Cherokee Nation secretary of state Chuck Hoskin Jr. said Monday that a DNA test does not mean much in the way of proving Native American ancestry, and that the back-and-forth between President Donald Trump and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) about her ancestry is “not particularly useful.”
“It doesn’t drill down to whether a person has Cherokee ancestry, for example, or ancestry of any particular tribe. It’s useful to connect yourself with some lineage, determine paternity, but it doesn’t narrow down the scope of who your ancestors were to any identifiable tribe,” Hoskin Jr. said to CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“We need to be clear about what it means to be a Native American and Indian in this country. And it comes down to a legal status that we frankly have fought long and hard for and are very proud of,” he added.
“We have a lot of issues, and we would rather the President of the United States and Senator Warren focus in on things that affect us, housing, health care, clean water, clean air,” he continued. “We don’t think it’s particularly useful to have them in a back and forth about a DNA test, name calling and that sort of thing.”
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— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) October 16, 2018
Bigger issues for Native Americans right now. Maddow did a long piece on how the Republican legislators in North Dakota have found a way to prevent thousands of Native Americans from voting November 6th to ensure Heidi Heitkamp’s defeat.
I suppose if Trump stops with the pocahontas bullshit sen Warren will have done Native Americans (and decent people everywhere) a solid.
I mean… I get his point and in a sense he’s, of course, correct…
but he is on TV today advocating for his cause and people are paying attention because of the Senator basically called out the president for the use of a Native American name as a slur with DNA results that really should put an end to Trump calling her Pocahontas. Further use means his BS denials its racist are no longer tenable (as if they were ever plausible)
I have to think that fact, from his side, is useful.
And besides the only claim that Warren made about this results is that it shows her mom didn’t lie to her and she has not claimed to be a tribe member.
Agree… Senator Warren now needs to actually do something showing her concern for the indigenous peoples of our land. For example improve voting rights. I saw a clip that indicated some tribes have to travel 75 miles to vote. How about unemployment in the 80 to 90% range. Trash talking is so depressing - real programs with actual results is much more important to the future well being of all.
Personally, I don’t think Warren went down the right road. If her intention was to show that he’s racist, misogynistic sc*mbag, then we already knew that. Her heritage was never truly in question because that’s not the point of the racism. NOW, - we get the Cherokee SoS adding to the situation and Rump is totally twisting his words. (You didn’t see this coming, Mr. Hoskin?) People need to go back to their corners and fight for something else.
I have mixed feelings about Senator Warren releasing the results of an ancestry genetic test. These commercial kits are not reliable, especially for a low sample population. It’s imprtant that she tells her story, but all that is washed out by trump being a jerk, and no one can out jerk trump.
Hope she can turn the narrative to trump policies screwing poor people.