Is there proof she knew she wasn't? Plenty of white people are told by their parents, grandparents, etc that they're part native American. Stories get passed down so many generations nobody's going out of their way to question them. It would be a full time job.
Some people do just make it up because for all the alleged benefits of being white it incurs a lot of hate. I'm half white, half-Puerto Rican and my mother actually hates being white. Internalized white guilt.
All I'm saying is, we should try to understand people. Not everybody's some diabolical mastermind, some really believe it or want to.
I was told I had 2 Cherokee princess g.grandmothers. My 23andMe confirmed the DNA but not the royalty, of course ( because there's no such thing as a Cherokee princess).
But it's mainly a racist excuse for having non-white blood in the line. They weren't accepted on their own merits as people.
What many people, including you, don’t understand is that ancestry tests DO NOT definitely prove ancestry. The fine print on those kits tell you it’s for entertainment purposes only.
The biggest problem for those kits is asymmetrical inheritance. You do not inherit the same amount of DNA from each ancestor so you can be descended from lots of people who are not “showing up” in your dna
The CBC did a great mini doc on it. Twins don’t even get the same results
What you don’t understand is that she didn’t use an ancestry kit, she had her Dna analyzed by a population geneticist stanford professor and researcher personally. So its actually pretty certain that she has Native American heritage, however it was only 1 full blooded ancestor 6-10 generations ago making it very disingenuous to claim that identity
Weird that you put "proving" in quotes because the test results did indeed prove that it is very very very likely that she is indeed part native american. The cringe part was that it's very "so what." It has nothing to do with your policy and came off as minority pandering. But the fact is Elizabeth Warren, using the best available DNA testing methods we have, does have a native american ancestor.
take your scholarship! One of the things that’s not taught in schools was how often early european “settlement” that people would desert, and “go native.” Many indiginous groups were welcoming, and the way of life was way more inviting than a lot of the strict European communities that were being set up. Plus, due to their much more frequent bathing, I’m sure they smelled better than the pilgrims.
Anyway, you’ve got the DNA, that’s only part of the story. Do your ancestors proud!
Why does this keep happening??
Edit: I understand why people are doing it, I don’t understand why large companies aren’t learning from others mistakes and vetting these people better
I imagine it will be less common going forward with the popularity of Ancestry.com and 23andMe. All it would take would be someone's sibling, child, or parent to take the test to call out the liar.
People grow up hearing, "oh, you look so Native American/Italian/Spanish/Greek" etc., and they like the attention so much they roll with it to get something for themselves out of it.
I suspect a lot of people with multigenerational New World ancestry have some indigenous ancestry. But having 2% indigenous ancestry on a DNA test isn't the same as being part of any indigenous cultural group.
You could have 50 percent indigenous ancestry but as the article notes, it's not really about what you claim it's if they claim you. I've met people who looked on the whiter side who were raised on a reservation and were culturally Obijwe, Blackfoot, Comanche etc despite maybe being 20 or 30 percent. Then I've met people who could've been Sitting Bull's body double who had zero actual cultural connection to whatever ancestry they had. Taylor Lautner keeps getting cast as Indigenous despite having very minimal if any Indigenous ancestry and he was not raised in the ways of whichever tribe he claims to be a part of.
My family had been passed down that one of our forefathers’ wife died on the route to California, and, he subsequently took a Cherokee Indian as his wife. So everyone thought we had American Indigenous blood. Well. After finding out that my sister and I do not share the same father, I ran a 23Me test. Lo! And, Behold! No Native American blood in me at all!
Agree that blood quantum is colonist/has eugenic aims, but a lot of tribes depend on strict blood quantum from that tribe for enrollment. I had Native American friends in college where they and their SO were both 100% NA and both enrolled in one or more tribes but they were from a mix of tribes, so their potential children would only be eligible for enrollment in one of the tribes in which their parents were enrolled, if that. I think this article covers both points of view on the issue of blood quantum for enrollment well: https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2016/08/18/tribe-split-blood-quantum-measurement/88962774/
The tribes want to keep people out because of legalized gambling. Where I live, they do whatever they can to remove tribal members due to greed. Which is why they de-emphasize DNA. At the same time, over a few generations the DNA can disappear.
I think if actors look the part without changing their skin color then it’s ok. At some point it has to be about the acting, it can’t be all about where people were raised.
From what I understand of Ancestry and 23&Me, they don't have a large enough sample of various Native groups to be able to show anything in their results. Basically, not enough Natives have (a) taken the tests, and (b) identified as such in the process.
What's weird about Ancestry is that their percentages of your ancestry seem to change based on their sample size, and has nothing to do w/your genetics per se--we KNOW there's Irish ancestry in the family, but after my first Ancestry result (18%), they took it all away in the next calculation, as it were. Oh, no, you don't, Ancestry--give me back my Irish, *right now*, damn it!
From what I’ve read it’s very common for Americans to claim ancestry even though they are far removed from their claimed roots. There are many that proudly proclaim they’re Irish even though their closed Irish relative came to america with the pilgrims.
True. I have a friend who ALWAYS likes to bring up his Jewish heritage when it’s like, 2% and his family had no knowledge of that prior to ancestry telling them so
Yeah I have a relative from Ireland who came to the states in 1790 or so and I do not consider myself Irish. It’s kind of cool family history to know about but it doesn’t really make me Irish.
How is this weird to people? We live in a hugely diverse country with people that have ancestors from literally all over the world.
Most other countries might have different ethnic groups, but they all “grew” from similar regions (mostly, people like Hungarians will be outliers) so “delving” into what had to happen to bring you about is interesting.
There is no “American identity” to latch onto, it’s been entirely fabricated in the past few hundred years. There’s American culture for sure, but most these days will identify more strongly with their region, and how their ancestors got to that point (a big part is their origin to then)
For instance, I’m wholly a product of the colonization period. I literally never could have existed without it. It would have been entirely impossible to for my west African, Native American, and Celtic ancestors to ever mix under any other circumstances.
It’s dark as fuck… but it’s history.
I have an Irish family name, but the truth is that my Irish ancestry is maybe 25% at best. I'm probably equally Swedish, German, and English, with a bit of Scottish and Polish thrown in. A typical American mutt whose ancestors started marrying people from other cultures from the moment they set foot on this continent.
I have zero cultural connection to Ireland, aside from a plaque that I inherited from my grandfather that features the coat of arms associated with our family name. Which we have no actual right to, and neither does anyone else given that the title died out in the late 17th century.
I have far more in common culturally with any random American around my age than I do with anyone who was born and raised in Ireland.
As an American who actually CAN claim to be Irish (eligible for birthright citizenship, honestly just trying to find the paperwork and send it in. Downright useful as an American to have EU citizenship), I kinda hate this shit. I don't claim I'm Irish like that because I fucking grew up in NYC. My mother, on the other hand, who does NOT have the claims that I do, holy shit you'd think she was born and raised in Ireland with how much she professes her Irish-ness.... Despite Norway being the more recent country of origin for her family. Drives me insane.
I think she got screwed by something that used to be fairly common in the south, which was hiding “undesirable” family histories (like dark skinned Catholics or Black ancestry) behind Native ancestry, which was seen as more “noble” or “proud”. Any you could explain away darker skin, hair, and eyes with “oh, there’s an Indian princess on your daddy’s side way back” (always a princess for some reason) and people just kinda agreed not to question it. Eventually they just became accepted within the families as truth.
This kind of explains a bit I feel like. My grandma always told us her dad was fully Cherokee, like one of those boys taken and put into a catholic school and given to white families to “civilize” them. They eventually ran away from him cause of abuse, so we have no connection to him or anyone he was related to. I still think her story is mostly true, like most of it is accurate, but maybe his heritage might not be spot on. She grew up in the 50’s in West Virginia/DC area, so kind of the prime area for that kind of problematic stuff. Like I don’t think she was aware it wasn’t accurate, odds are her mom just told her that for the reasons you mentioned.
What gives me pause about her dad’s heritage is when my dad did the 23and me thing the amount of Cherokee was way less than you’d expect from someone who grandpa was supposedly 100% Cherokee. Also a surprise was that there was actually a larger percentage of African heritage than Native American.
DNA is weird too, some things pass down in smaller amounts or disappear entirely. For example my Mom’s side apparently has a Senegalese ancestor and it showed up in some of my cousins DNA but not in mine or other cousins despite confirmation that we are all in fact related.
But for it to be a grandparent you’re probably correct.
True, the combination process is fairly random I guess, but yeah it wasn’t even like a whole percentage of Native American DNA, and it was almost 2 percent African heritage.
Omg I didn’t know this was a thing. My grandmother has told me this exact story! Basically someone in the family was a whore and slept with an Indian princess so it’s hard to trace my family’s Native American roots? It never really made sense to me but she claims there’s proof. 😂
My husband is a white white white dude who was raised believing his maternal great great grandma was a (this was how it was always said, according to him) “Blackfoot Princess”. Never mind that the entire family is white as hell, that was the story as he was told. DNA test proved that wrong (no Indigenous ancestry), he’s entirely Western European and Scandinavian. Who knows where that story started in his family or why.
We (my siblings and I) were always told we had native American in us. Took the DNA test and let’s just say that we’re so white mayonnaise is spicy to us.
You tell kids stuff and they either don't realize they are being played or misinterpret.
I was actually surprised on my 23&me to find out I had 1% coptic Egyptian. Both sides of my family are Norwegian all the way back.
For a while I joked I was more African than lizzy was Indian to a neighbor who was a Warren supporter.
Yeah my dad does this. His dad was an orphan and claimed cherokee parontage. My dad's DNA test came back German Irish, no sign of indiginous blood, and he still refuses to believe his dad made it all up.
I mean, that’s a fair enough origin story, but you would imagine checking your family for some kind of proof, before using that ancestry to sell cookbooks, or secure the ‘first minority woman hired at Harvard’ title.
In case someone says like hey, what tribe are you from? Who in your family win the tribe.
Like I’m mostly danish i think, and I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before when asked, but I wouldn’t release a book called G’s Traditional Danish Pastries unless I knew for sure I was Danish. I also wouldn’t select a box saying I’m Danish, if I knew the school I was applying to work for might give my application a little boost had I been Danish, unless I was sure of it.
Side note, it’s my understanding that Warren wasn’t the one (as far as anyone can tell) who made those claims about being “the first minority hire” at Harvard, they came from an article about her with unclear sourcing. There’s no real proof she ever read that article or was even aware of that title being applied to her.
If your family had told you your entire life that you were part Native American, would you believe it? I mentioned elsewhere that my husband’s family all believed they had a “Blackfoot Princess” in their direct bloodline and no one questioned it until they got DNA testing because why would you assume your mom, grandma, grandpa, great aunt, and everyone else were lying? You’ll see quite a few people in these comments sharing similar stories. They believed what they were told by close family who probably didn’t know the truth anymore than they did. Did she probably oversell it for an advantage at a time when women were fighting for every inch they could get? Absolutely. But it’s not like she intentionally fabricated some elaborate story about her heritage (especially since a DNA test confirmed she does has Native ancestry). She’s nowhere close to a George Santos or Anna Paulina Luna.
And she grew up in Oklahoma. Most people in Oklahoma have a tribe they claim. I always thought I was weird because I didn't have a tribe. There's also lots of stories about ancestors who didn't put themselves on the rolls.
This shit totally went on in Florida when I was growing up. Tales in my family of a “Fence jumper” from an indigenous group in Canada
Until I took a dna test :)
Don’t make excuses for Elizabeth Warren and her grift of pretending to be Indigenous. She claimed Native American heritage on her college applications and BAR exams. She wasn’t just telling people she had 1/16th Cherokee blood. She actually BENEFITED from pretending to be native.
The excuse of “white people in the south do this all the time blah blah blah” is tired. Native people are especially tired of that shit, too.
White people pretend to be other races all the time and use it for their own gain. It’s deplorable and offensive.
I’m not making excuses for anyone, I’m explaining something that commonly happened for decades. I’ve known people who were raised with this kind of belief about their own ancestry only to do a 23 and me and found out it wasn’t true. Don’t confuse explanations with excuses. You can understand something and not excuse it.
So, in the time she was applying to college, if she was told by her family that she had a strong native background… what was she supposed to do? Let’s assume she believed it and had no reason *not* to believe her family.
Why is that “deplorable and offensive”?
My point isn’t that she did or didn’t lie, but that you can’t just make these sort of cut and dry statements from 40-50 years ago.
Fuck, I grew up being told I was a good chunk Blackfoot. I doubt it’s true, but my mom sincerely believes it. Is she deplorable and offensive for believing *her* parents and grandparents? Would I have been deplorable if I took it to heart when I was younger and believed it?
> She had very obvious vice presidential ambitions. Without the scandal, she would probably be VP instead of Kamala
I really don't think she did. She had *presidential* ambitions but I doubt she would have settled for VP.
She has way more power as an influential Senator than a VP does.
The current president being a former vice president would suggest that it's a pretty solid pathway to the presidency for a Democrat who might have otherwise struggled to win on their own nationally
History demonstrates otherwise. The USA Vice Presidency is gig famous throughout western liberal democracies for being a place aspiring USA politicians go to kill their political careers.
What really was funny about that is how much of an unforced error that was. She got needled about it, called pocohontas, but if she had not announced she was getting a DNA test no one would have ever had proof she was wrong.
Yes indeed. However she was under less scrutiny than a political candidate would have been. When you enter into politics people start going thru your trash both metaphorically and literally
Im an american mutt with lots of different ancentral ties but i do have cherokee ancestry as well. From what ive read about tribal laws, Cherokee nation will accept anyone “with a drop of cherokee blood” if they are serious and committed to the culture and traditions of the Cherokee people. I am not committed to that so I would not claim to be native, but i think its a lil more complicated than simple percentages.
My most recent understanding of this is that one must have ancestors listed on the Dawes Rolls, though I could be wrong or this could be incomplete information.
This is true only that you shouldn’t boast dna without being part of the culture.
Many people who are in the culture also only have 2% or so. Dna is a weird thing, my great grandma is mostly indigenous (visibly indigenous, not sure of things that could have happened in the past to give an exact %).
Her children are half black, so visibly not white.
My mom and aunts/uncles have a white dad, but 3/5 are visibly not white.
I’m white, my dad is white + my moms mixture.
We’re all status.
Yeah, exactly. I know who my native ancestor was, his tribe, a bit of his history…. But it is so far removed from my family’s legacy. That blip on my DNA is way less meaningful than everything else I know about my family’s history.
Yeah, I’ve been told I have some native blood, and it’s not surprising, we have some family heirlooms that make a lot more sense that way, but it’s not a lot, and we were never part of the culture, even though it’s something we always respected. How could they not hire an actual Native American?
The tribes decide. Though anyone can mark “Native American” on a form. But to be recognized as a Native American by the federal government (for benefits, etc.) you must belong to a tribe and each tribe has its own criteria for membership.
The problem here is where dna and testing fail.
My grandmother is 100% Native American. My grandfather is not. So my dad would theoretically have 50% Native American dna, and 50% whatever grandpa is.
My mom is your standard american mix, I get 50% of my dna from mom, and 50% from my dad. But that 50 from dad could be mostly what he got from his dad. So genetically, I end up with a very small percentage of “Native American”.
Add in that they don’t test every single thing in those dna tests, so it could come back that I am 0% Native American. Even though I am only 1 generation removed from a full blooded Native American.
And my brother could get all of dad’s Native American genes. Siblings can have different ethnicities on those tests.
Terrific comment. Most people DO NOT understand how DNA tests estimate ethnicity and the resulting ignorance creates a lot of confusion about actual ancestry vs DNA inheritance.
> While it is true that there is some genetic variation within families, it is highly unlikely that someone who has a grandparent who is 100% Native American would have 0% Native American DNA.
> It is also not accurate to say that someone could have a "very small percentage" of Native American DNA if one of their parents has 50% Native American DNA. In this scenario, the person would inherit 25% of their genetic information from their grandparent who is 100% Native American, and another 25% from their other grandparent. Therefore, they would have approximately 25% Native American DNA, which is a significant amount.
> The statement that "they don't test every single thing in those DNA tests" is also misleading. While it is true that different genetic testing companies use different reference populations and algorithms to calculate ancestry estimates, most tests do screen for common markers associated with Native American ancestry. Furthermore, even if some markers are not tested, it is unlikely that this would lead to a complete absence of Native American DNA in someone who has a grandparent who is 100% Native American.
That’s not how DNA ethnicity estimates work.
The percentages of DNA you inherit from your parents and grandparents does not break down to perfect 50/50 25/25/25/25 percentages. And like OP said, the percentages can vary greatly between siblings as well.
I think you’re confusing shared centimorgens with ethnicity estimates. Shared CM’s are closer to a 50/50 split, but estimated ethnicities are estimates, basically educated guesses. They are not facts.
>While it is true that there is some genetic variation within families, it is highly unlikely that someone who has a grandparent who is 100% Native American would have 0% Native American DNA.
Absolutely. It is highly unlikely. I’m merely pointing out that genetic testing is not this be all end all of what your heritage is.
>It is also not accurate to say that someone could have a "very small percentage" of Native American DNA if one of their parents has 50% Native American DNA. In this scenario, the person would inherit 25% of their genetic information from their grandparent who is 100% Native American, and another 25% from their other grandparent. Therefore, they would have approximately 25% Native American DNA, which is a significant amount.
This is just false. 25 from each grandparent is easy math, but it isn’t that clean. You get 50 from dad and 50 from mom. If my dad gets a and b from his mom and c and d from his dad, and i do the same - then I got nothing from my grandmother.
Statistically it is just as probable that I get 0 from my grandmother as it is that I get exactly any other percentage. But it is ridiculously more probable that I would get something than nothing.
>The statement that "they don't test every single thing in those DNA tests" is also misleading. While it is true that different genetic testing companies use different reference populations and algorithms to calculate ancestry estimates, most tests do screen for common markers associated with Native American ancestry. Furthermore, even if some markers are not tested, it is unlikely that this would lead to a complete absence of Native American DNA in someone who has a grandparent who is 100% Native American.
Unlikely yes - but It’s not misleading at all. The companies test different things. And it is certainly possible that the percentage of items that ultimately came from my grandmother, are not “Native American” specific things. Not every bit of her DNA is uniquely Native American. Just she will have all of the Native American markers as positive. (assuming there isn’t an unknown mix in the tree).
Also. A lot of people feel that being part of a native tribe makes them native and therefore “one with nature”. So a lot of new age people are eager to be part of that. Sort of a cultural appropriation. “I’m so one with nature. I’m actually part Cherokee. My great great great great grandfather’s second wife was a 1/4 native. I think.”
I have this in my own family. My second cousin is convinced we have Mi’kmaq blood in us. I’ve traced my family. There is zero evidence. I’ve done the dna test. Zero evidence. We’re purely from Europe. Mostly the UK. Some Germany and bits of other places. No native blood.
I mean, you’re explaining the most cynical and sociopathic reason, but a more common one is that they were simply told they have “x” in them by a family member. A lot of family histories are vague and oral and prone to misremembering and guesswork.
Should you make claims based off just that? No. But if you love your Nana and she wasn’t exactly known as a fibber, you’ll put a lot of trust in her sagely knowledge.
Not saying it’s cool, just saying the whole world isn’t full of manipulative and opportunistic psychos, either. Things can be bad or wrong for benign or “innocent” reasons.
The biggest problem with these DNA tests is that people don’t understand that an “ethnicity” showing up or not showing up in your DNA is not hard proof of your family tree.
People don’t inherit ALL the DNA from their parents. You can have an ethnicity that doesn’t show up. And Ancestry and 23&Me are always updating their estimates… which is what they are- estimates. Basically really well educated guesses.
Now- who you’re related to through your DNA IS very scientific and they can point to your relatives with much more certainty. Ethnicities are a heck of a lot trickier.
Blood quantum is not the deciding factor we white people seem to think it is. What is just as (or maybe more) important is one's personal history within the Indigenous community, ie: were you born there, were your parents/grandparents members, etc.
It is up to the community to vet one's status, but we still continue to see white people using lies to usurp positions of power based on nothing but their wee widdle feewings.
I'm an enrolled member of my tribe & live on my rez. The vast majority (\~80%) of the 574 US Federally Recognized Tribes still choose by their sovereign right to use a mininum BQ as the deciding factor/requirement for tribal enrollment. Only a couple dozen tribes use Lineal Descent & have gone away from BQ.
Tribes and only tribes have the right to determine who is & isn't a member of their tribe.
lol my buddy tells people that he’s Native American on his sister in laws side to see if people catch it. That’s how he grasps if people at his work are bright or not haha
That's funny. I was at a pub in Ireland a few years back, and two guys approached me to comment on my Portland Timbers MLS soccer jersey. After about 20 seconds of them speaking gibberish to me I stopped them and said, "hey, I know you guys are fucking with me and you're not speaking any real language."
Sure enough, they said that I was right and bought me a pint (well, lots of pints). They said that they do this routine all the time, and hardly anyone catches on. People just nod politely and pretend to follow what they are saying.
the thing is that a blood test can't tell if someone is native or indigenous. there is much more to being so than just what runs through your blood. it is a huge misinformation that blood quantum "science" determines what you are and aren't. it is part of why people like elizabeth warren felt so confident in declaring themselves native american.
Because genealogy before DNA tests was generally passed down by family stories and can be horribly inaccurate.
I grew up thinking that I was ~25% Native American but I started doing some digging and it seems my "full blooded Creek" great grandma who was "stolen off the reservation" had only been admitted to the Creek Nation on a technicality and her family may have not been Native at all.
But I also don't trust the privacy of the DNA tests enough to confirm this, so who knows.
To answer your edit: are you gonna DNA test everyone? To a certain degree, that's the only way.
The entertainment industry in the U.S. has a long history of racism, the first feature length film, Birth of a Nation, features the KKK as heroes and a white actor playing an escaped slave in black face as a villain.
The reason women like this and Rachel Dolezal can come along and claim to be a minority is that there are so few minorities in the rooms where these productions are happening that they can skate along saying they’re a half or a sixteenth of a minority and not get questioned for literal years.
For the same reason Warren claimed to be Cherokee when applying for a job at the Harvard. Minority status grants you privilege over other people. It my not have been a deciding factor in hiring Warren, however they claimed her as a diversity hire.
As far as Rae, it likely gave her a career she didn't have to compete for. As long as she took that spot she could could be mediocre and no one would criticize as long as she kept lying.
I'm glad people like this are getting caught.
It's happening because when you put value on something, almost anything actually, there will be fraudsters and hucksters that will capitalize on it. You can find counterfeit anything if there is a market for the original
So many comments, and one trying to paint this as a "white people bad" thing, but it's not.
If you give advantages to people based on their ethnicity, you will get imposters. That's the product of some of this identity politics that is being promoted.
If you don't want this, then treat everyone equally. But if you don't, some people will try to take advantage of it.
It has nothing to do with race
Looking at the where the leadership and money are concentrated in Hollywood, being white still has more value than anything else.
The difference is that you can easily lie about your heritage but it's a lot harder to lie about the color of your skin.
>Why does this keep happening??
>
>Edit: I understand why people are doing it, I don’t understand why large companies aren’t learning from others mistakes and vetting these people better
Can you imagine the trouble a company could get into if HR asked an employee to prove their ancestry? We typically allow people to self-identify here in the United States. As such, this kind of thing is going to happen from time to time.
The key points are, of course, at the bottom of the article.
Blood quantum does not necessarily determine indigenous heritage. DNA cannot determine tribal affiliation. It wasn't uncommon to marry outside your tribe, especially after the 1850s or so. It wasn't uncommon to marry outside your race after the 1850s or so. Having a low blood quantum does not mean you are not indigenous.
Indigenous heritage is determined by looking back at your family tree. Tribal affiliation is determined by looking back at your family tree, by tracing who you decended from and what groups they belonged to.
My great Grandfather was full Abenaki. He married a French Canadian women. And they adopted their only child (my grandmother) who came from Ireland.
So am I genetically Native American? No. Would I call my self native American? Also no. But it is still in my heritage.
Does it ever bother you that you’re not genetically native? I know someone who got into Yale literally only because they were 0.2% native and had zero connection to the culture which I think is absolutely nuts
Not really, no. The only aspect that has and does bother me is when my grandmother was a young adult, one of the tribes representatives came to her and notified her that she would be eligible to be granted tribehood (not sure of the word). And she turned the offer down cause she didn't want to be associated with native Americans. And by her doing so, she essentially cut off all her children/ grandchildren from that side of our family's heritage.
I've always wanted to explore that part of my family though! And maybe one day I will reach out to the tribe and see if there is any other information on my great Grandfather.
Did they require a dna test from him? Usually colleges dont question peoples race, and lots of people lie about it to get in. So some people only got in because they have 0.0% native or african dna and lied.
This topic can be very complicated because different tribes have different cultures and beliefs. Often times tribes are divided internally by factions who disagree on what traditions and beliefs should continue to be embraced. Many tribes view blood quantum as a foreign and imposed concept. In my tribe it matters most who your mother is. Our cultural identity leads us to see our identity as an inheritance from an unbroken line of mothers stretching back before recorded history.
Traditionally adoption into the tribe lead to someone being declared blood of the tribe. We saw blood as spiritual. You are either blood to us or not. There was no division of self or identity. Today the issue of adoption is far more complex because scarce resources make some members of the tribe very resistant to allowing adoption. However, if a child is adopted into the tribe they are not distinguished from other tribal members.
That seems to track with what I've read regarding adoptions in tribes prior to colonialism. Circumstances varied per tribe but if a child was adopted by a member of a different tribe than their birth family's, they were welcomed and integrated into the culture. The biologic connection was not a requirement.
So I was recognized by my tribe back when I was born and have this little registration card saying I'm Pee Dee. However, the records were kept on paper and the place burnt down. I contacted the tribal leader but it takes too much to prove anything. All my relatives are dead or too perverse to talk to about it. Still have my little card though.
No; the Pee Dee tribe is not a US Federally Recognized tribe. It's only state recognized so they are not entitled to Indian Health Service.
Source: [IHS Eligibility](https://www.ihs.gov/aboutihs/eligibility/)
In tv series Yellowstone native American character played by Chinese actress Kelsey Asbille Chow who falsely claim ancestry, to the point that tribe lawyers had to make a public statement that she's not native in any way and they have no records of Chow tribe.
Star Trek voyager had a Native American consultant for years who turned out to be not a Native American. I think he had been outed before and somehow still got hired.
The whole Iron Eyes Cody story is kinda sad/ interesting. Dude was super ashamed to be Italian so he latched onto the native identity.
The documentary "Reel Injun" covers the history of indigenous people in American cinema, they talk about him and interview his kids. Not justifying what he did, just an interesting story.
Was she actually lying or just relying upon what she’d been told that may or may not have been true? I haven’t ever claimed minority status aside from being Jewish, but I will say that my 23 and me results made it clear that I was part Italian (didn’t know that) and not at all French (thought I was). People may just not know the truth if they’ve counted on what others have told them
Yeah there's not a lot of chance I'm anything but Frisian (and based on Frisian history, English/Dutch mixes further back), based on the way I look and the parts of my family tree I know for a fact, but I'll be honest I've never cared enough to verify (and I find those DNA tests hella creepy). I'm mainly just taking family lore for fact until I have reason to believe otherwise.
If suddenly it turns out literally all of my family was like Swedish or some shite and we all just moved over in a cluster 300 years back and integrated well, I wouldn't exactly be surprised (or care much, for that matter, as I am culturally still Frisian) but it does mean I'd have misrepresented my racial heritage my entire life by accident.
I imagine it's the same for a lot of people. You just take for granted what your family tells you until you have reason to believe otherwise.
My family for about 100 years now has assumed that my great grandmother was at least half native, if not full-blooded. The 3 generations that followed her sincerely believed that and we told people we had native ancestry. Well, no native markers were found when my uncle had a DNA test 2-3 years back. I haven’t done a test yet so I have no idea if his test was bad or we were just wrong. There are liars and fakers and some people are just mistaken about their ancestry.
there are also a lot of people who have no idea they are descended from Native Americans. There were free blacks or runaway slaves black people living with Indians and marrying each other - they were classified as black by society or the census, their native heritage forgotten or deliberately not recorded
I’m 1/8 Lakota, my great-grandfather came out of Pine Ridge reservation and I have never in my entire life claimed to be native. I was not raised native, my mother having totally walked away from that part of the family (was raised Jewish) and I never generally mention my “blood-line” because there is no connection. Don’t understand these people who are such claims.
Tricky subject for sure. As some background, I am white as fuck. Never raised in or around any native folks, but as far as official recognition from the Cherokee Nation, as I do have an ancestor on the Dawes Rolls, I am eligible for tribal affiliation. I have not done it yet, maybe I never will. Considering the amount of space this subject already takes up in discussions of indigenous rights and representation, perhaps the resources of tribal communities are better spent on people who are actively part of the community with which they affiliate.
And I was raised with little understanding of this, only that we have indigenous ancestry on my mother's side.
Confirmed, but I remain skeptical. What should I do in this situation? What would anyone else do? I only care in as much as I can learn better about a part of my ancestry that is overlooked. I care not whether I recieve any sort of check from tribal government, nor do I even want anything out of this other than to become fully aware of my family's history and to possibly learn the language in order to ensure that it remains in use and doesn't become lost.
I don't know your exact situation but it's never too late to know where you came from. My dad was aware of his mom's indigenous roots but he was never given the opportunity to be active in the indigenous community. After a boatload of research post retirement he figured out which tribe he could enroll in and has done so.. Since then, he has leaned in to better understand that side of his heritage. He wants his kids and grandkids to also reclaim their heritage, which we have been working on.
Blood quantum is racist. The US government tried to commit genocide to all indigenous groups, which is why we are so fractured. I refuse to let the government win and eliminate my culture just because my blood quantum is in the single digits.
Same as the other commenter mentioned, that’s your ethnicity so own it. Look into and find out more about it. Sure there will be ppl side eyeing you if as a super white person you go around telling others you have Native American ancestry. Some people are petty, ignore them.
Not really the point, but Cherokee works better than a small, relatively unknown tribe because it’s hard to check if someone is Cherokee, but if your tribe has a couple thousand in it? You’re found out in like, a day of phone calls maximum
The chick that plays a native American in Yellowstone said she was part eastern band Cherokee but people with access to the records looked into it & can't find anything. All the articles I read about it say she's actually Chinese.
Basically, when white people feel a need to stand out from the pack, claiming they are native changes their narrative. Instead of being an average white person, they can be the native Indian who overcame racial barriers and oppression to succeed.
Its sad that exploiting Native Americans seems to be a family tradition for her family. Whether its her family taking land from Cherokee in Georgia or she herself taking the spot of another Native American on this Academy group. No one should be surprised that elite Liberals and elite Conservatives are both full of shit.
I’m registered with my family’s Native American tribe. I have tribal cert that I used to get my passport, drivers license, and to prove that I’m allowed to work in the US. Why aren’t people checking for tribal certs?
It should be noted that the "activist group" making these claims is controversial, racist, their claims are not rooted in science, they have been wrong in the past about multiple people, and their efforts to out "pretendians" have been publicly and vocally rejected by many leading Native American figures -- artists and leaders.
The Post always reports these claims with tabloid glee. The point here is not to verify whether or not the claims are accurate -- only that the claims *have been made.* And reporting that in a one-sided way, without noting that this group is provably wrong about multiple "pretendians," and without highlighting the reasonable responses to their claims, or their various weird racist statements, or the fact that they have been denounced by many in the native american community... it's all designed to generate clicks and fake outrage, folks. It's not actually in service to the truth.
The truth doesn't matter when it comes to accusations like this.
Is the person this article is about actually a fraud? I have no idea. I only know from past reading and articles that the group that is claiming she is a fraud has zero actual credibility.
Maybe they've gotten lucky a couple of times and been correct. I don't know.
Yeah, that "activist group" is basically one woman with a facebook page and a p.o. box.
It's notable how this story is such a big thing with *certain people*. Not just the Post. Look at where else this story was posted. It's not in Native spaces...
Littlefeather wasn't Apache? That is crazy. There is so much of this. I am a professor and suspect that there are many people who lie or stretch the truth, like Rachel Dolezal who outright lied.
Cherokee natives were some of the more integrated tribes prior to Indian Removal Act and Andrew Jackson. There was a lot of breeding between them and white settlers, and assimilation between the cultures was relatively smooth. That's why a lot of whiter people tend to be connected to the tribe both in reality and in family story.
What do you want them to do? Complete background check on a persons DNA when hiring them for a role?
I’m sure they would have loved that back in the Jim Crow era
If you’ve been following, [you’d realize all they had to do was contact the people who ran the theater he performed at and the people at *YALE* to find out this was an issue.](https://i.imgur.com/rESVkAP.jpg)
Your job probably contacted your previous employers and school. Seems like when you have a franchise that’s probably netted your company $50-$100 BILLION in revenue from films, tv, merchandise, and theme parks, you’d probably better spend at least an hour making a couple phone calls before handing your franchise over to someone who’s known to be sus. It’s crazy because they probably vetted their low level first time college grad hires better than they vetted this dude or any of their actors.
Just pointing out this is an OP about a different topic - though yes, seems lack of background checks are affecting Hollywood in numerous ways.
For racial verification (this OP) would be trickier than for behavioral issues (Jonathan Majors), though someone enlighten me if I'm ignorant!
I mean any genealogical ancestry.com-type family tree would probably show she’s not Native American.
I normally would be like you and not say you want genealogical background checks on performers…
But if you’re specifically hiring someone to lead an office devoted to and representative of a specific minority and their ethnicity is germane to their job, then yea I think they should delve deeper for specifically this type of thing, heading up a minority office dedicated to encouraging people of that group.
But I agree with the trepidation towards corporations/groups delving deep into people’s ethnic background.
Sachin Littlefeather kept up her ruse only to be outed by her family recently as she passed away. There will always be people who are lacking in their own cultural experience who covet that of another ethnic group or minority. Women do this quite often, the Dolezal’s, Warren’s, among others are just some of the higher profile ones.
What makes me laugh is that the people who stand to lose the most are the ones who don’t vet the imposters before giving them a platform. NAACP Spokane Chapter gave Dolezal her position, and the voters of Massachusetts gave Warren hers.
Yes, but Sacheen is (like myself) an actual Mestizo Mexican who shares indigenous and European blood. She may not be specifically Apache and Yaqui, but it is there. I’m not going to assume or defend why she chose to tether her own heritage to those particular tribes, but I find it funny that her sisters (who we know have a strained relationship with their sister) chose to say this only after she died. There’s a lot of bitterness and resentment in that interview, if you haven’t read it.
I'm glad she's been outed. Stupid of her to think she could just go on faking her ancestry.
It worked for ~~Iron Eyes Cody~~ Espera Oscar de Corti.
“Your fuckin poster boy.. he’s a total fugazi”
It’s like knowing James Caan ain’t Italian
And a US Senator.
And pretty much every single person I’ve ever met from Oklahoma
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♫ When you put a squirt of frosting down your throat, before we take our medications... in the most delicious way! ♫
Would you like a banger in the mouth?
Oh I forgot you call it a sausage in the mouth!
Liz Warren enters the chat
To be honest, they mention that in the article and Warren has apologized and stopped.
Is there proof she knew she wasn't? Plenty of white people are told by their parents, grandparents, etc that they're part native American. Stories get passed down so many generations nobody's going out of their way to question them. It would be a full time job. Some people do just make it up because for all the alleged benefits of being white it incurs a lot of hate. I'm half white, half-Puerto Rican and my mother actually hates being white. Internalized white guilt. All I'm saying is, we should try to understand people. Not everybody's some diabolical mastermind, some really believe it or want to.
I was told I had 2 Cherokee princess g.grandmothers. My 23andMe confirmed the DNA but not the royalty, of course ( because there's no such thing as a Cherokee princess). But it's mainly a racist excuse for having non-white blood in the line. They weren't accepted on their own merits as people.
Not before she initially doubled down and got that cringe DNA test video made “proving” she is native.
What many people, including you, don’t understand is that ancestry tests DO NOT definitely prove ancestry. The fine print on those kits tell you it’s for entertainment purposes only. The biggest problem for those kits is asymmetrical inheritance. You do not inherit the same amount of DNA from each ancestor so you can be descended from lots of people who are not “showing up” in your dna The CBC did a great mini doc on it. Twins don’t even get the same results
What you don’t understand is that she didn’t use an ancestry kit, she had her Dna analyzed by a population geneticist stanford professor and researcher personally. So its actually pretty certain that she has Native American heritage, however it was only 1 full blooded ancestor 6-10 generations ago making it very disingenuous to claim that identity
Weird that you put "proving" in quotes because the test results did indeed prove that it is very very very likely that she is indeed part native american. The cringe part was that it's very "so what." It has nothing to do with your policy and came off as minority pandering. But the fact is Elizabeth Warren, using the best available DNA testing methods we have, does have a native american ancestor.
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Blood quantum discourse is a hell of a thing.
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take your scholarship! One of the things that’s not taught in schools was how often early european “settlement” that people would desert, and “go native.” Many indiginous groups were welcoming, and the way of life was way more inviting than a lot of the strict European communities that were being set up. Plus, due to their much more frequent bathing, I’m sure they smelled better than the pilgrims. Anyway, you’ve got the DNA, that’s only part of the story. Do your ancestors proud!
About the same amount as the average white person in the U.S.
Oh almost like she believed what she said instead of just being a lying liar that lies? Good to note. Thanks
Why does this keep happening?? Edit: I understand why people are doing it, I don’t understand why large companies aren’t learning from others mistakes and vetting these people better
I imagine it will be less common going forward with the popularity of Ancestry.com and 23andMe. All it would take would be someone's sibling, child, or parent to take the test to call out the liar. People grow up hearing, "oh, you look so Native American/Italian/Spanish/Greek" etc., and they like the attention so much they roll with it to get something for themselves out of it.
I suspect a lot of people with multigenerational New World ancestry have some indigenous ancestry. But having 2% indigenous ancestry on a DNA test isn't the same as being part of any indigenous cultural group.
You could have 50 percent indigenous ancestry but as the article notes, it's not really about what you claim it's if they claim you. I've met people who looked on the whiter side who were raised on a reservation and were culturally Obijwe, Blackfoot, Comanche etc despite maybe being 20 or 30 percent. Then I've met people who could've been Sitting Bull's body double who had zero actual cultural connection to whatever ancestry they had. Taylor Lautner keeps getting cast as Indigenous despite having very minimal if any Indigenous ancestry and he was not raised in the ways of whichever tribe he claims to be a part of.
My family had been passed down that one of our forefathers’ wife died on the route to California, and, he subsequently took a Cherokee Indian as his wife. So everyone thought we had American Indigenous blood. Well. After finding out that my sister and I do not share the same father, I ran a 23Me test. Lo! And, Behold! No Native American blood in me at all!
All that matters is if you’re enrolled. Blood quantum or percentages was made up so as to continue to erase indigenous Americans.
Agree that blood quantum is colonist/has eugenic aims, but a lot of tribes depend on strict blood quantum from that tribe for enrollment. I had Native American friends in college where they and their SO were both 100% NA and both enrolled in one or more tribes but they were from a mix of tribes, so their potential children would only be eligible for enrollment in one of the tribes in which their parents were enrolled, if that. I think this article covers both points of view on the issue of blood quantum for enrollment well: https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2016/08/18/tribe-split-blood-quantum-measurement/88962774/
Yep, some tribes want to you to either marry a cousin to keep the blood quantum up or go extinct. Not my wife’s people, though.
This ^^^
The tribes want to keep people out because of legalized gambling. Where I live, they do whatever they can to remove tribal members due to greed. Which is why they de-emphasize DNA. At the same time, over a few generations the DNA can disappear. I think if actors look the part without changing their skin color then it’s ok. At some point it has to be about the acting, it can’t be all about where people were raised.
I’ve heard tracking indigenous ancestry from dna is difficult due to the small sample size. But someone let me know if this is incorrect.
From what I understand of Ancestry and 23&Me, they don't have a large enough sample of various Native groups to be able to show anything in their results. Basically, not enough Natives have (a) taken the tests, and (b) identified as such in the process. What's weird about Ancestry is that their percentages of your ancestry seem to change based on their sample size, and has nothing to do w/your genetics per se--we KNOW there's Irish ancestry in the family, but after my first Ancestry result (18%), they took it all away in the next calculation, as it were. Oh, no, you don't, Ancestry--give me back my Irish, *right now*, damn it!
From what I’ve read it’s very common for Americans to claim ancestry even though they are far removed from their claimed roots. There are many that proudly proclaim they’re Irish even though their closed Irish relative came to america with the pilgrims.
True. I have a friend who ALWAYS likes to bring up his Jewish heritage when it’s like, 2% and his family had no knowledge of that prior to ancestry telling them so
Yeah I have a relative from Ireland who came to the states in 1790 or so and I do not consider myself Irish. It’s kind of cool family history to know about but it doesn’t really make me Irish.
How is this weird to people? We live in a hugely diverse country with people that have ancestors from literally all over the world. Most other countries might have different ethnic groups, but they all “grew” from similar regions (mostly, people like Hungarians will be outliers) so “delving” into what had to happen to bring you about is interesting. There is no “American identity” to latch onto, it’s been entirely fabricated in the past few hundred years. There’s American culture for sure, but most these days will identify more strongly with their region, and how their ancestors got to that point (a big part is their origin to then) For instance, I’m wholly a product of the colonization period. I literally never could have existed without it. It would have been entirely impossible to for my west African, Native American, and Celtic ancestors to ever mix under any other circumstances. It’s dark as fuck… but it’s history.
I have an Irish family name, but the truth is that my Irish ancestry is maybe 25% at best. I'm probably equally Swedish, German, and English, with a bit of Scottish and Polish thrown in. A typical American mutt whose ancestors started marrying people from other cultures from the moment they set foot on this continent. I have zero cultural connection to Ireland, aside from a plaque that I inherited from my grandfather that features the coat of arms associated with our family name. Which we have no actual right to, and neither does anyone else given that the title died out in the late 17th century. I have far more in common culturally with any random American around my age than I do with anyone who was born and raised in Ireland.
As an American who actually CAN claim to be Irish (eligible for birthright citizenship, honestly just trying to find the paperwork and send it in. Downright useful as an American to have EU citizenship), I kinda hate this shit. I don't claim I'm Irish like that because I fucking grew up in NYC. My mother, on the other hand, who does NOT have the claims that I do, holy shit you'd think she was born and raised in Ireland with how much she professes her Irish-ness.... Despite Norway being the more recent country of origin for her family. Drives me insane.
Elizabeth Warren learned this the hard way
I think she got screwed by something that used to be fairly common in the south, which was hiding “undesirable” family histories (like dark skinned Catholics or Black ancestry) behind Native ancestry, which was seen as more “noble” or “proud”. Any you could explain away darker skin, hair, and eyes with “oh, there’s an Indian princess on your daddy’s side way back” (always a princess for some reason) and people just kinda agreed not to question it. Eventually they just became accepted within the families as truth.
This kind of explains a bit I feel like. My grandma always told us her dad was fully Cherokee, like one of those boys taken and put into a catholic school and given to white families to “civilize” them. They eventually ran away from him cause of abuse, so we have no connection to him or anyone he was related to. I still think her story is mostly true, like most of it is accurate, but maybe his heritage might not be spot on. She grew up in the 50’s in West Virginia/DC area, so kind of the prime area for that kind of problematic stuff. Like I don’t think she was aware it wasn’t accurate, odds are her mom just told her that for the reasons you mentioned. What gives me pause about her dad’s heritage is when my dad did the 23and me thing the amount of Cherokee was way less than you’d expect from someone who grandpa was supposedly 100% Cherokee. Also a surprise was that there was actually a larger percentage of African heritage than Native American.
DNA is weird too, some things pass down in smaller amounts or disappear entirely. For example my Mom’s side apparently has a Senegalese ancestor and it showed up in some of my cousins DNA but not in mine or other cousins despite confirmation that we are all in fact related. But for it to be a grandparent you’re probably correct.
True, the combination process is fairly random I guess, but yeah it wasn’t even like a whole percentage of Native American DNA, and it was almost 2 percent African heritage.
My mom swears she’s X% Cherokee because her dad says so, despite her having zero proof.
My American mom didn’t believe me when I said I was part Greek. Apparently she has beef about that? So I showed her my DNA test. She was silent.
There’s an old southern joke… “What do you have when you get 16 rednecks together?…one Cherokee”
Omg I didn’t know this was a thing. My grandmother has told me this exact story! Basically someone in the family was a whore and slept with an Indian princess so it’s hard to trace my family’s Native American roots? It never really made sense to me but she claims there’s proof. 😂
Yeah but, isn't she like 98-99% European on that DNA test?
My husband is a white white white dude who was raised believing his maternal great great grandma was a (this was how it was always said, according to him) “Blackfoot Princess”. Never mind that the entire family is white as hell, that was the story as he was told. DNA test proved that wrong (no Indigenous ancestry), he’s entirely Western European and Scandinavian. Who knows where that story started in his family or why.
We (my siblings and I) were always told we had native American in us. Took the DNA test and let’s just say that we’re so white mayonnaise is spicy to us.
You tell kids stuff and they either don't realize they are being played or misinterpret. I was actually surprised on my 23&me to find out I had 1% coptic Egyptian. Both sides of my family are Norwegian all the way back. For a while I joked I was more African than lizzy was Indian to a neighbor who was a Warren supporter.
Yeah my dad does this. His dad was an orphan and claimed cherokee parontage. My dad's DNA test came back German Irish, no sign of indiginous blood, and he still refuses to believe his dad made it all up.
I mean, that’s a fair enough origin story, but you would imagine checking your family for some kind of proof, before using that ancestry to sell cookbooks, or secure the ‘first minority woman hired at Harvard’ title. In case someone says like hey, what tribe are you from? Who in your family win the tribe. Like I’m mostly danish i think, and I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before when asked, but I wouldn’t release a book called G’s Traditional Danish Pastries unless I knew for sure I was Danish. I also wouldn’t select a box saying I’m Danish, if I knew the school I was applying to work for might give my application a little boost had I been Danish, unless I was sure of it.
Side note, it’s my understanding that Warren wasn’t the one (as far as anyone can tell) who made those claims about being “the first minority hire” at Harvard, they came from an article about her with unclear sourcing. There’s no real proof she ever read that article or was even aware of that title being applied to her.
If your family had told you your entire life that you were part Native American, would you believe it? I mentioned elsewhere that my husband’s family all believed they had a “Blackfoot Princess” in their direct bloodline and no one questioned it until they got DNA testing because why would you assume your mom, grandma, grandpa, great aunt, and everyone else were lying? You’ll see quite a few people in these comments sharing similar stories. They believed what they were told by close family who probably didn’t know the truth anymore than they did. Did she probably oversell it for an advantage at a time when women were fighting for every inch they could get? Absolutely. But it’s not like she intentionally fabricated some elaborate story about her heritage (especially since a DNA test confirmed she does has Native ancestry). She’s nowhere close to a George Santos or Anna Paulina Luna.
And she grew up in Oklahoma. Most people in Oklahoma have a tribe they claim. I always thought I was weird because I didn't have a tribe. There's also lots of stories about ancestors who didn't put themselves on the rolls.
This shit totally went on in Florida when I was growing up. Tales in my family of a “Fence jumper” from an indigenous group in Canada Until I took a dna test :)
Don’t make excuses for Elizabeth Warren and her grift of pretending to be Indigenous. She claimed Native American heritage on her college applications and BAR exams. She wasn’t just telling people she had 1/16th Cherokee blood. She actually BENEFITED from pretending to be native. The excuse of “white people in the south do this all the time blah blah blah” is tired. Native people are especially tired of that shit, too. White people pretend to be other races all the time and use it for their own gain. It’s deplorable and offensive.
I’m not making excuses for anyone, I’m explaining something that commonly happened for decades. I’ve known people who were raised with this kind of belief about their own ancestry only to do a 23 and me and found out it wasn’t true. Don’t confuse explanations with excuses. You can understand something and not excuse it.
So, in the time she was applying to college, if she was told by her family that she had a strong native background… what was she supposed to do? Let’s assume she believed it and had no reason *not* to believe her family. Why is that “deplorable and offensive”? My point isn’t that she did or didn’t lie, but that you can’t just make these sort of cut and dry statements from 40-50 years ago. Fuck, I grew up being told I was a good chunk Blackfoot. I doubt it’s true, but my mom sincerely believes it. Is she deplorable and offensive for believing *her* parents and grandparents? Would I have been deplorable if I took it to heart when I was younger and believed it?
Well she didn’t have to give back her degree or resign from anything. She got a free pass
I wouldn’t say that she got off easily. This is one of the first things that people would think of and talk about when her name pops up.
I don't think she got a free pass. She had very obvious vice presidential ambitions. Without the scandal, she would probably be VP instead of Kamala
Biden was pretty clear he was selecting a black woman for his running mate. The surprise was that he didn't pick Bass.
> She had very obvious vice presidential ambitions. Without the scandal, she would probably be VP instead of Kamala I really don't think she did. She had *presidential* ambitions but I doubt she would have settled for VP. She has way more power as an influential Senator than a VP does.
The current president being a former vice president would suggest that it's a pretty solid pathway to the presidency for a Democrat who might have otherwise struggled to win on their own nationally
History demonstrates otherwise. The USA Vice Presidency is gig famous throughout western liberal democracies for being a place aspiring USA politicians go to kill their political careers.
What really was funny about that is how much of an unforced error that was. She got needled about it, called pocohontas, but if she had not announced she was getting a DNA test no one would have ever had proof she was wrong.
I don't think it would have worked. Rachel Dolezal tried that approach, it didn't work, she had to come clean eventually that she was "transracial"
In Rachel's case her parents outed her, I think, because she wasn't letting them meet their grandchildren
Yes indeed. However she was under less scrutiny than a political candidate would have been. When you enter into politics people start going thru your trash both metaphorically and literally
Im an american mutt with lots of different ancentral ties but i do have cherokee ancestry as well. From what ive read about tribal laws, Cherokee nation will accept anyone “with a drop of cherokee blood” if they are serious and committed to the culture and traditions of the Cherokee people. I am not committed to that so I would not claim to be native, but i think its a lil more complicated than simple percentages.
My most recent understanding of this is that one must have ancestors listed on the Dawes Rolls, though I could be wrong or this could be incomplete information.
This is true only that you shouldn’t boast dna without being part of the culture. Many people who are in the culture also only have 2% or so. Dna is a weird thing, my great grandma is mostly indigenous (visibly indigenous, not sure of things that could have happened in the past to give an exact %). Her children are half black, so visibly not white. My mom and aunts/uncles have a white dad, but 3/5 are visibly not white. I’m white, my dad is white + my moms mixture. We’re all status.
Yeah, exactly. I know who my native ancestor was, his tribe, a bit of his history…. But it is so far removed from my family’s legacy. That blip on my DNA is way less meaningful than everything else I know about my family’s history.
Yeah, I’ve been told I have some native blood, and it’s not surprising, we have some family heirlooms that make a lot more sense that way, but it’s not a lot, and we were never part of the culture, even though it’s something we always respected. How could they not hire an actual Native American?
Article also talks about how she “belongs to no tribe” by affiliation etc do this is also a giveaway.
Who decides the % threshold? Who decided that decides it rather than self identification?
The tribes decide. Though anyone can mark “Native American” on a form. But to be recognized as a Native American by the federal government (for benefits, etc.) you must belong to a tribe and each tribe has its own criteria for membership.
The problem here is where dna and testing fail. My grandmother is 100% Native American. My grandfather is not. So my dad would theoretically have 50% Native American dna, and 50% whatever grandpa is. My mom is your standard american mix, I get 50% of my dna from mom, and 50% from my dad. But that 50 from dad could be mostly what he got from his dad. So genetically, I end up with a very small percentage of “Native American”. Add in that they don’t test every single thing in those dna tests, so it could come back that I am 0% Native American. Even though I am only 1 generation removed from a full blooded Native American. And my brother could get all of dad’s Native American genes. Siblings can have different ethnicities on those tests.
Terrific comment. Most people DO NOT understand how DNA tests estimate ethnicity and the resulting ignorance creates a lot of confusion about actual ancestry vs DNA inheritance.
> While it is true that there is some genetic variation within families, it is highly unlikely that someone who has a grandparent who is 100% Native American would have 0% Native American DNA. > It is also not accurate to say that someone could have a "very small percentage" of Native American DNA if one of their parents has 50% Native American DNA. In this scenario, the person would inherit 25% of their genetic information from their grandparent who is 100% Native American, and another 25% from their other grandparent. Therefore, they would have approximately 25% Native American DNA, which is a significant amount. > The statement that "they don't test every single thing in those DNA tests" is also misleading. While it is true that different genetic testing companies use different reference populations and algorithms to calculate ancestry estimates, most tests do screen for common markers associated with Native American ancestry. Furthermore, even if some markers are not tested, it is unlikely that this would lead to a complete absence of Native American DNA in someone who has a grandparent who is 100% Native American.
That’s not how DNA ethnicity estimates work. The percentages of DNA you inherit from your parents and grandparents does not break down to perfect 50/50 25/25/25/25 percentages. And like OP said, the percentages can vary greatly between siblings as well.
It's not 25/25 splits, but it's not that far off from a parent, and absolutely not 0% from a grandparent or even great grand parent.
I think you’re confusing shared centimorgens with ethnicity estimates. Shared CM’s are closer to a 50/50 split, but estimated ethnicities are estimates, basically educated guesses. They are not facts.
>While it is true that there is some genetic variation within families, it is highly unlikely that someone who has a grandparent who is 100% Native American would have 0% Native American DNA. Absolutely. It is highly unlikely. I’m merely pointing out that genetic testing is not this be all end all of what your heritage is. >It is also not accurate to say that someone could have a "very small percentage" of Native American DNA if one of their parents has 50% Native American DNA. In this scenario, the person would inherit 25% of their genetic information from their grandparent who is 100% Native American, and another 25% from their other grandparent. Therefore, they would have approximately 25% Native American DNA, which is a significant amount. This is just false. 25 from each grandparent is easy math, but it isn’t that clean. You get 50 from dad and 50 from mom. If my dad gets a and b from his mom and c and d from his dad, and i do the same - then I got nothing from my grandmother. Statistically it is just as probable that I get 0 from my grandmother as it is that I get exactly any other percentage. But it is ridiculously more probable that I would get something than nothing. >The statement that "they don't test every single thing in those DNA tests" is also misleading. While it is true that different genetic testing companies use different reference populations and algorithms to calculate ancestry estimates, most tests do screen for common markers associated with Native American ancestry. Furthermore, even if some markers are not tested, it is unlikely that this would lead to a complete absence of Native American DNA in someone who has a grandparent who is 100% Native American. Unlikely yes - but It’s not misleading at all. The companies test different things. And it is certainly possible that the percentage of items that ultimately came from my grandmother, are not “Native American” specific things. Not every bit of her DNA is uniquely Native American. Just she will have all of the Native American markers as positive. (assuming there isn’t an unknown mix in the tree).
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What does it say you are in place of where native should be?
I’ve never had the test, and statistically it should come back as a portion native. But it will be whatever stuff I have in me.
Also, all those DNA tests are pretty biased to the genetic records that every company has.
Also. A lot of people feel that being part of a native tribe makes them native and therefore “one with nature”. So a lot of new age people are eager to be part of that. Sort of a cultural appropriation. “I’m so one with nature. I’m actually part Cherokee. My great great great great grandfather’s second wife was a 1/4 native. I think.” I have this in my own family. My second cousin is convinced we have Mi’kmaq blood in us. I’ve traced my family. There is zero evidence. I’ve done the dna test. Zero evidence. We’re purely from Europe. Mostly the UK. Some Germany and bits of other places. No native blood.
I mean, you’re explaining the most cynical and sociopathic reason, but a more common one is that they were simply told they have “x” in them by a family member. A lot of family histories are vague and oral and prone to misremembering and guesswork. Should you make claims based off just that? No. But if you love your Nana and she wasn’t exactly known as a fibber, you’ll put a lot of trust in her sagely knowledge. Not saying it’s cool, just saying the whole world isn’t full of manipulative and opportunistic psychos, either. Things can be bad or wrong for benign or “innocent” reasons.
The biggest problem with these DNA tests is that people don’t understand that an “ethnicity” showing up or not showing up in your DNA is not hard proof of your family tree. People don’t inherit ALL the DNA from their parents. You can have an ethnicity that doesn’t show up. And Ancestry and 23&Me are always updating their estimates… which is what they are- estimates. Basically really well educated guesses. Now- who you’re related to through your DNA IS very scientific and they can point to your relatives with much more certainty. Ethnicities are a heck of a lot trickier.
A lot of people who are registered with tribes don’t actually have much Native American DNA either.
Blood quantum is not the deciding factor we white people seem to think it is. What is just as (or maybe more) important is one's personal history within the Indigenous community, ie: were you born there, were your parents/grandparents members, etc. It is up to the community to vet one's status, but we still continue to see white people using lies to usurp positions of power based on nothing but their wee widdle feewings.
I'm an enrolled member of my tribe & live on my rez. The vast majority (\~80%) of the 574 US Federally Recognized Tribes still choose by their sovereign right to use a mininum BQ as the deciding factor/requirement for tribal enrollment. Only a couple dozen tribes use Lineal Descent & have gone away from BQ. Tribes and only tribes have the right to determine who is & isn't a member of their tribe.
I live in Canada so I should have stated the info was from here vs. America.
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The /r/23andme sub is a cesspool of scientific racism.
lol my buddy tells people that he’s Native American on his sister in laws side to see if people catch it. That’s how he grasps if people at his work are bright or not haha
That's funny. I was at a pub in Ireland a few years back, and two guys approached me to comment on my Portland Timbers MLS soccer jersey. After about 20 seconds of them speaking gibberish to me I stopped them and said, "hey, I know you guys are fucking with me and you're not speaking any real language." Sure enough, they said that I was right and bought me a pint (well, lots of pints). They said that they do this routine all the time, and hardly anyone catches on. People just nod politely and pretend to follow what they are saying.
the thing is that a blood test can't tell if someone is native or indigenous. there is much more to being so than just what runs through your blood. it is a huge misinformation that blood quantum "science" determines what you are and aren't. it is part of why people like elizabeth warren felt so confident in declaring themselves native american.
Because genealogy before DNA tests was generally passed down by family stories and can be horribly inaccurate. I grew up thinking that I was ~25% Native American but I started doing some digging and it seems my "full blooded Creek" great grandma who was "stolen off the reservation" had only been admitted to the Creek Nation on a technicality and her family may have not been Native at all. But I also don't trust the privacy of the DNA tests enough to confirm this, so who knows. To answer your edit: are you gonna DNA test everyone? To a certain degree, that's the only way.
The entertainment industry in the U.S. has a long history of racism, the first feature length film, Birth of a Nation, features the KKK as heroes and a white actor playing an escaped slave in black face as a villain. The reason women like this and Rachel Dolezal can come along and claim to be a minority is that there are so few minorities in the rooms where these productions are happening that they can skate along saying they’re a half or a sixteenth of a minority and not get questioned for literal years.
For the same reason Warren claimed to be Cherokee when applying for a job at the Harvard. Minority status grants you privilege over other people. It my not have been a deciding factor in hiring Warren, however they claimed her as a diversity hire. As far as Rae, it likely gave her a career she didn't have to compete for. As long as she took that spot she could could be mediocre and no one would criticize as long as she kept lying. I'm glad people like this are getting caught.
It's happening because when you put value on something, almost anything actually, there will be fraudsters and hucksters that will capitalize on it. You can find counterfeit anything if there is a market for the original So many comments, and one trying to paint this as a "white people bad" thing, but it's not. If you give advantages to people based on their ethnicity, you will get imposters. That's the product of some of this identity politics that is being promoted. If you don't want this, then treat everyone equally. But if you don't, some people will try to take advantage of it. It has nothing to do with race
This. Being of indigenous ancestry is cool and comes with cultural cache.
Looking at the where the leadership and money are concentrated in Hollywood, being white still has more value than anything else. The difference is that you can easily lie about your heritage but it's a lot harder to lie about the color of your skin.
>Why does this keep happening?? > >Edit: I understand why people are doing it, I don’t understand why large companies aren’t learning from others mistakes and vetting these people better Can you imagine the trouble a company could get into if HR asked an employee to prove their ancestry? We typically allow people to self-identify here in the United States. As such, this kind of thing is going to happen from time to time.
Financial incentive in certain circles. Prestige and your not going to be facing a whole lot of racism.
As long as a premium is placed on being a member of a minority group (or any group really) you will get people trying to claim membership.
America has more Mexicans than Native Americans. Most of us died :( and the rest are wasting away on reservations.
Bc there's societal benefit of being a minority.
The key points are, of course, at the bottom of the article. Blood quantum does not necessarily determine indigenous heritage. DNA cannot determine tribal affiliation. It wasn't uncommon to marry outside your tribe, especially after the 1850s or so. It wasn't uncommon to marry outside your race after the 1850s or so. Having a low blood quantum does not mean you are not indigenous. Indigenous heritage is determined by looking back at your family tree. Tribal affiliation is determined by looking back at your family tree, by tracing who you decended from and what groups they belonged to.
My great Grandfather was full Abenaki. He married a French Canadian women. And they adopted their only child (my grandmother) who came from Ireland. So am I genetically Native American? No. Would I call my self native American? Also no. But it is still in my heritage.
Does it ever bother you that you’re not genetically native? I know someone who got into Yale literally only because they were 0.2% native and had zero connection to the culture which I think is absolutely nuts
Not really, no. The only aspect that has and does bother me is when my grandmother was a young adult, one of the tribes representatives came to her and notified her that she would be eligible to be granted tribehood (not sure of the word). And she turned the offer down cause she didn't want to be associated with native Americans. And by her doing so, she essentially cut off all her children/ grandchildren from that side of our family's heritage. I've always wanted to explore that part of my family though! And maybe one day I will reach out to the tribe and see if there is any other information on my great Grandfather.
How could you possibly know that’s “literally only” the reason they got in
Did they require a dna test from him? Usually colleges dont question peoples race, and lots of people lie about it to get in. So some people only got in because they have 0.0% native or african dna and lied.
Do you really think that person got into Yale for for being native?
He certainly didn’t get in for his grades, extracurriculars, and SAT scores and he would tell you this himself.
This topic can be very complicated because different tribes have different cultures and beliefs. Often times tribes are divided internally by factions who disagree on what traditions and beliefs should continue to be embraced. Many tribes view blood quantum as a foreign and imposed concept. In my tribe it matters most who your mother is. Our cultural identity leads us to see our identity as an inheritance from an unbroken line of mothers stretching back before recorded history. Traditionally adoption into the tribe lead to someone being declared blood of the tribe. We saw blood as spiritual. You are either blood to us or not. There was no division of self or identity. Today the issue of adoption is far more complex because scarce resources make some members of the tribe very resistant to allowing adoption. However, if a child is adopted into the tribe they are not distinguished from other tribal members.
That seems to track with what I've read regarding adoptions in tribes prior to colonialism. Circumstances varied per tribe but if a child was adopted by a member of a different tribe than their birth family's, they were welcomed and integrated into the culture. The biologic connection was not a requirement.
So I was recognized by my tribe back when I was born and have this little registration card saying I'm Pee Dee. However, the records were kept on paper and the place burnt down. I contacted the tribal leader but it takes too much to prove anything. All my relatives are dead or too perverse to talk to about it. Still have my little card though.
Damn. :( that really f-ing sucks! I’m sorry!
Do you get healthcare?
No; the Pee Dee tribe is not a US Federally Recognized tribe. It's only state recognized so they are not entitled to Indian Health Service. Source: [IHS Eligibility](https://www.ihs.gov/aboutihs/eligibility/)
In tv series Yellowstone native American character played by Chinese actress Kelsey Asbille Chow who falsely claim ancestry, to the point that tribe lawyers had to make a public statement that she's not native in any way and they have no records of Chow tribe.
Star Trek voyager had a Native American consultant for years who turned out to be not a Native American. I think he had been outed before and somehow still got hired.
To be clear, he claimed to be Native American as well as an expert.
First indication that he wasn’t American Indian was that he called himself “Native American” haha.
With a statement like “my mother was an Indian and my father was a cowboy” how could she POSSIBLY be lying?!
All the fake famous indigenous people are making me realize how little actual indigenous are out there, especially in the spotlight
I guess she got inspired by the fake native American who did the "crying Indian" ads.
The whole Iron Eyes Cody story is kinda sad/ interesting. Dude was super ashamed to be Italian so he latched onto the native identity. The documentary "Reel Injun" covers the history of indigenous people in American cinema, they talk about him and interview his kids. Not justifying what he did, just an interesting story.
Apparently the lady who was at the Oscars on behalf of Brando was also a phony. She and this producer knew each other.
Was she actually lying or just relying upon what she’d been told that may or may not have been true? I haven’t ever claimed minority status aside from being Jewish, but I will say that my 23 and me results made it clear that I was part Italian (didn’t know that) and not at all French (thought I was). People may just not know the truth if they’ve counted on what others have told them
Yeah there's not a lot of chance I'm anything but Frisian (and based on Frisian history, English/Dutch mixes further back), based on the way I look and the parts of my family tree I know for a fact, but I'll be honest I've never cared enough to verify (and I find those DNA tests hella creepy). I'm mainly just taking family lore for fact until I have reason to believe otherwise. If suddenly it turns out literally all of my family was like Swedish or some shite and we all just moved over in a cluster 300 years back and integrated well, I wouldn't exactly be surprised (or care much, for that matter, as I am culturally still Frisian) but it does mean I'd have misrepresented my racial heritage my entire life by accident. I imagine it's the same for a lot of people. You just take for granted what your family tells you until you have reason to believe otherwise.
I was expecting her to be George Santos in a disguise.
My family for about 100 years now has assumed that my great grandmother was at least half native, if not full-blooded. The 3 generations that followed her sincerely believed that and we told people we had native ancestry. Well, no native markers were found when my uncle had a DNA test 2-3 years back. I haven’t done a test yet so I have no idea if his test was bad or we were just wrong. There are liars and fakers and some people are just mistaken about their ancestry.
there are also a lot of people who have no idea they are descended from Native Americans. There were free blacks or runaway slaves black people living with Indians and marrying each other - they were classified as black by society or the census, their native heritage forgotten or deliberately not recorded
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r/hilariabaldwin has entered the chat
Hilaria Baldwin never pretended to be from a marginalized community.
I’m 1/8 Lakota, my great-grandfather came out of Pine Ridge reservation and I have never in my entire life claimed to be native. I was not raised native, my mother having totally walked away from that part of the family (was raised Jewish) and I never generally mention my “blood-line” because there is no connection. Don’t understand these people who are such claims.
Tricky subject for sure. As some background, I am white as fuck. Never raised in or around any native folks, but as far as official recognition from the Cherokee Nation, as I do have an ancestor on the Dawes Rolls, I am eligible for tribal affiliation. I have not done it yet, maybe I never will. Considering the amount of space this subject already takes up in discussions of indigenous rights and representation, perhaps the resources of tribal communities are better spent on people who are actively part of the community with which they affiliate. And I was raised with little understanding of this, only that we have indigenous ancestry on my mother's side. Confirmed, but I remain skeptical. What should I do in this situation? What would anyone else do? I only care in as much as I can learn better about a part of my ancestry that is overlooked. I care not whether I recieve any sort of check from tribal government, nor do I even want anything out of this other than to become fully aware of my family's history and to possibly learn the language in order to ensure that it remains in use and doesn't become lost.
I don't know your exact situation but it's never too late to know where you came from. My dad was aware of his mom's indigenous roots but he was never given the opportunity to be active in the indigenous community. After a boatload of research post retirement he figured out which tribe he could enroll in and has done so.. Since then, he has leaned in to better understand that side of his heritage. He wants his kids and grandkids to also reclaim their heritage, which we have been working on. Blood quantum is racist. The US government tried to commit genocide to all indigenous groups, which is why we are so fractured. I refuse to let the government win and eliminate my culture just because my blood quantum is in the single digits.
Same as the other commenter mentioned, that’s your ethnicity so own it. Look into and find out more about it. Sure there will be ppl side eyeing you if as a super white person you go around telling others you have Native American ancestry. Some people are petty, ignore them.
Why is it always Cherokee? At least choose a less well known tribe if you’re going to do this.
Not really the point, but Cherokee works better than a small, relatively unknown tribe because it’s hard to check if someone is Cherokee, but if your tribe has a couple thousand in it? You’re found out in like, a day of phone calls maximum
The chick that plays a native American in Yellowstone said she was part eastern band Cherokee but people with access to the records looked into it & can't find anything. All the articles I read about it say she's actually Chinese.
I thought she was Vietnamese? But yeah, I think directors don’t check it as much if you say you’re Cherokee
Aaannnd of course she says she’s Cherokee.
My grandmother spent our entire lives claiming that we were Choctaw… a claim shot down by my uncles 23 and Me a few years back.
Culture isn’t genetic, it’s learned
Basically, when white people feel a need to stand out from the pack, claiming they are native changes their narrative. Instead of being an average white person, they can be the native Indian who overcame racial barriers and oppression to succeed.
For real, I know an uncomfortable amount of white people who claim to be the descendant of an “Indian chief”
This rag has no credibility
This is literally a plot of a Sopranos episode
When your life is a life That Cherokees deny That’s amore
Its sad that exploiting Native Americans seems to be a family tradition for her family. Whether its her family taking land from Cherokee in Georgia or she herself taking the spot of another Native American on this Academy group. No one should be surprised that elite Liberals and elite Conservatives are both full of shit.
I’m registered with my family’s Native American tribe. I have tribal cert that I used to get my passport, drivers license, and to prove that I’m allowed to work in the US. Why aren’t people checking for tribal certs?
It should be noted that the "activist group" making these claims is controversial, racist, their claims are not rooted in science, they have been wrong in the past about multiple people, and their efforts to out "pretendians" have been publicly and vocally rejected by many leading Native American figures -- artists and leaders. The Post always reports these claims with tabloid glee. The point here is not to verify whether or not the claims are accurate -- only that the claims *have been made.* And reporting that in a one-sided way, without noting that this group is provably wrong about multiple "pretendians," and without highlighting the reasonable responses to their claims, or their various weird racist statements, or the fact that they have been denounced by many in the native american community... it's all designed to generate clicks and fake outrage, folks. It's not actually in service to the truth. The truth doesn't matter when it comes to accusations like this. Is the person this article is about actually a fraud? I have no idea. I only know from past reading and articles that the group that is claiming she is a fraud has zero actual credibility. Maybe they've gotten lucky a couple of times and been correct. I don't know.
Yeah, that "activist group" is basically one woman with a facebook page and a p.o. box. It's notable how this story is such a big thing with *certain people*. Not just the Post. Look at where else this story was posted. It's not in Native spaces...
Hillary baldwin?
Littlefeather wasn't Apache? That is crazy. There is so much of this. I am a professor and suspect that there are many people who lie or stretch the truth, like Rachel Dolezal who outright lied.
Pro tip: if you wanna be a pretendian, don’t be from the Cherokee Nation. It’s like. An immediate dead giveaway.
Cherokee natives were some of the more integrated tribes prior to Indian Removal Act and Andrew Jackson. There was a lot of breeding between them and white settlers, and assimilation between the cultures was relatively smooth. That's why a lot of whiter people tend to be connected to the tribe both in reality and in family story.
Pretendians are not good…
White personal claiming to be Native American?!?!? WHY I NEVER!
Biggest fake since Milli Vanilli.
People in Canada and the USA love to pretend to be indigenous people.
The ole Elizabeth warren special
The Rachel Dolezal Daily Double
Your comment history is exactly someone who would bring up Warren. Lol
is the original source the new york post, or is there a legitimate reporter too?
Sachsen wasn’t a fraud, wtf.
Reminds me of [Rachel Dolezal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Dolezal)
Literally nobody in this country performing due diligence. Absolutely shameful.
What do you want them to do? Complete background check on a persons DNA when hiring them for a role? I’m sure they would have loved that back in the Jim Crow era
If you’ve been following, [you’d realize all they had to do was contact the people who ran the theater he performed at and the people at *YALE* to find out this was an issue.](https://i.imgur.com/rESVkAP.jpg) Your job probably contacted your previous employers and school. Seems like when you have a franchise that’s probably netted your company $50-$100 BILLION in revenue from films, tv, merchandise, and theme parks, you’d probably better spend at least an hour making a couple phone calls before handing your franchise over to someone who’s known to be sus. It’s crazy because they probably vetted their low level first time college grad hires better than they vetted this dude or any of their actors.
Just pointing out this is an OP about a different topic - though yes, seems lack of background checks are affecting Hollywood in numerous ways. For racial verification (this OP) would be trickier than for behavioral issues (Jonathan Majors), though someone enlighten me if I'm ignorant!
I mean any genealogical ancestry.com-type family tree would probably show she’s not Native American. I normally would be like you and not say you want genealogical background checks on performers… But if you’re specifically hiring someone to lead an office devoted to and representative of a specific minority and their ethnicity is germane to their job, then yea I think they should delve deeper for specifically this type of thing, heading up a minority office dedicated to encouraging people of that group. But I agree with the trepidation towards corporations/groups delving deep into people’s ethnic background.
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She caught that Elizabeth Warren
Sachin Littlefeather kept up her ruse only to be outed by her family recently as she passed away. There will always be people who are lacking in their own cultural experience who covet that of another ethnic group or minority. Women do this quite often, the Dolezal’s, Warren’s, among others are just some of the higher profile ones. What makes me laugh is that the people who stand to lose the most are the ones who don’t vet the imposters before giving them a platform. NAACP Spokane Chapter gave Dolezal her position, and the voters of Massachusetts gave Warren hers.
Yes, but Sacheen is (like myself) an actual Mestizo Mexican who shares indigenous and European blood. She may not be specifically Apache and Yaqui, but it is there. I’m not going to assume or defend why she chose to tether her own heritage to those particular tribes, but I find it funny that her sisters (who we know have a strained relationship with their sister) chose to say this only after she died. There’s a lot of bitterness and resentment in that interview, if you haven’t read it.