Elizabeth Warren Has Native American Heritage
I've been trying to think about this subject from an indigenous People's point of view.
Some appear to be really miffed when people claim ancestry " I'm part ( insert tribe name here)."
Even if that person does not claim tribal affiliation or uses that family story to gain some advantage.
Even if that person uses that family story to point out racism against indigenous people using her own family as an example.
My own experience is when I was 16 my parents and I went to visit relatives in Nebraska and I was shocked to hear them talk about Native Americans the way racist whites talked about Blacks back east. Being from the east coast I grew up thinking Native Americans were " cool " , that was a real eye opener for me.
When Europeans came to North American there were an estimated 12 million indigenous people living here. By the early 1900s 90% of that population had died, some call that genocide.
Some argue most were killed by the diseases brought by Europeans, up to 80%, but still that would mean millions of indigenous people were killed by violence. It would still qualify as genocide.
There has also been a effort to wipe out the culture of indigenous peoples, ethnocide, in North America, ( Tibet and Mongolia too) forcing indigenous people to " fit in" with force, through schools, reservations, economic pressures.
Indigenous people might see a claim to heritage, even if proved with a DNA test, as a form of ethnocide, even though those critics are Americans and live a European ancestry lifestyle themselves.
They say " imitation the sincerest form of flattery" but it would appear claiming heritage strikes a nerve for some indigenous people. Perhaps that has to do with enthocide and how different tribal cultures have been greatly diminished.
