the pope apologizes

another apology, this one from the pope.....but i'd have to say what difference does it make? the apology won't change my life, and probably not my mother's, she went to st. george's in lytton. which was one of the worst residential schools around from what i've been told. the stats are always different, but the fact remains, at one point, there were 90,000 native kids in residential schools, today, there are approximately 90,000 native kids up for adoption....the residential schools still are a horrific tidle wave crashing across canada, dragging with them generations of native kids, and families. what has changed since steven harper apologized? i don't feel any different, my mum doesn't, and though it was amazing to hear, something i never thought i'd see in my lifetime, nothing has really changed. i don't get a sense of greater understanding nationally about what modern native life is like, in fact, most people probably don't give a damn. all we can do is continue to strive for some kind of equivocal balance with the rest of canada, and quit holding the worst records in the country in terms of violence, substance abuse, prison populations, education, employment, murder, poverty and more. perhaps, the best thing to take from this is that we are no longer survivors, but we are resiliant, and with that, comes the changes we need to make ourselves stand up and feel alive.