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In Defense of Elizabeth Warren (Sort of)
Edward Doty, born in 1599, sailed on the Mayflower and arrived on Plymouth Rock with the first settlers. He has the distinction of starting the first duel of the New World. Apparently he had quite the temper but he outlived fights, famine, and disease to own land and raise a family. His posterity now numbers nearly 100,000. I am among them. Edward Doty is my 9th great-grandfather.
Proving an ancestral link to the Mayflower brings with it certain privileges. I can apply to be a member of the Mayflower Society and there are even associations honoring Edward Doty himself. Also, every 4th grade American heritage project my kids had to do was a piece of cake! (The kids love to talk about their 10th great-grandfather who signed the Mayflower Compact).
Elizabeth Warren’s recent DNA tests conclude that she may have had a Native American ancestor 6 to 10 generations ago. If she could document that actual individual with specific original sources for her claim (birth certificates, marriage licenses, etc…) she would likely be welcomed as a true descendant of Native American heritage. As the Cherokee Nation noted yesterday: a DNA test won’t cut it. If she could demonstrate it, regardless of the distance of that relative, she has every right to honor that lineage just as I do my Mayflower ancestor.
If you grew up anywhere near the 1980s you probably remember School House Rock. You might also recall the catchy song and cartoon entitled “Great American Melting Pot.” Aside from the occasional socialist tract tributes, it has a compelling message late in the song describing the mix of people who came to America and stayed:
They brought the country’s customs,
Their language and their ways.
They filled the factories, tilled the soil,
Helped build the U.S.A.
Go on and ask your grandma,
Hear what she has to tell
How great to be an American
And something else as well.
During the last stanza, a cartoon grandma waves an American flag and then reveals a “Kiss me I’m Polish” button on her dress.
I’ve published extensively on my ancestry (and DNA)— something I’m proud to tout to relatives and friends alike when I can. If Senator Warren does indeed have Native American ancestors, even if the generational ratio is small, she should be dutifully proud of that too.
However, there are a few distinctions:
- Just because I have a pilgrim ancestor doesn’t make me a pilgrim. I am only a descendant of pilgrims.
- Being a descendant of a pilgrim is the heritage of an actual act of a man (or woman) — setting their course to the New World. Acts of men are different than ethnic blood relations.
I should note that my Mayflower heritage makes me (in the eyes of many of the Left) the original oppressor. There are no generational deficits according to their worldview. No teaching chairs at Harvard in the name of Edward Doty. (I can get a scholarship from the aforementioned Mayflower Society though!)
Senator Warren’s family tree might somehow show Cherokee blood (although this is still very inconclusive.) The unfortunate part is this: Senator Warren exploited her distant heritage almost as though she took her Law School teaching positions straight off a reservation. She positioned herself to fulfill some “diversity” quota and ease the guilt of school patrons for the horrors which beset Native Americans at the hands of my ancestors (allegedly). She did all of this without an iota of proof to verify her lineage.
Much of blame should be put on the programs themselves and their lax requirements for claiming such a privilege but Senator Warren should hold some liability for seemingly padding her curriculum vitae.
In my mind’s eye I can imagine my ancestors dining with the (alleged) ancestors of Senator Warren’s. I like that image and I hope one day she can prove that heritage.
Here’s my lineage for the record. I have photos of original birth certificates, parish records, military records, and national documents, of course, like the Mayflower Compact to prove my pilgrim pride.
Rena Mary Doty (my paternal grandmother’s mother) (1869-1954)
John Henry Doty (1841-1905)
Henry Doty (1798-1866)
Benjamin Ward Doty (1772-1844)
John Doty (1750-1786)
Edward Doty (1716-1775)
Elisha Doty (1686-1753
John Doty (1640-1701)
Edward Doty (1598-1655)
Justin Hart is a digital marketing executive and recovering politico. He currently resides in San Diego, California and endeavors one day to paint this forsaken state red again.
Published in General
My ancestors were in the same boat.
Mine were probably criminals.
Justin, interesting post. I enjoyed reading it.
I have a small quibble. I don’t see why anyone should be proud of his heritage. You may be the descendent of Helen of Troy, but you did nothing except be born into a certain family. You did nothing. There is nothing for you to be proud of.
Of course, a person has every right to be proud of what he’s done in his life. And of course you have every right to be proud of your kids. After all, you had something to do with what they became.
My wife is an amateur genealogist, so we have a lot of ancestors to think about. It’s interesting to know that one has a doctor who died in a duel, a gambler who fought in the War of 1812, or whatever. But it’s only interesting, nothing more.
My great great grandmother was a full-blooded Choctaw Indian from Oklahoma by the name of Ann Cummings. We have a photograph of her when she was very old. I find that kind of fun and interesting but that’s all. I had nothing to do with her, and she had nothing to do with me except pass on a few spirals of DNA to me. (In fact, her “looks” have entirely disappeared from me. I’m a red-headed — at least I once was — freckled guy who whose looks came from my closer Irish ancestors.)
I’ve always thought those Daughters of the Revolution or other ancestor-based “clubs” to be rather silly, mostly because their members seem to think they’re a bit better than the rest of us.
You are what you have done, nothing more, nothing less. The rest is fun but irrelevant to what you are.
And the other way, too. I never saw any sense in “the proud father of a newborn.” Half the population can be that.
Agree. And after the genealogical research is done, Warren has less of what she is touting than any average American who has had generations here for an equivalent time period. And Warren misused what she thought she had, at least she could have done some research before making claims. What she did was accept special consideration for access to a position based on being a member of as historically disadvantaged minority. As to her specific disadvantage, I guess my formative period was no better than hers, yet I saw no disadvantage. She did a reprehensible thing and won’t own it.
I’ve learned that there were a few of those in our lineage too..that explains a lot…
Fascinating in that you did it for love of family. Elizabeth Warren touted it out of the closet for other reasons. That tells me something about what kind of a politician she’d be. I find family trees, and all those ancestry shows so interesting. Funny how that show revealed slave owners in Ben Afleck’s ancestry that he tried to keep quiet (why?) and Sarah Jessica Parker’s ancestors burned witches at the stake. Some people are brought to tears. It’s valuable history. personally, and just to see how far we’ve come. I might try the ancestry thing soon. Are you a fan of the DNA testing?
I think heredity needs to be handled with humility. Wielding it like heraldry and a birthright doesn’t sit well with most Americans. Politicians who treat offices as family heirlooms are high on my list.
But geneology can be fun and appalling all at the same time. During one of my son’s class projects I learned that my maternal grandfather was a year older than everyone believed. It wasn’t that he or any of his siblings were born out of wedlock, it was just that the oldest child wasn’t born far enough into it. Somewhere along the line they fudged the kids birthdays to make it all a little bit more respectable.
Also found out I had a great uncle who came home blotto one night and killed his wife with a .38. When he woke up the next morning and discovered what he had done he turned the gun on himself. My great-grandmother discovered the bodies when her sister-in-law didn’t show up for a planned event.
I see nothing wrong with people celebrating their ancestry, as long as we all understand that we are Americans first and foremost. The area of Massachusetts I live in has been settled by Polish, French Canadian, Italian, Irish, African Americans, Puerto Ricans, and of course, WASPS; I have relatives who are all of the groups just listed, and then some. My best friend growing up had a grandfather who walked with his family across Europe to escape from Stalin: she taught me how to paint Easter eggs, and we both took Irish dancing lessons together. She always won gold, and she had no Irish in her at all: so funny :) We didn’t just celebrate our own ancestry: we celebrated everyone’s ancestry, and then we all ended up marrying each other. No problem. And nobody ever accused anybody of cultural appropriation; I think we would all would have been insulted if our cultures were not appropriated: it was taken for granted that of course we would appropriate each other’s cultures.
There is nothing wrong and a good deal right about acknowledging that we have different pasts, as long as we know that we all share the same future, and as long as we are all invested in that future 100%.
But, we are better, Kent. 😜
Also, let’s not forget FFV:
I have an aunt who’s a whore in St. Louis.
With Elizabeth Warren the issue is not that one ancestor who was alive when the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth was an Indian. It is that she claimed her grandparents had to elope because granny was part Indian (and was unacceptable to white family members), and that Warren got her professorial job at Harvard because she claimed she was of Native American ancestry based on that story.
The story was false. She displaced a legitimate minority on the basis of a false story.
I have often given talks at DAR, SAR, and Sons of the Texas Revolution meeting. I am not eligible for membership because my ancestors came from Greece in the 1920s. I often open talks by joking the only organization I might be eligible for membership might be the Sons of the Greek Revolution. (It always gets a laugh.) I occasionally tell the tale of great-great-great-grandfather Mavronicolas (Black Nick), who was a pirate when the Royal Navy was in the Eastern Mediterranean, an honest merchant captain plying his trade between Pireaus, Alexandria, and Constantinople when they were, and who concentrated his depredations on Turkish ships when the Greek Revolution began, transforming himself into a patriot.
It’s a good story, but I would not expect preference at the University of Athens on the strength of it.
Any relation to James Doty, one of the planners of Madison, Wisconsin in the early 19th century?
I have a great great x whatever uncle who was on security detail at the theater the night Lincoln was killed. And some other distant uncle in the early 1900s who died in a root beer explosion. My brother gets really into this stuff but it all becomes noise to me at a certain point.
About Warren, I wonder this: I knew a girl in high school who claimed much closer Native American heritage and she said that the she was eligible for a program that apid something like 80% of college tuition. I wonder how much Warren has profited financially from this claim of hers. Being able to assign a $ amount to the benefits of her “heritage” would make this look a lot worse for her.
I’m not sure if this is okay to do, as it is a direct link to some other publisher and I don’t have much to add….but the first half or so of this pile of humor graphics provided several good laughs on Elizabeth Warren:
I found this link interesting re: DNA testing.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/commentisfree/2015/may/24/business-genetic-ancestry-charlemagne-adam-rutherford
OK, I started to address this but thought I’d go to the dictionary first. Merriam-Webster:
But fun-lovin’ ones!
What’s great, and highlighted by your post, was that she made all these claims before even having a scintilla of evidence, other than family “lore”.
Well, great. My great great grandfather thought he was a millionaire. Does that make me one?
Her ancestry is less Native American than the average American. That box exists on application forms around the country, but it carries a weight in academia.
I worked at a college. On my application for the gig, I went back and forth on checking this box – the whole point being I needed any advantage I can get. I needed a job.
But no. Why? Because the whole idea of privilege due to racial background, of any kind, is flat-out stupid.
Funny thing is, would she have gotten the job without checking the box? And if she had, would she have eventually run for Senate, and then the White House, without this cinderblock slung around her neck? Would she have had a better chance at all of those things without this insipid move?
And now she has said that she did it because trust in government is at an “all-time low”? And that couldn’t have anything to do with the Mueller investigation or Clinton skating away from her due?
http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20181021/81257045-bd64-47bf-a3a3-4f1fd085819e