https://pamelacross.ca/what-does-an-apology-really-mean/ Canadian feminist lawyer and women’s advocate Tue, 29 Jan 2019 18:01:23 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 https://pamelacross.ca/what-does-an-apology-really-mean/#comment-1007 Tue, 29 Jan 2019 18:01:23 +0000 https://pamelacross.ca/?p=1839#comment-1007 “It touched my heart” was, I thought when I first read the heading, a comment by PSB member or other official person who finally heard, really took in, the pain caused indigenous people by our discrimination against them. How wonderful! I thought. But it turned out that no, it was a member of the indigenous community who was touched by the apology and had hope for a new beginning. I think, though I don’t usually talk about heart stuff, that the hearts of the members of the oppressing group also need touching, need touching even more. We need to take in deeply and fully how racism is a form of dehumanizing the Other, a hardening of our hearts against against their humanity and the suffering we so callously or intentionally cause them, ranging from the horrors of wanton raping and killing and systematic impoverishment, to social segregation and exclusion in overt and subtler but still painful ways we have of not really seeing individuals, meeting their eyes or nodding a simple hello when passing in the street as we might do with other strangers.

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