Talk:Elizabeth Warren

Bit misleading on her Native American controversy and Trump

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren#Ancestry_and_Native_American_relations

'Throughout his presidency, former president Donald Trump mocked Warren for her assertions of Native American ancestry, and called her the slur "Pocahontas".'

I struggle to see how it can be justified to refer to that as a "slur". Maybe some left leaning publications do, but does a majority of publications? From what I've seen the answer is no.

'At a July 2018 Montana rally, he promised that if he debated Warren, he would pay $1 million to her favorite charity if she could prove her Native American ancestry via a DNA test. Warren released results of a DNA test in October 2018, then asked Trump to donate the money to the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center. Trump responded by denying that he had made the challenge. The DNA test found that Warren's ancestry is mostly European but "strongly support[ed] the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor", likely "in the range of 6 to 10 generations ago".'

Very misleading, Trump challenged her to take a DNA test that "shows you’re an Indian". Clearly having the same amount of Native DNA as any random white American doesn't satisfy that. Also the 'Trump responded by denying that he made the challenge' is also misleading as fact checked here - https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/oct/15/context-donald-trumps-1-million-offer-elizabeth-wa/

'The DNA test found that Warren's ancestry is mostly European but "strongly support[ed] the existence of an unadmixed Native American ancestor", likely "in the range of 6 to 10 generations ago".'

This is potentially misleading to viewers unless we note that this is the same amount of ancestry that a random white American is likely to have. 84.70.169.190 (talk) 07:56, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

That's not the amount of Native American ancestry the random white American is likely to have. The random white Amarican is likely to have 0% Native American ancestry. However, since some white Americans have a lot of Native American DNA, the average is 0.18%, compared with Warren (0.10% to 1.56%).[1] TFD (talk) 10:30, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, noting her % of Native DNA would be helpful to readers then. 84.70.169.190 (talk) 20:05, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't see why. Warren said that her great-great-great-grandmother was part Native American, which is consistent with the DNA finding that she had a Native American ancestor 6 to 10 generations ago. This isn't a biology article. All that matters is the DNA test confirmed her claim. TFD (talk) 04:36, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Well no, what she actually said is that she is Native American, not that 200-300 years ago she had one Native American ancestor. "being Native American has been part of my story" and "1986, Warren identified her race as "American Indian" on a State Bar of Texas write-in form". The DNA test debunked her claim. I feel like telling the readers the DNA percentage is useful because it's hard to put into perspective what one ancestor 6-10 generations ago actually means, the DNA test does that. 84.70.169.190 (talk) 05:03, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

When you start by making obviously false statements such as the average American has Indian ancestry, you immediately destroy any credibility. In your latest comment, you leave out that before saying she was Native American, Warren said that her great-great-great-grandmother was part Native American, which was confirmed by the DNA evidence. Instead of getting misinformation from unreliable sourcess and wasting our time with a rant, research what reliable sources say, compare it to what this article says and then comment. TFD (talk) 01:31, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

That was when she was challenged in an interview on why she identified herself as American Indian in the 80s. And 6-10 generations ago is further than that. Can I get a response on my point about the bet with Trump? 84.70.169.190 (talk) 04:27, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Can you explain why you made the obviously false claim that "this is the same amount of ancestry that a random white American is likely to have." TFD (talk) 09:13, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I thought I read that when her results came out. Also isn't her results within that margin according to you? Average is 0.18%, compared with Warren's 0.10% to 1.56%. 84.70.169.190 (talk) 20:50, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

That's not how averages work. If Warren Buffet (net worth $101 billion) walks into a shelter with 100 homeless people, the average net worth of everyone in the homeless shelter is $1 billion. That doesn't mean that the random person in the shelter is likely to have a net worth of $1 billion. The vast majority of white Americans have no Native American ancestry. (See "The Genetic Ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States", figure S7.) TFD (talk) 21:40, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

For a sample of hundreds of millions of people an average is fair enough, the point is her claim of being an American Indian was false then when challenged on it her new claim of being 1/32 Native was also false. Adding her % would be useful to the readers, and fixing the 1 million bet statement is needed. 84.70.169.190 (talk) 01:35, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

I have never understood why people like you, when you find an opponent who has misstated facts, instead of just calling them out on it, they misrepresent the facts in order to make them appear worse. The same thing happened with Benghazi. It only works with people who are already converted. Maybe they have difficulty in distinguishing facts from alternative facts. In any case, it doesn't belong in article discussions. TFD (talk) 03:11, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Pocahontas was a person. Using it as a nickname has been recognized as a "slur" by the reliable sources: [2][3][4][5][6][7][8] – Muboshgu (talk) 20:14, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

And if I show you even more reliable sources that don't refer to it as a slur, what then? 84.70.169.190 (talk) 01:53, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

If I find reliable sources that pigs can fly, what then? It' a pointless question. TFD (talk) 04:39, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Well I'm wondering why we describe it as a slur if some reliable sources do and some don't. 84.70.169.190 (talk) 04:55, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

It's time to stop trolling. TFD (talk) 05:04, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:02, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Can we get a correction on the $1m bet? Trump challenged her to take a DNA test that "shows you’re an Indian", not "prove her Native American ancestry" as the article currently says. And he never denied that he made that challenge - https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/oct/15/context-donald-trumps-1-million-offer-elizabeth-wa/ 84.70.169.190 (talk) 14:07, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I have edited the article to include Trump's specific words. I think the problem here is that his challenge was ambiguous. He does say what you said, but also 'And in the middle of the debate, when she proclaims that she is of Indian heritage because her mother said she has high cheekbones'. 'Of Indian heritage' is different to 'is Indian' so its not entirely clear what he had in mind. Her claim of course also changed over time, which doesn't help the matter. I suspect my phrasing won't be the final word here, but hopefully it can bring us a little closer. LastDodo (talk) 12:24, 25 October 2022 (UTC)

Should changes be made to the section labeled "Ancestry and Native American relations"?

The subsection "Ancestry and Native American relations" in the larger public image section seems a little weird to me. You have 5 paragraphs on her ancestry controversy, and then the section ends with two sentences about Deb Haaland's praise and endorsement of her. I have no objection to the information itself, but it just seems weird to have it in a section that is overwhelmingly focused on the issue of her ancestry. Why not move the Haaland endorsement sentence to somewhere in the section on her presidential campaign instead? 2600:8800:4CE0:E400:7D60:3525:5CF3:500D (talk) 05:13, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 September 2022

Warren started her second term in 2019, not 2017. 2600:4040:5C67:9000:D474:A782:52F1:9780 (talk) 00:14, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: Nowhere does it say that she started her second term in 2017. It does say that she announced in 2017 that she would run for a second term . – Muboshgu (talk) 00:31, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Contentious category on this page

Pete unseth has recently reverted me to re-add the Category:Academics who falsely claimed minority ancestry to this page. Respecting WP:BRD, but also keeping in mind the WP:BLP imperative that contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced should be removed immediately and without discussion, I will restate my rationale here before re-reverting.

WP:BLPCAT states: Category names do not carry disclaimers or modifiers, so the case for each content category must be made clear by the article text and its reliable sources. The name of the category is "Academics who falsely claimed minority ancestry". The problem with this is that I haven't seen a reliable source which states that she "falsely claimed minority ancestry." Sure, I've seen reliable sources affirming that she is not a member of a tribe, and that she should not be considered 'racially' Native American. But I haven't seen any source debunking the idea that she had a Native American ancestor, which is what the category name is saying. Because of this, I feel that it's not appropriate for this category to remain on the page of a living person. MediaKill13 (talk) 10:32, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

She does not have any Native American ancestry. Tribal identity is based in citizenship, not race. Bustamante said it was possible she had a South American ancestor from way back, but the DNA cannot distinguish whether that ancestor's alleles were Indigenous to this continent or Spain. The commercial databases they used do not have any North American Indigenous DNA to match people with. She claimed Cherokee and Delaware ancestry. The test cannot, and did not, show that. Her claim was proven false.

• 'There is no DNA test to prove you're Native American' - New Scientist
• The white supremacy of Elizabeth Warren - Indian Country Today "Elizabeth Warren has exhibited a wide-ranging pattern of dishonesty and contempt for Indigenous communities that disqualifies her candidacy for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination"
• SYLLABUS: ELIZABETH WARREN, CHEROKEE CITIZENSHIP, AND DNA TESTING - Critical Ethnic Studies Published by University of Minnesota Press

The syllabus has a long list of RS sources, along with more specialized discussion. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 20:46, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

I feel like there are two issues being conflated here: Native American (or Indigenous) ancestry and Native American identity. If the name of the category was "Academics who falsely claimed minority identity", this would be a different discussion because all the sources are emphatically clear that Elizabeth Warren does not have, and cannot claim, Native American identity, or citizenship, or membership. But again, what I'm seeing from the sources is that she might (or might not) have Native American ancestry. I also understand that there is strong resistance in Native American communities to DNA genealogy testing. You yourself have restated the consensus of the sources that, because the databases do not have samples of North American Indigenous DNA, no test can corroborate her claim. However, where we disagree is whether that makes her claim false. To my understanding, if a claim cannot be proven one way or another, it is not true or false, but unproven, or indeterminate. The question I'm asking myself is, would it be acceptable to have a sentence in the article saying 'Elizabeth Warren's claims to Native American ancestry have been proven false?'. Even in the section discussing her claims, nowhere in Wikipedia's voice is it stated that her claims were false, which is what the category name does. MediaKill13 (talk) 08:02, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

@MediaKill13 she claimed American Indian identity in 1986 on a registration card for the State Bar of Texas [9]https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/05/politics/warren-american-indian-texas-bar/index.html [10]https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/06/elizabeth-warren-american-indian-identity/2787055002/ "In response, Warren sent a 12-page letter to the Cherokee authors on Tuesday night. Her letter repeated past apologies, reiterated that she is a “white woman” and detailed a policy agenda that she said was good for Indian Country.", "The controversy started in 2012, when questions arose about her university listing. Barnes researched Warren’s genealogy and found that, despite Warren’s claims, she had no ancestral ties to Cherokee tribes." [11]https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-02-26/elizabeth-warren-again-is-pressed-on-past-claims-of-native-american-heritage Indigenous girl (talk) 19:44, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

All of the RS sources for what constitutes Native American identity (and specifically Cherokee or Delaware identity - which is specifically what she claimed) are that her claims are false. She was told her Cherokee claim was false, by Cherokee standards, years before she announced her Senate run. She refused to stop claiming. She was told again during her Senate run. Ditto. This has been an ongoing cycle with her. She dropped the Delaware claim. I think you are looking for loopholes here in a way that ignores the sources. That is inappropriate. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 19:46, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

All of that is true, but to reiterate, my problem is the name of the category. I still do not believe that it is compatible with what has been detailed in RS. However, I recognise that there is a consensus against my view, therefore I will drop the issue. I've still nominated the category for deletion, based in part on other problems I see with it. MediaKill13 (talk) 20:04, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

"other geneticists"

This recent edit has a misstatement of the source[12] First of all it takes the "South American" thing out of context. The full quote is Bustamante has said that due to limited Native America databases, he compared Warren’s DNA sample to recent samples from indigenous populations in South America rather than Native Americans in the U.S., which does not say they weren't Native American. They were Native South American. Secondly the overall conclusion from the piece you gave was 'Not a yes or no answer' None of the experts and industry executives who spoke to ABC News -- including scientists who have worked with Bustamante -- directly refuted his conclusions. Instead, they contended that the underlying science is apt to be flawed because the Native American gene databases for tribes in the U.S. are so thin –- making conclusions like Bustamante's all but useless from a scientific perspective. "It's hard to say that there is a definitive conclusion, especially if someone has such small amounts of Native American ancestry," said Dr. Nanibaa’ Garrison, a faculty member in the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Research Institute. "When you're testing someone who might have an ancestor more than four or five generations back, that's when it becomes very hard to piece out that ancestor from all the other ancestors that the person has," Garrison added. "It's not a yes or no answer." Andre🚐 23:06, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

The wording implies that Bustamante said the evidence was definitive, when in fact he said it was strongly supportive of her claim. That's why there is a policy against using analysis by journalists as reliable sources. I support removing the text. TFD (talk) 10:33, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Andrevan, the point is that Native Americans in the United States (specifically Cherokee people and Delaware people) and Indigenous peoples of the Americas#Central America and Indigenous peoples of the Americas#South America are not all interchangeable.

The point is that this, and other sources I can add, clarify that Warren claimed North American Native heritage, and the DNA test did not confirm that. But it's been misrepresented as if it did. That is the only point I want to make with these additions, as it continues to be a misconception about this incident. I can add other sources by geneticists that confirm the 23andMe database he used has no significant DNA from North American Native populations. That's why it was "useless" to confirm her claim; but she tried to do that, and people are still trying to do that. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 18:39, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

The DNA test strongly supported Warren's claim of some small Native American admixture which gives evidence, but not conclusively, to her family story. Of course it doesn't prove that she was Cherokee or Delaware and I wasn't saying that all indigenous people are interchangeable, but that is how DNA research is done. They use stand-ins for different groups. But if there was something genetically similar to South American indigenous DNA in Warren's white European heritage, that gives some evidence (not proof) of her story. Beyond that you're veering into original research synthesis. The "useless" quote was taken out of context. It clearly states in the source that none of the experts refuted what Bustamante said, they simply said the science was flawed and inexact. Andre🚐 18:52, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Read the new source I've added. I'm not not trying to be mean here but you don't seem to be understanding how these tests work. Please also check out the Warren syllabus:

• SYLLABUS: ELIZABETH WARREN, CHEROKEE CITIZENSHIP, AND DNA TESTING

- CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 19:12, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

The claim is false, the science is "inexact" and "flawed", and even if (big if) it was evidence of something it is not proof of anything, least of which her claim of Cherokee, Delaware or any other North American Native heritage. It is by the very definition of the term "useless" in proving the claim. --ARoseWolf 19:51, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

The DNA test showed evidence that there was some historical basis for Warren's family story, which is not the same as a credible claim to Cherokee or Delaware tribal heritage. However the original edit I reverted was not as clear as the current article text. Right now it explains this complex issue in what I consider to be a reasonable and nuanced way. Before the implication was that the DNA test was useless - well, it's not useless full stop given the Donald Trump bet phrasing (which of course he did not honor). It might be useless for tribal sovereignty since that isn't how you get sovereignty for a tribe. But it has a usage. It shows that the family story that Warren grew up with wasn't just a fabrication, but based on something historical. Without weighing in on whether it was proper to talk about the way Warren did. Andre🚐 20:41, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

As far as I can understand it, you've addressed my issue. I'm fine with the latest edit as it seems to capture the issues that I was objecting to with the first edit, so I'm going to leave it alone and let it stand for now. Andre🚐 20:24, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

"Native American" vs "Native American Descent"

@Muboshgu: While Warren has more recently walked back her claim to be fully Native American, the category is for those who claim "Native American Descent". This is different. After the many meetings during the campaigns she admitted she's not a citizen of a Nation (which Native Americans already knew), and has no tribal ties (ditto), but she still makes the distant ancestry claims - with the disputed DNA test and her statements about her ancestors. The cat exists precisely for people who aren't citizens, and who have no proven ancestry, but believe they have ancestry "somewhere back there" (in addition to those who make what others believe are simply false claims). She fits the category. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 20:58, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

I self reverted. If we're only talking about partial descent, afaik she does still say that. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:32, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

that's like saying I must be old because I have some gray hair. I was 18. 2600:1004:B14C:5298:34ED:EAA6:7AB7:4743 (talk) 03:40, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Warren was a diversity hire, she is the only Harvard professors till that time whograduated from a public college. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-09-21/from-oklahoma-to-harvard-elizabeth-warren-trod-a-tricky-pathUnselfstudier (talk) 20:48, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Dr. Phil

the Dr. Phil story, while not currently cited this way, was cited in several articles and biographical profiles of Warren. I'll look. Andre🚐 05:49, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 January 2024

In the area where the article lists children, it says "2, including Amelia". It is know that that Warren's children are Amelia Warren Tyagi and Alexander Warren. It would be useful to change the information to include Alexander Warren, as of current it is difficult to glean his existence from the current article. Thanks for reading, and have a great day! Emrehozchan (talk) 13:29, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

 Done Liu1126 (talk) 14:07, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 February 2024

As a former chair of hiring and advancement at Harvard, I take exception with you ludicrous statement that Ms Warren received no preferential consideration due to her claims of indigenous heritage. You lose credibility when you cover for her. This site, which I have given substantial donations to,absolutely must show the good, bad, and ugly, otherwise you are nothing. 2601:249:8780:6530:4D57:406:3A73:8FBD (talk) 07:06, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: The article does not state that she received no preferential consideration. It does, however, attribute statements that she received no preferential consideration to other reliable sources. If you are able to provide other sources of equal quality stating the opposite, please do so that they can be included. Please also keep in mind that all Wikipedia editors are volunteers – while we appreciate your financial support of the site, none of us receive any compensation. Tollens (talk) 08:14, 10 February 2024 (UTC)