Elizabeth Warren doesn't need to take a DNA test. Here's why...

[Draggingtree]

Thoughts from Polly’s Granddaughter

A little Cherokee history and genealogy mixed in with a whole lot of truth.

Monday, March 12, 2018
 Elizabeth Warren doesn't need to take a DNA test. Here's why...

I can't believe I'm going to open this can of worms, but someone needs to do so after the repeated cries for Elizabeth Warren, US Senator from Massachusetts, to take a DNA test to prove or disprove her claim of Native American ancestry.

Before we pry this can open, first and foremost, I'm a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and I will always defend tribal sovereignty. My concern over Warren's claim that she is a non-enrolled Native American is best explained with the words of anthropologist Michael Lambert, a citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. He described Cherokee identity politics as a "battle over sovereignty":
 

"One of the terrains on which this is being fought is that of how we define "Indian." The current effort to define Indian as a racial/cultural group is an effort to extinguish Indian sovereignty. The only way for Indian nations to defend and expand their sovereignty is to make exclusive claim to defining who is Indian and what it means to be Indian...

What does this have to do with non-enrolled Cherokees identifying as such? I see the basis of claims to Indian identity to be political acts. This is, and has been, a battle over sovereignty. One who bases their claim to Indian identity on any basis other than sovereignty is not taking a pro-Indian position."