Transracial?

[Jolly_Penguin]

First Rachel Dolezal claimed to be black to advance herself, now Elizabeth Warren is said to have. I am not well informed on Warren's case. Is it true that she claimed to be native american at Harvard? I know that Trump accused her of doing so, and that she recently took a DNA test that shows she isn't. If she did claim it, then do you think she did so for her own personal gain? What if it isn't for personal gain, but just what the person decides that they are or wants to be, like Ja Du?

Within the framework of identity politics, affirmative action, etc, SHOULD we be allowed to change our race?

 

[James Brown]

The legitimacy of Warren’s claims to Native American heritage has certainly been challenged by many critics, and it is true that while Warren was at U. Penn. Law School she put herself on the “Minority Law Teacher” list as Native American) in the faculty directory of the Association of American Law Schools, and that Harvard Law School at one time promoted Warren as a Native American faculty member. But specific evidence that she gained her position at Harvard (at least in part) through her claims to Native American heritage is lacking. Warren denied applying for special consideration as a person of Native American heritage during her career, and when the matter was examined in 2012 in response to Brown’s claims, people with whom Warren had worked similarly denied her ancestral background’s factoring into the professional opportunities afforded her

Snopes link

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Didn't occur to me that Snopes would cover that. So it is true then. She did claim it. I don't need specific evidence that she gained her position at Harvard law through it. The fact that she claimed it at all is reason enough for me to conclude she was dishonest about it, and I thin it reasonable for the default explanation of that to be that she did it for some sort of personal gain she thought she may get out of it. Unless she has some alternate explanation? She was doing it as a joke? She was doing it as some sort of social experiment for the students? Nothing plausible comes to mind.

But the question of this thread isn't that. My question is whether there is anything wrong with her doing it. In a society seeing things more and more by group identity, with assumed upsides and downsides, and benefits and costs for each identity, but also allowing people to identify how they want (trans movement - or is that only for gender?), I see a conflict.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

First Rachel Dolezal claimed to be black to advance herself, now Elizabeth Warren is said to have. I am not well informed on Warren's case. Is it true that she claimed to be native american at Harvard? I know that Trump accused her of doing so, and that she recently took a DNA test that shows she isn't. If she did claim it, then do you think she did so for her own personal gain? What if it isn't for personal gain, but just what the person decides that they are or wants to be, like Ja Du?

Within the framework of identity politics, affirmative action, etc, SHOULD we be allowed to change our race?

No. She did not. The Boston Globe has done some deep investigations into the charges and has thoroughly debunked them. She self identified as white and her native back round did not come up when she was considered for professorship, as numerous people who voted on her professorship told the Boston Globe.

What we have here is another example of right wing media bullshitting and disinformation.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

First Rachel Dolezal claimed to be black to advance herself, now Elizabeth Warren is said to have. I am not well informed on Warren's case. Is it true that she claimed to be native american at Harvard? I know that Trump accused her of doing so, and that she recently took a DNA test that shows she isn't. If she did claim it, then do you think she did so for her own personal gain? What if it isn't for personal gain, but just what the person decides that they are or wants to be, like Ja Du?

Within the framework of identity politics, affirmative action, etc, SHOULD we be allowed to change our race?

How many threads do you want there to be on this?

 

[couch_sloth]

Many Whites who thought they had a significant amount of Native American ancestry are now finding out they don’t. So Warren’s claims aren’t all that unusual. At least she has a little NA DNA.
Apparently, “Where is my Native America ethnicity?” is the #1 question ancestry.com customers ask about their DNA results.[YOUTUBE]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=geE7zsehccY[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Many Whites who thought they had a significant amount of Native American ancestry are now finding out they don’t. So Warren’s claims aren’t all that unusual. At least she has a little NA DNA.

Maybe it could be a case of honest mistake? Did she always claim to be native american? Did her parents and siblings? Since she was a child? Or did it suddenly manifest only later on in her life?

She self identified as white and her native back round did not come up when she was considered for professorship

Two points here.

First, the Snopes was wrong? She didn't claim to be native american and instead always identified as white? Why take the test then? Why not just say she never made such a claim about native american ancestry and call Trump et co out on the lie?

Second, her using it as a way to get a prrofessorship at Harvard would be one question, but even that being false, it would't cover the broader question of her claiming it at all for some other sort of personal gain.

 

[Toni]

Many Whites who thought they had a significant amount of Native American ancestry are now finding out they don’t. So Warren’s claims aren’t all that unusual. At least she has a little NA DNA.

Maybe it could be a case of honest mistake? Did she always claim to be native american? Did her parents and siblings? Since she was a child? Or did it suddenly manifest only later on in her life?

It's part of the family history that was handed down over generations. Her father's family objected to him marrying her mother because of Native American ancestry in Warren's mother's family tree. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been an attempt to gain tribal membership on the part of any of her family members. It came up in a casual conversation: Did you say that you have some Native American ancestry? Yes, my mother's family always claimed to have this ancestry. That was it.

There is ZERO evidence that she ever used this family legend of Native American ancestry to gain any sort of professional or academic advantage. Everyone who worked with her during her years in academia has backed this up. Harvard did use it in order to boost their claims about diversity among faculty while she was on their faculty.

 

[poster]

Many Whites who thought they had a significant amount of Native American ancestry are now finding out they don’t. So Warren’s claims aren’t all that unusual. At least she has a little NA DNA.
Apparently, “Where is my Native America ethnicity?” is the #1 question ancestry.com customers ask about their DNA results.[YOUTUBE]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=geE7zsehccY[/YOUTUBE]

That was worth watching. Thanks for posting it.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

There is ZERO evidence that she ever used this family legend of Native American ancestry to gain any sort of professional or academic advantage. Everyone who worked with her during her years in academia has backed this up. Harvard did use it in order to boost their claims about diversity among faculty while she was on their faculty.

I see a conflict between the two bolded statements, unless they did this without her consent.

What if somebody grows up adopted into another family who is another race, and lives as that family does their whole lives? Should they be allowed to claim to be that race and should we recognize them as it?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

There is ZERO evidence that she ever used this family legend of Native American ancestry to gain any sort of professional or academic advantage. Everyone who worked with her during her years in academia has backed this up. Harvard did use it in order to boost their claims about diversity among faculty while she was on their faculty.

I see a conflict between the two bolded statements, unless they did this without her consent.

What if somebody grows up adopted into another family who is another race, and lives as that family does their whole lives? Should they be allowed to claim to be that race and should we be made to recognize them as it?

Well, that’s easy enough. Show her having given consent.

 

[J842P]

Didn't occur to me that Snopes would cover that. So it is true then. She did claim it. I don't need specific evidence that she gained her position at Harvard law through it. The fact that she claimed it at all is reason enough for me to conclude she was dishonest about it, and I thin it reasonable for the default explanation of that to be that she did it for some sort of personal gain she thought she may get out of it. Unless she has some alternate explanation? She was doing it as a joke? She was doing it as some sort of social experiment for the students? Nothing plausible comes to mind.

But the question of this thread isn't that. My question is whether there is anything wrong with her doing it. In a society seeing things more and more by group identity, with assumed upsides and downsides, and benefits and costs for each identity, but also allowing people to identify how they want (trans movement - or is that only for gender?), I see a conflict.

I don't think she was dishonest. A lot of people in the US, particularly from the region she is from, have family lore that includes having a Native American ancestor. I think she did really believe it.

 

[repoman]

This whole transgender thing related to transracial just does not fit so well. Maybe the new tumblr influenced "gender fluid" fad is a better fit.

Also, in the same way that there are many different ways that a person can be a cisgender male (dominant, submissive, like men or women or both, use lots of porn or don't, have many fetishes or none) there have to be many ways and reasons for someone to be transgender.

Probably something like transgender types 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a, 2b and 3 for example. So seeing that type 1b and 2a transgenders are fairly different does not mean that one is genuine (from a deep brain center region) and the other has been influenced by ideology or attention seeking or is a lunatic. The second may have a different base biological reason to be transgender.

If there are people who are mostly getting into transgender adjacent activity because they think it is trendy or scores social justice pyramid points (which is brand new after millennia of shit treatment) that does not, not, not take away from people who are transgender because of something going on in a deep brain center somewhere.

On a note of identity and legal identification, I would be happy with not being on a legal hook for calling a transwoman a transwoman and not calling that person a woman. I will even use a she pronoun.

Caitlyn Jenner is a transwoman, not a woman.

 

[Toni]

Didn't occur to me that Snopes would cover that. So it is true then. She did claim it. I don't need specific evidence that she gained her position at Harvard law through it. The fact that she claimed it at all is reason enough for me to conclude she was dishonest about it, and I thin it reasonable for the default explanation of that to be that she did it for some sort of personal gain she thought she may get out of it. Unless she has some alternate explanation? She was doing it as a joke? She was doing it as some sort of social experiment for the students? Nothing plausible comes to mind.

But the question of this thread isn't that. My question is whether there is anything wrong with her doing it. In a society seeing things more and more by group identity, with assumed upsides and downsides, and benefits and costs for each identity, but also allowing people to identify how they want (trans movement - or is that only for gender?), I see a conflict.

I don't think she was dishonest. A lot of people in the US, particularly from the region she is from, have family lore that includes having a Native American ancestor. I think she did really believe it.

Not only does she believe it, it seems to be fact.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Many Whites who thought they had a significant amount of Native American ancestry are now finding out they don’t. So Warren’s claims aren’t all that unusual. At least she has a little NA DNA.

Maybe it could be a case of honest mistake? Did she always claim to be native american? Did her parents and siblings? Since she was a child? Or did it suddenly manifest only later on in her life?

She self identified as white and her native back round did not come up when she was considered for professorship

Two points here.

First, the Snopes was wrong? She didn't claim to be native american and instead always identified as white? Why take the test then? Why not just say she never made such a claim about native american ancestry and call Trump et co out on the lie?

Second, her using it as a way to get a prrofessorship at Harvard would be one question, but even that being false, it would't cover the broader question of her claiming it at all for some other sort of personal gain.

Again. Her race did not come up when she was considered for a job at Harvard. Or any other job she held. That is right winger disinformation. Swift boating garbage. Again, google for Boston Globe's stories on her hiring and the facts are, her supposed NA part ancestry did not play a role in any of that. Extensive investigative reporting by the Boston Globe most thoroughly debunked that claim.


https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/na...complicated/wUZZcrKKEOUv5Spnb7IO0K/story.html

 

[Politesse]

I think I would prefer to live in a world where racial identities are considered fluid and aspirational, having been made irrelevant by genuine equality between the "races" (and/or better yet, acknowledgement that race is and always was spurious pseudoscience peddled for political ends).

But, we don't live in that world. As long as there are steep differences in opportunity and respect on the basis of race, someone who manages to use minority status for political gain while not suffering the social consequences of that identity is always going to be in a controversial spot. And those who genuinely do share in a complex family tree of racial identities will always be in an unpleasant position, having a culture war fought right down the middle of their body. Former American president Barrack Obama could easily have had visibily white skin - his genetics made this less likely but by no means impossible. And if he'd had visibly white skin, I guarantee you we would have had a very different political conversation about his race and its perceived advantages. Through no conscious fault or action of his own, he would surely have been accused of taking advantage of his mixed status, from both the political right and political left, solely because of a slightly different roll of Punnett's dice. But if things are that hard for people who are genuinely of mized race, the situation of someone who only desires a different racial identity is bound to be even more tough.

 

[repoman]

There is not a brain center tied to race as there likely is to body-gender role matching/mismatching or gender expression, dysphoria or whatever actually is going on with transgender people.

Someone can really appreciate a culture that is practiced by people who by historical accident are of a different race and dislike their own race's culture. They can also be accepted by that other culture to a degree. But no one actually thinks they are transracial at a base biological level.

Who is allowed to classify someone else by their obvious external characteristics?

I say everyone, even if they are wrong.

 

[laughing dog]

First Rachel Dolezal claimed to be black to advance herself, now Elizabeth Warren is said to have. I am not well informed on Warren's case. Is it true that she claimed to be native american at Harvard? I know that Trump accused her of doing so, and that she recently took a DNA test that shows she isn't. If she did claim it, then do you think she did so for her own personal gain? What if it isn't for personal gain, but just what the person decides that they are or wants to be, like Ja Du?

Within the framework of identity politics, affirmative action, etc, SHOULD we be allowed to change our race?

No. She did not. The Boston Globe has done some deep investigations into the charges and has thoroughly debunked them. She self identified as white and her native back round did not come up when she was considered for professorship, as numerous people who voted on her professorship told the Boston Globe.

Yes, and anyone who really cares could find this online in a matter of 15 seconds or less.

What we have here is another example of right wing media bullshitting and disinformation.

Yes, and it is disquieting to see self-professed "liberals" and "free thinkers" fall for these lies on a regular basis.

In reference to the OP, Elizabeth Warren never claimed to change her race or her ethnicity. She said it was part of her family lore that someone 4 or 5 generations ago was married to a Native American and had a child. Elizabeth Warren never tried to change her race. Never. Never.

 

[Politesse]

In reference to the OP, Elizabeth Warren never claimed to change her race or her ethnicity. She said it was part of her family lore that someone 4 or 5 generations ago was married to a Native American and had a child. Elizabeth Warren never tried to change her race. Never. Never.

If she did not wish to give this impression, taking and publicizing the results of a DNA test was the wrong move.

If the past two years have taught us anything, it's that no one ever benefits politically from doing something Donald J. Trump advised them to do.

 

[laughing dog]

Many Whites who thought they had a significant amount of Native American ancestry are now finding out they don’t. So Warren’s claims aren’t all that unusual. At least she has a little NA DNA.

Maybe it could be a case of honest mistake? Did she always claim to be native american? Did her parents and siblings? Since she was a child? Or did it suddenly manifest only later on in her life?

She self identified as white and her native back round did not come up when she was considered for professorship

Two points here.

First, the Snopes was wrong? She didn't claim to be native american and instead always identified as white? Why take the test then? Why not just say she never made such a claim about native american ancestry and call Trump et co out on the lie?

It is pretty clear you did not read the Snopes link, because

But specific evidence that she gained her position at Harvard (at least in part) through her claims to Native American heritage is lacking. Warren denied applying for special consideration as a person of Native American heritage during her career, and when the matter was examined in 2012 in response to Brown’s claims, people with whom Warren had worked similarly denied her ancestral background’s factoring into the professional opportunities afforded her

is from the Snopes link. It also advises people to go the Boston Globe article.

Second, her using it as a way to get a prrofessorship at Harvard would be one question, but even that being false, it would't cover the broader question of her claiming it at all for some other sort of personal gain.

What evidence is there for "other sort of personal gain" is there?

- - - Updated - - -

In reference to the OP, Elizabeth Warren never claimed to change her race or her ethnicity. She said it was part of her family lore that someone 4 or 5 generations ago was married to a Native American and had a child. Elizabeth Warren never tried to change her race. Never. Never.

If she did not wish to give this impression, taking and publicizing the results of a DNA test was the wrong move.

She was proving Trump wrong. Frankly, it is impossible to avoid giving idiots and partisan assholes the wrong impression.