Someone just sent me this...wow. This is so deeply effed up I don't even have the words. dnaconsultants.com/product/specia…
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "CHEROKEE" DNA
They're basing their analysis comparing customers to 33 genomes of self-identified enrolled Cherokee people. We have 300000+ tribal citizens. Folks who are mixed with any number of other backgrounds in any number of proportions. I can't.
I can only imagine how many people are going to take their "official" fake certificate and use it as justification to check the Indian box on scholarships and whatnot.
They're relying on people not understanding even the basic amount of science. "n=62" or "n=33" is not some fancy science talk, that's only how many DNA samples are in their database. That is in no way representative of anything. I HATE THIS.
And, to reiterate ad nauseam, being Indigenous (and Cherokee!!) is not something that can be captured in DNA or even race. It's about relationships, political identity, citizenship, belonging, community, family, etc etc etc.
Also as we keep saying, Cherokee people are some of the most well-documented Native folks out there. The narrative of "proving the genealogists wrong" presented on the site is dangerous and just flatly wrong.
I tweeted this before but broke the thread. If you missed it, we did a whole podcast episode with @KimTallBear about Native DNA: allmyrelationspodcast.com/podcast/episod…
