The Cherokee Nation has issued a statement reacting to Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren’s public release of her DNA test results — taken in response President Donald Trump taunting her after she had claimed she was part Native American.
Their take? A scientific test doesn’t determine whether or not she has earned the right to call herself Cherokee.
The report stated that “the great majority of (Warren’s) identifiable ancestry is European.” However, according to NBC, the report adds, “The analysis also identified 5 genetic segments as Native American in origin at high confidence.”
The Cherokee Nation responded that DNA tests are useless in determining tribal citizenship and people using DNA to connect themselves to Cherokee Nation is inappropriate, and that Sen. Warren was “undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage.”
Warren responded in a tweet saying the “bottom line” is that her “heritage played no role in my hiring — ever.” She went on to say that she won’t “sit quietly for @realDonaldTrump’s racism, so I took a test.”
Bottom line: My heritage played no role in my hiring – ever. The @BostonGlobe reviewed all the evidence. Their verdict? “At every step of her remarkable rise in the legal profession, the people responsible for hiring her saw her as a white woman.” https://t.co/LTQ6d1sMwM
— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) October 15, 2018
I won’t sit quietly for @realDonaldTrump‘s racism, so I took a test. But DNA & family history has nothing to do with tribal affiliation or citizenship, which is determined only – only – by Tribal Nations. I respect the distinction, & don’t list myself as Native in the Senate.
— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) October 15, 2018
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