Posted on 07/02/2012 2:54:18 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Newly uncovered documents posted on a blog show that two ancestors of Massachusetts U.S. Senate hopeful Elizabeth Warren were listed on government forms as “white,” despite the Democratic candidate repeatedly saying that she comes from Native American heritage.
Cherokee genealogist Twila Barnes posted census data on her blog this weekend that she says shows that Warren’s mother, Pauline Herring, listed herself as “white” in 1940.
Barnes also posted a death certificate for Warren’s “Aunt Bea,” who was listed as “white” on the form. Elizabeth Warren’s name is listed on the death certificate.
The Democratic candidate once famously cited her Aunt Bea’s characteristically Native American “high cheekbones”as evidence of her American-Indian ancestry.
Warren has been embroiled in a controversy over her claimed heritage ever since it was revealed that the Harvard law professor once touted herself as an American Indian minority.
She has since struggled to prove this, and critics argue that she claimed that heritage to further her career.
Barnes’ revelation that Warren’s mother identified as “white” conflicts with a story she has told about her parents eloping over her mother’s heritage.
“In the 1930s, when my parents got married, these were hard issues,” Warren said. “My father’s family so objected to my mother’s Native American heritage that my mother told me they had to elope.”
Nah...probably not.
DNA tests can prove if she has even a drop.
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Not to defend her but there are a lot of people that would list themselves as “white” for various reasons. Think about how many light skinned blacks did this in the not so distant past.
My dad’s mom hated that she was part Cherokee and would lie about it.
“DNA tests can prove if she has even a drop.”
Actually, no. Heredity doesn’t quite work that way, nor does genealogical DNA testing function like your statement would imply.
Let’s start with the basics - if you were to conceive a child said child would derive 50% of his or her genetic material from you and 50% from his or her other parent (ignoring trisomy or some other form of aneuploidy, and further ignoring the added complexities that recombination would bring into the following definition). Likewise, should said child mature and go on to conceive a grandchild for you, said grandchild would inherit 50% of his or her genetic material from one if his or her parents, and the other 50% from the other parent.
Stop. Which chromosomes and alleles did your hypothetical grandchild inherit from YOU? He or she didn’t by definition inherit 25% of his or her genome from you, although that’s certainly a possibility and is likely close to the statistical mean. It’s possible that your grandchild has received 50% of his or her genetic makeup from you, and it’s possible that he or she has received 0% from you (ignoring the possibility of inbreeding). It is functionally possible that your genetic line could completely die out, even though your offspring continue to live and breed, with your biological grandchildren or great grandchildren having absolutely no direct inheritance of genetic material from you personally.
It is important to understand the effect that degrees of separation have upon population genetics. Each time you take the genetic deck of cards, shuffle it, halve it, and shuffle it again in with another half of a different deck, you move by some degrees away from the origin of the cards. With enough shuffling and halving, it’s not just a possibility but a CERTAINTY that some cards will be lost forever, never to be seen again. Given luck, or sufficient shuffling, you will reach a point where you lose an entire deck.
It’s physically possible for a pair of siblings, with the same father and mother, to have precisely zero shared genetic material. Infinitesimally improbable, granted, and possibly has never occurred and may never occur, but it is still functionally possible. The specifics of meiosis adds in some additional complexity to the equation that makes this even more amazingly unlikely, but it still remains a possibility.
That’s in a nutshell how inheritance functions. In reality it’s quite a bit more complicated, but that should serve well enough as a basic illustration. The summary of that is as follows: just because you are a bona fide direct biological descendant of a person many generations back doesn’t guarantee that you share any of his or her genetic material - it could easily have been lost in the shuffling that takes place each generation.
The issue of genealogical DNA testing muddies the waters even further. Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA analysis are the most common methods used for private individuals to track their ancestry, although some studies and potentially some private genealogical testing services track autosomal DNA.
The problem with mitochondrial DNA analysis is that it’s often difficult to associate a given set of variations on an X-chromosome to a specific geographic area or specific cultural group. Y-chromosomal DNA is much more easily associated with a specific peoples, but conversely it tends to disappear quickly when a new civilization becomes dominant in an area. Basically, when a new and powerful tribe or civilization conquers another tribe or civilization, historically there’s often lots of rapine and the conquerors are apt to take slaves or wives from the women of the vanquished people.
Likewise, the males of the vanquished tribe or civilization get the short end of the genetic and societal stick, if they weren’t slaughtered wholesale by the invaders that is. These realities of ancient, bloody atrocity are reflected well in the genetic record. Mitochondrial DNA tended to survive the destruction of cultures, whereas the the most common Y-chromosomal DNA in a population is often going to be more representative of the most recent and dominant culture.
The point of that explanation being that if your genealogical DNA test is merely looking at your sex chromosomes, the results may tell you nothing useful about specific ancestors of yours. If your mother’s paternal gr-grandfather was a Cherokee fellow, your Y-chromosomal analysis will tell you NOTHING about that fellow, and your mitochondrial analysis may tell you something or it may tell you nothing.
I don't know about high cheekbone listings, but since this Republic is being destroyed bit by bit, I'm thinking of claiming ancestry to my great-great grandmother, who my mother always said was a full-blooded Ojibwa, and moving to the Res.
“She has since struggled to prove this, and critics argue that she claimed that heritage to further her career.”
That statement serves as an indictment against the racial prejudices here in America. It’s truly frightening to think that in modern-day America people are being accused of falsifying their racial pedigree in order to enhance their careers. More disturbing is the realization that lying about your race could indeed enhance your career prospects in today’s world.
It’s even more disturbing to realize that such extreme and blatant forms of racism are taking place under the farcical guise of anti-racism, because our vociferous and repugnant liberals are so obsessed with race that they consider it a badge of honor to claim to be anything but white.
I want my damn country back - this madness is just not healthy nor if allowed to continue could it ever conceivably result in a better, brighter future for coming generations of Americans.
Had to stop at least one time on our many trips up/down I-95 where you see billboards for 500+ miles marking just how many more miles to see Pedro...
BTW, this nugget just cracks me up...Bernanke worked summers at SOTB while in college...
I remember hearing my parents talk about how they stopped at South of the Border back in January 1954, when it was nothing but a small motel and a coffee shop, it was quaint then and nothing like the huge garish attraction it is now, that was back when the main route north and south was U.S. 301 as I-95 was still in the planning stages.
As for Bernanke working there during the summer? That fits perfectly, an SOB working at SoB.
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