# Is Scott Brown judging Elizabeth Warren solely on the color of her skin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 26, 2012, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858 "2012-09-26T05:12:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/141 "2012-09-27T04:01:51Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I think what’s confusing some people is that there are multiple claims going on, with multiple standards of proof, and multiple burdens of proof. Let’s break 'em down. > > 1. Elizabeth Warren said she’s Cherokee. This claim was made a long time ago in an environment with basically no standard of proof. The standard she chose to use was family oral history. If she knew more about Native issues, she wouldn’t have done that. It was a bad move, but a pretty minor one. Evidently, this is the crux of the disagreement. From a standpoint of character, I don’t see how you can say that it was a minor indiscretion. As the saying goes, character is defined by what we do when no one is looking. So just because one feels that her indiscretion might not be revealed, doesn’t mean that it 1) doesn’t speak badly of her. You seem to be arbitrarily ascribing a degree of "badness about that indiscretion that I and others find baffling. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > The only burden she could possibly have currently is item #2. Since she’s not making any absolute claim about her ancestry, but only about her family oral history, there’s no burden of proof on her. Not quite. We have not only her acceptance of the oral histories, but her\* acting on that acceptance\*. If that wasn’t the case we wouldn’t be having the discussion. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/142 "2012-09-27T04:02:57Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > She said so and I have no reason to doubt her. Its as simple as that. Out of curiosity, was/is that your attitude concerning Bush’s National Guard service? Romney’s taxes? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/143 "2012-09-27T04:06:08Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Burden of proof is on you. I believe she didn’t game the system and that she’s part Cherokee. Prove that wrong You’re confusing two different things: a fact and a conclusion. She either is or isn’t of Native American ancestry. That’s all it is incumbent upon her to prove at this point. Whether she checked the box in order to game the system is a conclusion that may or may bot be reached after the underlying fact is established. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/144 "2012-09-27T04:07:02Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Turn this back around on you: what makes you think that most white folks who think they’re “part Cherokee” really aren’t? Because statistically and logically it’s far more likely that the Southerners who told their children about the Indian princess did so because the idea of a Native American ancestor was vastly more palatable than the more likely African-American ancestor. > [@](#): > > **Left Hand of Dorkness** > In addition, the Native authors I’ve read who get pissy about the “My grandmother was a Cherokee princess” tend to focus on the real problem: the folks saying these things tend to have no connection to modern natives and a fanciful and borderline racist idea of what modern life is like for Indians and are just trying to get a bit of romance-by-association into their lives. The technical truth of whether there’s any Cherokee ancestry there isn’t what’s interesting. > > In this case, Warren sounds like she (and her family) were going for that borderline-racist romance-by-association. Not cool. But not the same thing that Brown is accusing her of. I think most Native writers tend to feel both. Here’s a comment from a Native historian who worked at a college in Texas, on another board from awhile ago responding to a poster who’d just detailed his Cherokee heritage and why he was proud of it. > [@](#): > > If your heritage is that distant, you’re not Indian. Basically if you didn’t have the experience growing up of being called a prairie nigger and trying to convince yourself when you saw the Redskins play on TV that they weren’t talking about you, you’re not Indian.\*\* Anyone who calls themselves a part-Indian is not an Indian.\*\* **That goes double for the ones who bring up the great great mythical Indin princess their momma invented to try and hide the much more likely Black woman in the family tree**. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/145 "2012-09-27T04:11:08Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > (That said, if Todd Plain and his entire family were savagely mauled to death by a rogue grizzly bear under the sway of a deranged Inuit shaman, I would laugh, and sing and dance with glee) Well, I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to the kids, but the thought of Todd and Sarah getting ripped apart would make me smile until I realized that the authorities would probably kill the poor bear. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/146 "2012-09-27T04:13:34Z")
> [@Airbeck](#): > > And, oh great, another roll eyes. Now, now…you earned those fair and square. Credit where credit is due. > [@Airbeck](#): > > Lets try this. Here’s what we know: > > 1. He’s accusing her of being a liar, and then not saying another word to substantiate his accusation. > > 2)You feel that merely the fact that he has made this accusation is sufficient to shift the burden to her. > > How is that a reasonable viewpoint? Why wouldn’t accusations just start flying around everywhere if this is the way it works? How you still cannot grasp my position at this point is odd indeed. She, by checking the box, made an affirmative claim that she is of Native American ancestry. THAT is the claim that is being challenged and that she needs to substantiate. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/147 "2012-09-27T04:15:58Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Because statistically and logically it’s far more likely that the Southerners She’s not a Southerner. She’s from Oklahoma. And as a general rule, coming to a conclusion about an individual based on a broad trend (not that you’ve substantiated the claim that most of these stories are false) is a dubious practice. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/148 "2012-09-27T04:21:11Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Well, I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to the kids, but the thought of Todd and Sarah getting ripped apart would make me smile until I realized that the authorities would probably kill the poor bear. Perhaps the bear could explain to the game warden that he was coerced and led astray by the Eskimo medicine man, and get let off with a 3 month stay in reform school, where he would hopefully learn a trade, or maybe even get his very own reality show. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/149 "2012-09-27T04:28:09Z")
Elizabeth Warren is from Oklahoma. Like Texas, having Cherokee ancestry is so common that it is not even remarkable. She would have no particular reason to dwell on the issue. It isn’t likely that anyone around her found that particularly interesting, or even noteworthy. Perhaps in the sophisticated salons of Oklahoma City, but not in the working class neighborhood she was raised in. Put baldly, there really wasn’t any good reason for her to question her heritage, or even to investigate. And she might reasonably check a box regarding such ancestry without so much as a thought, even less a qualm. And the reason she didn’t participate in student activism on the subject is that, most likely, she never thought of herself as being American Indian. Certainly she never experienced any discrimination over the issue. I strongly favor her advancement, she is a worthy public servant who scares the bejabbers out of the people who most need a bit of scaring, Scott Brown makes them feel all sleek and comfortable as they reach for their checkbooks. He is their bitch, she is _ours_. Sic 'em, Lizzie! ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/150 "2012-09-27T04:38:48Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > She’s not a Southerner. She’s from Oklahoma. And as a general rule, coming to a conclusion about an individual based on a broad trend (not that you’ve substantiated the claim that most of these stories are false) is a dubious practice. There’s a reason people in Oklahoma generally sided with the Confederacy and it certainly has always had a very Southern orientation. It also had huge numbers of African-American communities and statistically speaking whites are far more likely to have “black blood” than “Indian blood”. Henry Louis Gates when he started doing some studies found that overwhelming blacks who claimed they were “part Indian” were wrong, and I see no reason to believe that whites who claim to be “part Indian” are any more likely to be right. That said, I’ve probably come across a lot harsher on Warren than I intended. I don’t think she did anything malicious. She probably just mentioned the story a few time, was encouraged to put her name this book and things sort of spun out of control and she’s now in a position where she can’t back down and say “look, I was probably wrong, but I wasn’t trying to get ahead nor was I trying to offend or denigrate actual Indians” without looking even worse. Similarly, Johnny Depp, Kevin Costner, Elvis Presley, and Chuck Norris have all claimed they were part-Cherokee and while I strongly doubt there’s any truth to any of their claims, I don’t think any of their are being malicious, deliberately dishonest, nor do I even dislike any of them(or at least not because of that). ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/151 "2012-09-27T04:55:25Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Out of curiosity, was/is that your attitude concerning Bush’s National Guard service? Romney’s taxes? Documents came out for Bush’s National Guard service, so I didn’t believe him. Romney broke a 50 year tradition started by his father to release a dozen years of tax returns. Plus what he did tell us, we found out he paid less in taxes than the average family and that he only paid the 13% he said he paid because he inexplicably didn’t take all his deductions, paying more than he had to, which is not a qualification for president according to him. So I have suspicions about his other years’ taxes > [@magellan01](#): > > You’re confusing two different things: a fact and a conclusion. She either is or isn’t of Native American ancestry. That’s all it is incumbent upon her to prove at this point. Whether she checked the box in order to game the system is a conclusion that may or may bot be reached after the underlying fact is established. She said she is. Its not your business whether she is or not. If you want to know so badly, you prove it. Otherwise, we should believe her ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/152 "2012-09-27T05:05:48Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Not quite. We have not only her acceptance of the oral histories, but her\* acting on that acceptance\*. You say that like it is a bad thing. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/153 "2012-09-27T05:09:30Z")
I genuinely believed when I was younger that I’m of Cherokee ancestry. I’m probably not. If Dr Warren mistakenly identified as “of color” when she was younger and later dropped it, well, I’m not going to make a big deal about that kind of mistake, it’s pretty common. I don’t blame Scott Brown for grasping at straws, because he has a big fight on his hands, he will probably lose, and he is desparate. All this shall pass, except in the minds of partisans who want to whine about the thrice-damned liberals getting away with something. But Elizabeth Warren’s white bottom will sit in the Senate, and will sit there legitimately, due to her record of public service and the votes of her fellow citizens, not some youthful racial confusion. ---
**Author:** ![MemoryLeak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6f9a4e/32.png) [@MemoryLeak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MemoryLeak)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/154 "2012-09-27T06:48:04Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Ideally there should be some level of proof involved in getting on a list like this and perhaps Warren should’ve thought to check into the story herself. In the real world, though, I think people probably take it for granted that their families are telling the truth about stuff like this. It wasn’t a legend about her great-great-grandparents, it was about her own parents. An attorney? Check such a trivial assertion about membership in a minority group? When there’s all that shoddy scholarship waiting to be done? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/155 "2012-09-27T07:41:07Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Documents came out for Bush’s National Guard service, so I didn’t believe him. The question is, which you seem to want to ignore, is: do you think that the documents should ever have been sought? Why not just take Bush’s account for things? > [@YogSosoth](#): > > Romney broke a 50 year tradition started by his father to release a dozen years of tax returns. Incorrect. McCain release two years worth. And you know what, the people running against him never made an issue of it. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > Plus what he did tell us, we found out he paid less in taxes than the average family and that he only paid the 13% he said he paid because he inexplicably didn’t take all his deductions, paying more than he had to, which is not a qualification for president according to him. So I have suspicions about his other years’ taxes So, we learned that Harry Reid’s mysterious source (which may have been Harry Reid himself) is full of shit and that the claim that Romney didn’t pay taxes for ten years was false. We also learned that Romney pays a butt load of taxes and gives a lot to charity. Glad we can agree on that. > [@YogSosoth](#): > > She said she is. Its not your business whether she is or not. If you want to know so badly, you prove it. Otherwise, we should believe her If she wants someone’s vote and you believe that character is a valid thing for a voter to look at, it absolutely is their business. You seem to be unfamiliar on where the burden of proof falls. It falls on the person claiming something. She claimed she was of Native American descent. candidates for office have their lives looked into. Brown is saying that he, the people of MA, deserve substantiation for that claim. ---
**Author:** ![gatorslap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gatorslap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gatorslap)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/156 "2012-09-27T08:38:14Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > If she wants someone’s vote and you believe that character is a valid thing for a voter to look at, it absolutely is their business. You seem to be unfamiliar on where the burden of proof falls. It falls on the person claiming something. She claimed she was of Native American descent. candidates for office have their lives looked into. Brown is saying that he, the people of MA, deserve substantiation for that claim. _Why_? Since when are people ever required to prove their lineage? If she mentioned she was part Irish, would you be demanding proof of that too? This is ridiculous. She’s from Oklahoma. Plenty of people there are part Cherokee. It’s not unlikely or in any way remarkable. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/157 "2012-09-27T10:57:56Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Evidently, this is the crux of the disagreement. From a standpoint of character, I don’t see how you can say that it was a minor indiscretion. As the saying goes, character is defined by what we do when no one is looking. So just because one feels that her indiscretion might not be revealed, doesn’t mean that it 1) doesn’t speak badly of her. You seem to be arbitrarily ascribing a degree of "badness about that indiscretion that I and others find baffling. > > Not quite. We have not only her acceptance of the oral histories, but her\* acting on that acceptance\*. If that wasn’t the case we wouldn’t be having the discussion. “Acting on that acceptance”? She looked at a form that had a space to fill in your race, and she acted on that box in the form in accordance with what she believed was true about her family. How you can see her act as anything significant is bizarre. Again: there’s no evidence she did anything else. She didn’t show up at Harvard saying, “Hire me so you’ll have a Native American professor.” She didn’t hold classes in Native American law. She didn’t volunteer to serve on panels of Native Americans in higher education. **She checked the box on a form according to what she believed was true.** Yes, her belief was predicated on a theory of race that a lot of Native Americans reject. I wish she hadn’t done it. But good grief, it’s crazy-insignificant. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/158 "2012-09-27T11:02:56Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Because statistically and logically it’s far more likely that the Southerners who told their children about the Indian princess did so because the idea of a Native American ancestor was vastly more palatable than the more likely African-American ancestor. Twice now I’ve told you about a Cherokee historian who gives a different explanation. Why do you doubt him?[ > [@](#): > > I think most Native writers tend to feel both. Here’s a comment from a Native historian who worked at a college in Texas, on another board from awhile ago responding to a poster who’d just detailed his Cherokee heritage and why he was proud of it. The “that goes double” bit ignores the alternative explanation. But even if it’s true in general, it doesn’t apply here. Folks with the “Cherokee Princess” belief, as others have said, tend to have a vague belief (in my family, it was based almost entirely on a great-grandfather with darker skin who was reticent about his past–surely it must be because he was Cherokee!) Warren’s belief was predicated on the heritage of her [great great great grandmother O.C. Sarah Smith](http://bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20220515genealogical_society_no_proof_of_warrens_cherokee_heritage_found). That’s quite different from a vague Cherokee Princess belief. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/159 "2012-09-27T11:46:44Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > That’s been the focus of all of his advertising in the last few days, yes. It didn’t use to be until this week, though. Not all of his advertising. He’s been running some radio ads this week about the huge corporate clients she’s represented, like Travelers insurance. Of course the story is much more detailed and complex than the ads lead you to believe, but at least it’s about something relevant to the election and her qualifications. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2012, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858/160 "2012-09-27T12:09:54Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > Speaking as a card-carrying liberal Democrat hippy, I would bet everything I have that if it was indeed Todd Palin in Elizabeth Warren’s position, 90% of the Dopers arguing for accepting her claims would be saying the exact opposite of what they are trumpeting now. What I find interesting, is the focus on what it means to lie about something. Apparently, when your guy/gal does it, there has to be proof of intent. When the other side’s guy/gal does it, not so much. At any rate, I think **LHoD** summarized the issue here quite well in his 4-point post about the various issues. Warren probably shouldn’t have checked the NA box, but no real harm was done, and there is no evidence that she was some sort of Affirmative Action hire. It looks like Harvard wanted to spruce up its record of minority faculty in her department, but that was likely an after-the-fact issue. I’m also not buying the claim that most whites in Oklahoma are part Indian. I’ll be happy to change my mind if there is actual genetic data out there, but family lore on the subject is woefully inadequate. Especially when there is data that something like 30-40% of whites in the US have some small amount of African ancestry. Somehow, that seems to be lost in all this wonderful family lore people like to rely on wrt to the issue of Indian ancestry. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-scott-brown-judging-elizabeth-warren-solely-on-the-color-of-her-skin/635858.md?page=9)