Posted on by Californiacontrarian

How

Back when my brother and I were small kids we would oftentimes go over to Grandma and Grandpa Blair’s on Sundays. He was a mailman and she was a housewife living on the second floor in a middle class neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago. One of the things that I remember was that in the back bedroom just off the kitchen there was a picture of an Indian male who Grandma Blair called, “Grandpa Moze.”  I did not think anything more about Grandpa Moze until recently and I asked my brother, “Who was Grandpa Moze and why was his picture hanging in the bedroom? Was he related to Grandma Blair? If so, how?”
My grandmother’s maiden name was Sargent, and my brother hypothesized that our great grandmother was a Native American who had a child fathered by an army sargent, and the picture in the back bedroom was that of my Grandma Blair’s grandfather (Grandpa Moze). If that is so, then both my brother and I have Native American heritage.
“How cool,” I said to my brother, “Maybe you could just give me an apropos nickname. Just call me, Tonto!”
Back in those days having some Indian, or as it is called today, Native American blood in your DNA was of no consequence, but today I might be recognized as a “minority” with Native American ancestry. If I played my cards right, maybe I could get a teaching position at Harvard as a minority. After you stop laughing, take note that one of our U.S.Senators while at U of Penn Law School put her name on a “minority Law teacher” list as a Native American. She subsequently became a Harvard law professor, and had been promoted as a Native American faculty member. She claims to have American Indian Heritage, specifically Cherokee heritage. She alleges that family stories are evidence for her Native American heritage. I wonder if she had a picture of her Indian great-great grandfather hanging in some bedroom? Thus far no corroborative evidence has emerged.
While her Native American roots may or may not be factual, it seems to me that this would be easy enough to document with a simple DNA test.
How simple? As simple as a saliva sample.
In fact her probable opponent in the 2018 Massachusetts senate race has challenged her to take a simple saliva DNA test in order to prove or disprove her Cherokee ancestry.
Now here’s where I get cynical . . . and perhaps realistic. I’ll  bet that Senator Warren already knows the results of her DNA test! How so? . . .  It would be quite easy to submit one’s saliva sample for DNA testing under an assumed name, for instance, “Princess-Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring.” If the results showed some Native American ancestry, then just repeat the same test, again with your own saliva, but this time under your real name, Elizabeth Warren, and make the results public.
How come Senator Warren has not made the results of her saliva test public?
How interesting!
So far, the best I can tell, Senator Warren and I have equivalent claims to our supposed Native American Heritage. I doubt that I will ever meet Elizabeth Warren, but if I do, I know what I will say to her, “Kimosabe; me Tonto, you Pocahontas; How.”

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