Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and her counterparts in the mainstream media uncovered their toxic symbiotic relationship like never before when the senator released a report on her DNA results Monday, revealing her claims to Cherokee heritage were bogus. As noted by Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro, “The report states that Warren could be just 1/1024th Native American. What’s more, the study was based not on Native American DNA, but on Mexican, Peruvian, and Colombian DNA.”
The media, of course, ran interference for Warren, framing the possibility that the Democrat having Native ancestry as far back as 6-10 generations as somehow in alignment with her past claims and not a massive sham.
While the media worked overtime to spin the Warren self-own, the Cherokee Nation issued a statement deflating such an effort, labeling the test “useless” and “inappropriate.”
“A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship,” said Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin, Jr. in the statement. “Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America. Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation.”
Hoskin added, “Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong. It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is prove.”
“Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage,” the statement concludes.
Other Cherokee members and Native Americans in the past have blasted Warren for making the dubious claim to such ancestry, too.
In 2016, for example, Cherokee genealogist Twila Barnes said there was no evidence for Warren’s alleged Native heritage (though Warren did offensively cite having high cheekbones and her “Pow Wow Chow” recipe book as evidence in the past). The Washington Times reports:
Ms. Barnes, who said her research into Ms. Warren’s family found “no evidence” of Native American ancestry, has challenged key elements of the senator’s tale of how her parents, Pauline Reed and Donald Herring, defied his parents by running off to marry.
“The problem with Warren’s story is that none of the evidence supports it,” said Ms. Barnes in a 2016 post on her Thoughts from Polly’s Granddaughter blog. “Her genealogy shows no indication of Cherokee ancestry. Her parents’ wedding doesn’t resemble an elopement. And additional evidence doesn’t show any indication of her Herring grandparents being Indian haters.”
Moreover, as noted by Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavadra, “A 2012 report from The Atlantic noted that Warren was not a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, was not enrolled in the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and was not one of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee, ‘Nor could she become one, even if she wanted to.'”
And the criticism for Warren only heated up on Monday. A Cherokee Nation member and Ethnic Studies professor at Brown University, Dr. Adrienne Keene, called out the senator for denying that her apparently falsified ethnic claims helped her to advance at Harvard University.
“My tribal citizenship was a factor in my hiring. As it should be,” said Keene, according to National Review. “I represent my nation & Native ppls in this space & we wouldn’t have a voice otherwise. But I’m also a great teacher.”
A professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Alberta, Kim TallBear, similarly slammed the Democrat.
“She continues to defend her ancestry claims as important despite her historical record of refusing to meet with Cherokee Nation community members who challenge her claims,” she said. “This shows that she focuses on and actually privileges DNA company definitions in this debate, which are ultimately settler-colonial definitions of who is Indigenous.”
Other Native Americans took to Twitter to voice their concerns over Warren’s claims and her highly-touted DNA test (H/t National Review):
Suffice to say, things probably aren’t going as Warren expected, even with the fulltime help of the mainstream media.