Elizabeth Warren and What Really Makes a Native American

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Hey Phil Esteen,
Obviously you have been inhaling too many fumes from the gas tank. Either that, or you have made ignorance a life goal.
Almost every conservative failure you list: Eugenics, Slavery, Segregation, Jim Crow (I assume you mean the laws, not the old guy living across the street), and Opposition to civil rights, were developed, deployed, and defended by DEMOCRATS.
Case in point, the late, un-lamented Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) was a former KKK Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops (means he was management, you idiot). The detestable Byrd used his KKK connections to launch his political career of 60 years. Further, without the hated REPUBLICANS, civil rights legislation and desegregation of the 60's would have taken decades longer.
Another case in point, Elizabeth Sanger, founder of the beloved Planned Parenthood was an outspoken (that means obnoxious) advocate of Eugenics. She saw Planned Parenthood's grand mission and value was to provide a non-violent way to allow less desirable humans such as Blacks and Orientals to be convinced to voluntarily not breed themselves out of existence, and thereby improve the world for the superior White race. Careful what you wish for, it's the Whites which are now non-breeding themselves to extinction.
Phil, your smug, ignorant arrogance would be pitiable were it not so hateful. Grow up. Read some history sometime instead of watching Obama YouTube campaign videos.

Dav Eka of DC 4:39PM May 08, 2012

I'm actually a greater percentage NA blood as she is (great-grandmother, instead of great-great), yet there is no way I would try to claim myself as Native American - it would be pure foolishness.
To answer the authors question, though, YES, it is genealogy that determines what one is, and nothing else. I could have been brought up in China since birth, but that in no way would make me Chinese.

enzo of IN 10:32PM May 06, 2012

Who in their right mind will vote for Warren now that she has concocted this nonsense? Seems that she has already done some serious ripping off to give her an unfair edge -- claiming she was of the same blood as ----- POCAHANIS?? She is as bad as her old boss -- CONCOCTING HIS OWN ...... COMPOSITE GIRL FRIEND!
Think they all need some serious professional help!

OldGrunt of CO 9:17PM May 06, 2012

Who cares?
Warren is only touting NA ancestry to get the pseudo liberal Yankee votes in Mass. Waste of time.

Troy of TX 7:48PM May 06, 2012

Why do liberals like her constantly talk about race and skin color? By the way if she's 1/32 American Indian then I guess I could say I'm African American. We go back far enough we're ALL African American so why not? The whole concept of receiving "goodies" after pulling back your sleeve and showing your skin is appalling to me. It's time to stop and base preferences upon financial need ONLY.

Kal Abi of MI 4:10AM May 06, 2012

William Shockley of PA
Please explain how "Supreme Court has already approved the national system of racial preferences."

Bill Hedges of MO 3:34AM May 05, 2012

A nation that embarks on a policy of racial classification will inevitably encounter problems caused by miscegenation, as the South discovered in the Jim Crow era (the "one drop" policy that made many majority-white people black unless they could pass), and as Germany discovered in the Nuremberg Laws era, when the gemischling posed insuperable classification problems. Even if one concedes the existence of distinct races, very few people are racially pure due to one million years of interbreeding. Given that, how do we decide who qualifies for our system of racial preferences? DNA tests? A "one drop" test? Family lore? Germany sought to resolve this problem scientifically, by establishing a ministry of race classification that employed experts and defined clear criteria based upon geneology (prove that you are Aryan) and physical measurements (how big is your nose?). Of course, if we wished to fairly administer our national system of race classification, we could do as they did, perhaps using the Public Health Service as the basis for a National Office of Race Classification; racial class would be noted on the birth certificate (and/or tattooed) as well as being entered in the National Race Registry. Unfortunately, the German experts who could help us set up such a system are now either dead, in jail or in hiding, so we can't benefit from their experience, and will have to reinvent the wheel. But is has been done quite siccessfully, and could be done here as well. There would be no Constitutional problems because the Supreme Court has already approved the national system of racial preferences.

William Shockley of PA 11:00PM May 04, 2012

BTW, Mark, I'm of mixed "aboriginal" and Euro background; so, yes, I have sensitivities with regards to this topic. I'm not sure if Professor Warren did the right thing, but many thoughtful articles have been written since her "outting."
At the end of the day, the Truth will set us all free. This topic can be very tortured, as we all know. One day we too will get to the mountaintop. Shedding light on this often subterranean issue is the way forward, imo.
From that pov, thank you, Professor/Senate candidate from Massachusetts by way of Oklahoma and Texas.

Cee Gee Dee of TX 10:16PM May 04, 2012

Well, I have documentation, I have an IIM number.
I look white. My mother was Indian (Sioux) Old Cheyenne River Agency, South Dakota. Now Eagle Butte South Dakota.
My Father was white. Born in Kentucky.
I grew up on the Lower Brule Reservation, South Dakota.
Attended Catholic Missionary Indian boarding school.
My Mother had Family members killed at Wounded Knee.
I am proud of that heritage. But passed through life as a white.

Michael Jon Austin of CA 10:01PM May 04, 2012

The sad fact is that people of Native American background are the only ones in America who have to prove it in order to be considered one.
There are folks from Mexico, Central America, and other parts of Latin America who have it in obvious amounts and aren't considered Native American by the US government. Try telling them they aren't an indigenous part of the Americas. They'll either laugh in your face or get mad as hornets.
Many in the various levels of American government and society contributed to ending the Indian Wars, which were often brutal and dehumanizing, and on all sides. I've no way of knowing if Ms. Warren has any Indian blood or not, but, if she does, more power to her for resisting a corrupt and racist system.

Cee Gee Dee of TX 7:07PM May 04, 2012