Elizabeth Warren Declines ’23AndMe’ DNA Test
Elizabeth Warren has apparently refused a 23andMe DNA genetic test kit that was gifted to her by a political rival.
Republican V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai paid for the home-based saliva collection kit through Amazon as a birthday present for the incumbent Massachusetts senator. Warren, a Democrat, turned 68 on June 22.
The personal genomics company got its name from the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a human cell.
According to a tweet from Shiva Ayyadurai yesterday, Warren apparently refused the delivery, and Amazon is issuing him a refund. In late May, Ayyadurai challenged Warren to take a DNA test and he would do the same.
Elizabeth Warren is up for reelection in November 2018, and Ayyadurai has already announced his candidacy for the seat. Many political observers believe that Warren, a strident Donald Trump adversary, will seek the presidency in 2020 if she gains a second term in the U.S. Senate.
“Warren has been accused of fabricating her Native American heritage in order to gain career advantages through affirmative action. Donald Trump has capitalized on this accusation by referring to Warren as ‘Pocahontas,'” The Daily Caller explained. The senator has insisted that the heritage is part of her family folklore.
The self-described email inventor, MIT Ph.D., scientist/entrepreneur, and alternative/holistic healthcare advocate, Ayyadurai legally immigrated to America from India at age 7 in 1970 with his parents and refers to himself as an all-American Indian.
He was briefly married to actress Fran Drescher of The Nanny TV sitcom fame.
V.A. Shiva’s campaign slogan is “only a real Indian can defeat the fake Indian.”
Warren critics originally gave her the derisive “Fauxcahontas” (rather than Pocahontas) nickname, which is a play on words in a callback to the Massachusetts election controversy about five years ago.
In running against then-Senator Scott Brown in 2012, Elizabeth Warren maintained that she was 1/32 Cherokee, but no formal corroboration of this claim’s validity has ever emerged. As alluded to above, allegations persist that Warren nonetheless used her “minority” status to obtain important law teaching positions at several Ivy League universities under the affirmative action umbrella.
I'm deeply saddened @SenWarren refused my thoughtful (gift-wrapped) Birthday Gift: the 23&me DNA Test Kit. Most unfortunate! #FakeIndian pic.twitter.com/BI7F20wDW8
— Dr.SHIVA Ayyadurai, MIT PhD. Inventor of Email (@va_shiva) July 2, 2017
Related story:
Bill Maher Claims Democrats Too Obsessed With The Elizabeth Warren ‘Pocahontas’ Insult
Last year, a prominent Native American writer referred to Warren as a “Pretendian.” In 2012, Cherokee genealogist Twila Barnes asserted that no authentication existed for Warren’s purported Native American heritage.
In May 2012, The Atlantic, a liberal publication, declared in a detailed story that based on genealogical evidence, Warren was not eligible for membership in any of the three Cherokee tribes recognized by the U.S. government, but also asserted that she never benefited in her professional career from claiming that ancestry.
In March, a Brown University professor of Native American descent called out Elizabeth Warren for allegedly being “complicit in racism” for her apparent silence on discrimination against Native Americans, the Social Memorecalled.
Do you think that sending a DNA test kit to Elizabeth Warren was just a political stunt by V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai or is he making a serious point about credibility?
[Featured Image by Charles Krupa/AP Images]
