WaPo uncovers Liz Warren’s 1986 bar app. Race handwritten as “American Indian”

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02/05/2019 23:03

Subject: Re:WaPo uncovers Liz Warren’s 1986 bar app. Race handwritten as “American Indian”

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Who careas? It’s not like bar applications are a selective process and they can only admit so many so she got some kind of edge identifying as American Indian. This is truly a situation where it didn’t help or hurt her, it just was. If anything, this substantiates to me that she really did identify as American Indian if she’s using it in contexts where it doesn’t matter.

Oh don't be dense. Elizabeth Warren is obviously a white woman and obviously identifies as such. Even if she heard that she had a great great great grandparent that was Native American everyone in her family is white. There's no way she really saw herself as Native American. What she did is really quite galling. It's the kind of thing that people make jokes about doing, but no one actually has the nerve to do.

+100
This.

+ one million

I would consider that it was 1986 and maybe this was some kind of a "thing", but my son is adopted and could definitely be considered a different race/ethnicity (as in it's physically obvious without a DNA test and he was born in another country). He has always self identified as white because he was raised in the white culture. His DNA would show otherwise to a much greater degree than Warren's did.

And this kind of dragging people through the mud for how they identified decades ago concerns me a bit. Your ds identifies this way now, but he could change his mind in the future. Or he could be criticized by people who claim he was turning his back on his heritage. I have multiracial kids and I see how easily this could happen to them. I think once we police how people self-identify it is a dangerous.

PP here. His heritage is white English speaking American. Cultural heritage is what defines us. Once in a while I run into people who ask if he speaks the language of his birth country. They somehow think a baby will speak that language through its DNA. So weird. I don't think anyone would have criticized Warren for identifying as white or would have said she had turned her back on her Native American culture. Anyone who says those things does not understand how culture affects identity. You don't just "feel Native American" somehow.

I am sure you have researched this because of your adoption, but Korean adoptees who are adults now have conflicting thoughts on your statement. It is not as straightforward and while some interracial adoptees would agree with you, others would not. My kids are not actually adopted - they have a grandparent of another race & culture.

PP again. Yes, then I would agree that your children are not the same, especially if they have contact with these grandparents and they are "not actually adopted". Adoption in our case was a complete split from the birth culture and family. Our son knows no other family or culture except for ours. I am sure that other adoptees feel differently, but it doesn't mean that they have inherited their birth culture. They may learn their birth language at some point or find their birth parents and maybe then they would self identify as another race or ethnicity. But I think this was far from the case for Elizabeth Warren.

Your son is interesting then - I don't know any adoptees who don't identify as their race of birth. Their culture is American, definitely, but they can't just call themselves Caucasian just because their parents are. As for my kids - they only have one grandparent who is of another race and culture. My point is that my kids (and your son) can check more than one box if they want to now, and they could check more than one box in the future. They can choose how they identify and it doesn't have to be the same all the way through their lives. Their identity may evolve as they grow up and connect with others of similar heritage.

Policing how other people identify themselves - especially in a culture like the US where race and ethnicity are very complicated - is dangerous.

I thought you said that nobody should police how people identify themselves ????

You are right, I do believe they should be able to identify themselves how they choose. I guess what I meant was that because their birth parents were chinese or african american or ugandan, they don't usually choose to identify as Caucasian, even though their parents are Caucasian.

Thank you for calling me on that language, after I typed it out I wished that I could edit it a bit to be more accurate.