Kim TallBearKonto zweryfikowane

As I expected, most of my lengthy comments didn’t make the article. But that e-mail I sent to the reporter was another opportunity to think some things through.

Here are my thoughts on #ElizabethWarren’s “apology tour” in tweets.

As a Dakota person, I am not interested in whether Elizabeth Warren runs for president or not, or frankly in the details of her Native American platform.

Any Democrat will be as good or as relatively uninformed as another when it comes to Native issues. Obama said he was going to enforce treaty rights. AS IF. I have low expectations post-election.

That said, I'll ultimately vote Democrat. But all or most of the Democratic candidates know little about Indian Country and are not likely to continue to prioritize our specific issues post-election.

In addition, none of the Dem candidates are truly anti-colonial because none of them go far enough to question U.S. settler-colonialism at home or U.S. imperialism abroad.

My vocal critique of #ElizabethWarren stems from my academic expertise. I study the politics and culture of genome science, and also discourses of cultural and biological appropriation, or theft.

I also have a background as an environmental policy analyst so I link land rights to biological resource rights to Indigenous governance of science.

With my policy and politics of science background, I weigh in on Elizabeth Warren because of the damage done by her DNA test and her appropriation of Native identity & histories.

#ElizabethWarren perpetuated false and harmful racial science ideas by taking and using that DNA test for her own personal emotional needs and for PR.

I doubt #ElizabethWarren realizes the complex harm she has done, nor do most Americans judging from MSM and my trolls.

But #ElizabethWarren created more mess for those of us who work to dispel ideas that belonging to the Cherokee or any other Native people is defined by a genetic ancestry test.

By foregrounding DNA, #ElizabethWarren helped make more cloudy tribal definitions of kinship, peoplehood, and identity.

The public already believed that a DNA test can arbitrate Cherokee or Native American belonging.

Non-Natives already use DNA to challenge or dismiss our own tribal kinship and citizenship definitions.

Along with #ElizabethWarren’s stereotypes about Natives and her false family stories that she clings to despite professional Cherokee genealogists disproving them…

…#ElizabethWarren's DNA stunt reinforces racist American misunderstandings and definitions of us.

#ElizabethWarren's vague apologies, without taking the specific and assertive steps that @RebeccaNagle, e.g., advises, look like insincere political correctness.

Senator Warren's actions are not only enabled by, but also contribute to the structural racism that helped produce the genetic ancestry testing industry in the first place.

The production of genetic ancestry technologies are in part rooted in longstanding colonial theft.

Indigenous biologicals (bones, blood, DNA) have been taken unethically by scientists since the late 19th century.

Native people have struggled for the last 50-70 years to get our ancestors' remains back that were literally stolen from massacre sites and graves.

More recently, Native people also fight to gain control over blood and DNA samples that were taken unethically.

Native people challenge research priorities and scientific methods that violate Native American ethical protocols and rights.

Native people’s bodies and those of our ancestors, like Indigenous lands, are treated as raw materials upon which #ElizabethWarren and the nation build their own institutions, wealth, and identities.

That is the foundation for the genetic ancestry testing industry. Just like #ElizabethWarren's white ancestors availed themselves of ill-gotten Native land and wealth in what became Oklahoma…

…scientists have availed themselves of ill-gotten Indigenous blood and DNA to produce the knowledge that she uses to shore up her mythological claims to being Cherokee and Delaware.

In short, land and biological resources were stolen to build the science that #ElizabethWarren in turn uses to steal Native identity.

I am sure #ElizabethWarren has no idea what she has done, nor do the scientists who help her.

Colonizers and their institutions spend a lot of energy being in denial of history, whitewashing the historical record so they can forget their collective crimes.