane questions that have one, obvious answer are rather obnoxious -- I prefer not to be addressed like I'm a trained monkey. If you have a point, make it. Said point doesn't depend on an inane question that didn't need to be asked/answered.

(That said, I did misread you initially.)
 
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Silly Green Monkey said:
It does confirm however, that Warren (just as I did) felt that her Native American heritage was an important part of her ethnic makeup. The dominant culture can seem invisible to those raised in it, which makes the more exotic parts (Irish and Italian and NA for me) stand out more strongly.
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Agreed. I know that when I first started exploring my family history, I identified more strongly with certain ethnic groups that I was able to trace. And I've seen it in others, for instance during a trip to Ireland virtually every American I was with either bragged about Irish ancestry, or was struggling to find some link. From the look on the locals' faces, that attitude is so common as to be tiresome. Yet oddly enough, some here would have us believe that they've never heard of it, nor can they conceive of it.
 
d4m10n said:
You have inadvertently picked one of the least convincing analogies possible, given your current interlocutor. I happen to hold an admin role in a large private atheist group. We periodically have giant blow-ups about whether and when to include trigger warnings on our posts. The most recent of these was just last July, resulting in a few hundred comments and not a few rage-quits. (Feel free to PM me if you're an atheist and you'd like to see all the intranecine drama for yourself.)
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No, I've seen more than enough of that already. And the thing is almost nobody who works the phones, or goes door to door, is going to be on that group.

Or here, for that matter. (and despite doing some mentoring work in the past, I don't consider myself to be any sort of activist or political volunteer, so yes, I'm including myself.) Groups like these are a gross distortion of how the overwhelming majority of atheists act in real life, never mind any actual voters or campaign volunteers. As much as online people spent years shrieking about Atheism+, the truth is that nobody cared outside of the specialty forums and youtubers looking for ad revenue.

Same thing on college campuses. Professors worried about "triggers" are concerned about detailed descriptions of rape being used as a weapon of war, graphic descriptions of battles, and the like. Yes, you'll be able to find a few videos of students acting a fool among the roughly 20 million students attending colleges and universities in the US. And what of it? I think you'll agree that the students who are actual veterans, or who had been sexually assaulted, likely swamp even those videos.
 
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