@marilynmccord5070

1 year ago

I am Caucasian, grew up in Calgary Alberta, and had minimal contact or exposure to Indigenous people other than viewing their partipation and regalia at the Stampede each year; and a childhood school yard friendship with a daughter of wrestler Stu Hart. I have lived the last 20 years in Dease Lake, BC, and Watson Lake YT. Both are small towns located in traditional territories of First Nations. I have been through the shock and dismay of discovering the inherent biases I had, due to being white and growing up in a white world. I am fortunate to have bumbled through my “waking up” process, and I am so grateful for the tolerance, guidance, love and and ultimately, respect that I have been gifted from the Indigenous persons I have had and continue to have in my life. I feel that I am much more of a person because I have been welcomed, cared for, nurtured and taught by the Tlingit, Kaska Cree and Tahltan people for twenty years. I continue to tread gently as a “woke person”, being well aware that I still have imbedded biases that I may not be aware of yet. I am a person who has PTSD, as a result of several traumatic events occurring to me, or within my family. I became aware a few years ago that I am easily triggered into depression and or panic attacks when hearing about,witnessing, or just thinking about the crimes committed to the First Nation people. I live with and love many family members and friends who live with PTSD, and continue to experience disrespect, violence and prejudicial treatment due to their ethnicity. Ironically, I believe, besides my love and care for them, the best thing I have to offer is my complete understanding of what ii is like to live with PTSD. I am mostly able to be non judgemental, tolerant of their behaviour as long as they are not being violent to themselves or me. I am able to see the person that they are despite how they are presenting on any given day, and able to chat, support, or leave them alone if that is what they ask for. I have learned that I am cared for unconditionally by many people, more so than some of those that I am related to. This is a lengthy comment, I apologize. I felt the need to write this, in order to help me identify and describe my reaction to the Pope’s “apology”. In one word…pathetic. I am not a religious person, so I am already biased. I learned from my parents the biases inherent in most religions, particularly against women, and have been non- religious through my life. I do not believe that any human being on earth qualifies as a conduit for any spiritual being. No mortal being is superior than any other and therefore could not be chosen over another. In my estimation, the Pope’s message was completely without compassion, penitence, or authenticity. I had a similar reaction to his speech as I had when I disclosed about sexual abuse to my abuser’s partner…a sense that I had bothered them, that what happened really wasn’t that bad, and that it was probably done in my best interest. I feel the most anger because so many FN people are now Catholics. It breaks my heart that the elders that I know and love, continue to believe in a God who guided his disciples to subject them to cultural genocide. These FN people lived through all that abuse, and now continue to go church and ask forgiveness for their sins. I think the only thing the Pope could have done that would have been appropriately apologetic, would be to urge all FN people to discard their Catholic faith and return to their traditional beliefs and practises, particularly their healing practises. I am so angry that 35 million was spent on this….the Ope should have paid for it himself. Who else would require that they needed to have their trip paid for in order for them to make an apology??

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