# How much ethnicity needed to be the "first \_\_\_\_\_ President?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 23, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285 "2019-01-23T18:42:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/1 "2019-01-23T18:42:06Z")
Obama was half-black, and there is no serious dispute in society that he was the first black president. But what if he had been only 1/4 or 1/8 black instead, would that still have counted? At what point does a candidate fail to meet the threshold? (Nobody would seriously consider Elizabeth Warren to be a Native American president, for instance) (Not about anything legal, but just your own opinion) ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2019, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/2 "2019-01-23T18:45:10Z")
50% ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2019, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/3 "2019-01-23T19:46:53Z")
Ethnicity is cultural. It doesn’t really come in fractions like that. You are a part of the ethnicity / ethnicities that your family are from. Some ancestors don’t pass on their culture. Obama was clearly of both black and white America. Kamala Harris is multi-ethnic, too. Elizabeth Warren is 1/whatevereth Native American by ancestry, but is not ethnically Native American even though some ancestors were. ---
**Author:** ![Ancient\_Erudite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Ancient\_Erudite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Erudite)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2019, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/4 "2019-01-23T19:52:04Z")
Like many things, it’s up to the voter. However, when a politician makes a false claim, there should be some repercussions. For example, Warren kept saying she was Native American and may have used the status to advance her career. When the DNA test came back showing nothing, she rightly took a credibility hit. Being part Mexican didn’t help Mitt Romney win the Latino vote. Maybe because he was too tall and white. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2019, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/5 "2019-01-23T20:17:49Z")
Being the first \ is about overcoming prejudice. So if you’re \ enough for people to be prejudiced against you, that’s enough. Exactly how much this would need to be would vary from case to case, and may depend on factors other than just percentage (for instance, skin color). ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2019, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/6 "2019-01-23T20:34:52Z")
> [@Ancient\_Erudite](#): > > Like many things, it’s up to the voter. However, when a politician makes a false claim, there should be some repercussions. For example, **Warren kept saying she was Native American** and may have used the status to advance her career. When the DNA test came back showing nothing, she rightly took a credibility hit. > > Being part Mexican didn’t help Mitt Romney win the Latino vote. Maybe because he was too tall and white. She said she was part, a very tiny part. She made no secret or misrepresentation of that. There is no evidence that she uused or tried to use that to advance her career. As far as Romney, since when did he claim to be Mexican? He was born in Detroit. His father was born in a Mormon colony in Mexico. Being born in a country doesn’t make you that ethnicity though depending on the laws, it may confer citizenship. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2019, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/7 "2019-01-23T20:43:47Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Obama was half-black, and there is no serious dispute in society that he was the first black president. Yes, there was. The Republicans tried to float the idea to black voters that they shouldn’t support Obama in 2008 because he wasn’t really black. They only dropped it because it wasn’t working. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2019, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/8 "2019-01-23T20:57:52Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Obama was half-black, and there is no serious dispute in society that he was the first black president. Well, aside from the idea, [floated by Toni Morrison](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/10/05/comment-6543), that Bill Clinton was the “first black President” despite having no black ancestry, due to his life story, or something. It didn’t get a lot of traction. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2019, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/9 "2019-01-23T21:12:02Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > As far as Romney, since when did he claim to be Mexican? There was the time he used [dark makeup](https://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/mitt-romneys-tan-draws-media-fire-makeup-artist/story?id=17290303) for a Univision interview. They forgot his hands, though. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/10 "2019-01-24T02:35:48Z")
I think the example that makes it easiest to understand how this question would be answered is Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods is a true mixture of all sorts of ethnicity. He has referred to himself as Cablinasian. But even if we simplify things, his mother was Thai, and his father was not 100% “black”. But he was/is constantly referred to as the “first black golfer to \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_”. Mind you, he was the first Asian golfer to do quite a bit of that stuff, too, but that got absolutely no traction. So it will depend upon what the ethnicity is, and, probably, what they look like, which, of course, is a silly way of looking at it. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/11 "2019-01-24T13:39:33Z")
I \*think \*we’re past the one-drop rule that used to be the American definition, but still, there are a lot of people with a lot less African ancestry than Obama who unquestionably qualify as black. I suggest that, if you self-identify as black AND are seen by whites as not white, then you’re black. Still a lot of work to do, of course. ---
**Author:** ![LoneRhino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lonerhino/32/1311_2.png) [@LoneRhino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LoneRhino)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/12 "2019-01-24T14:03:26Z")
I think the the important firsts for president are: 1. First black person 2. First woman 3. First woman of color 4. First non-christian (or first non-religious person) 5. First openly gay person After that first anything else decreases in importance. An argument could be made that JFK as the first catholic or non-protestant was very important. Obama achieved the first one and Harris could tick off 2 and 3. A Native American president (not Warren) would be a big deal. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/13 "2019-01-24T16:12:57Z")
> [@Ancient\_Erudite](#): > > Like many things, it’s up to the voter. However, when a politician makes a false claim, there should be some repercussions. For example, Warren kept saying she was Native American and may have used the status to advance her career. When the DNA test came back showing nothing, she rightly took a credibility hit. > > Being part Mexican didn’t help Mitt Romney win the Latino vote. Maybe because he was too tall and white. He was born in Mexico, but is only “Mexican” in the same context that Charlize Theron is “African-American”. There is a saying in the South to the effect that your cat may have kittens in the oven but that don’t make them biscuits. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/14 "2019-01-24T16:27:50Z")
\*George \*Romney was born in Mexico (and yes, that was a question when he ran in 1968). His \*son \*Mitt was born in Detroit. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/15 "2019-01-24T17:13:33Z")
It’s really a stupid question. Before we had stuff like 23andme, how would you have even measured this? It’s not like a black person can go back and identify all the individuals in their family tree that were the offspring of a female slave who was raped by her owner or one of his sons, or the overseer. ---
**Author:** ![Ancient\_Erudite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Ancient\_Erudite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ancient_Erudite)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/16 "2019-01-24T17:26:49Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > She said she was part, a very tiny part. She made no secret or misrepresentation of that. There is no evidence that she uused or tried to use that to advance her career. > > As far as Romney, since when did he claim to be Mexican? He was born in Detroit. His father was born in a Mormon colony in Mexico. Being born in a country doesn’t make you that ethnicity though depending on the laws, it may confer citizenship. Taken from the Washington Examiner. > **[Elizabeth Warren’s claim of having Native American heritage not used to...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/665496/elizabeth-warrens-claim-of-having-native-american-heritage-not-used-to-advance-her-academic-career-report/)** > > Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., claim of having a Native American ancestry was not considered by universities who hired her as a law professor, according to a report. The Boston Globe performed a comprehensive review of documents and interviews and... \*\* Warren did however, change her ethnicity from white to Native American after she was hired at UPenn and Harvard, documents show. Critics of the progressive lawmaker have repeatedly accused her of using her heritage to advance her academic career, including President Trump, who calls her “Pocahontas.” Warren has said she is a distant descendant of the Cherokee and Delaware tribes, but she has little hard evidence to back her claims up.\*\* Why would someone with less than 1% Native American DNA do this? Universities and colleges jump at minorities candidates that are underrepresented. We both know this coach. People can make up their own mind. I think she did it to give herself the best chance of advancement. Warren handled this very badly once the truth came out. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/17 "2019-01-24T17:35:21Z")
> [@Ancient\_Erudite](#): > > I think she did it to give herself the best chance of advancement. Are your brilliant thoughts backed up by any evidence? Or is your post your cite? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/18 "2019-01-24T17:59:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **LoneRhino** : > > I think the the important firsts for president are: > > … > 4. First non-christian (or first non-religious person) That would be John Adams. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/19 "2019-01-24T17:59:56Z")
The first gay President was likely James Buchanan, but you did say “open”. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2019, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285/20 "2019-01-24T18:19:44Z")
> [@Ancient\_Erudite](#): > > Taken from the Washington Examiner. > > [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/elizabeth-warrens-claim-of-having-native-american-heritage-not-used-to-advance-her-academic-career-report](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/elizabeth-warrens-claim-of-having-native-american-heritage-not-used-to-advance-her-academic-career-report) > > \*\* > Warren did however, change her ethnicity from white to Native American after she was hired at UPenn and Harvard, documents show. > > Critics of the progressive lawmaker have repeatedly accused her of using her heritage to advance her academic career, including President Trump, who calls her “Pocahontas.” Warren has said she is a distant descendant of the Cherokee and Delaware tribes, but she has little hard evidence to back her claims up.\*\* > Why would someone with less than 1% Native American DNA do this? Universities and colleges jump at minorities candidates that are underrepresented. We both know this coach. > > People can make up their own mind. I think she did it to give herself the best chance of advancement. Warren handled this very badly once the truth came out. How about a source [devoted to the truth](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/dec/01/facts-behind-elizabeth-warren-and-her-native-ameri/)? > [@](#): > > Warren herself didn’t trumpet this side of her family story. When applying to college and law school, records show that she either identified as white or declined to apply based on minority status. > > Warren’s first responses > > Warren’s opponent Scott Brown jumped on the revelations and called on her to apologize for Harvard having touted her dubious ethnic roots. Brown also said she had used an invented minority status to make herself more attractive to law schools. > > Warren refused to apologize, saying she didn’t know Harvard was promoting her that way. She did confirm, however, that she had told the law school association that she held a minority status. > > “I listed myself (in the) directory in the hopes that might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group something, with people who are like I am,” Warren told reporters May 3, 2012. “Nothing like that ever happened. That was absolutely not the use for it and so I stopped checking it off.” And just to head off your cherry picking tactics: [Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test: What it can and can’t tell us](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/oct/15/elizabeth-warrens-dna-test-what-it-can-and-cant-te/) > [@](#): > > After years of mockery from President Donald Trump, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. –– likely anticipating a run for president –– has released a DNA report on her Native American roots. > > Trump ridiculed Warren with the nickname Pocahontas since at least 2016. As we’ve noted before, that goes back to a time in the mid 1980s when Warren first indicated on law school faculty forms that she had Native American ancestry. > > No documents supported that, and Trump once said she had as much Native American blood as he did, and he had none. At a July 5 rally in Montana, he challenged her to take a DNA test. > > “I will give you a million dollars to your favorite charity, paid for by Trump, if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian,” Trump said. > > Trump now denies saying that, but in any event, **Warren did get tested and the results did find Native American ancestry.** We asked four experts to review her report and they all found it credible. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-ethnicity-needed-to-be-the-first-_____-president/828285.md?page=2)