The Freedom of Real Apologies

Layli Long Soldier is a U.S. Citizen and part of the Oglala Lakota Nation. In the interview with her on the podcast show "Being with Krista Tippet", she says "And I was personally really surprised that I hadn’t heard about it before. Part of the reason I hadn’t was because it was so quiet. And there really was not a lot of risk taken in how it was delivered." Layli Long Soldier is referring to the apology that was signed in December 2009. This apology was appointed towards Native people but was not covered or announced, almost kept like a secret. It seems and feels like there was not even an apology in the first place since most were not even aware of the apology in the first place. It's important to note that she hadn't heard about it before because the apology was not known and seems as though the government didn't think it was as important to begin with.

In the apology issued by the government, the phrasing seemed special and carefully crafted. Long Soldier refers to this by mentioning how careful the writers were with detailing how things went down in history. She points the phrasing out because it is made out to seem as though it was not as bad as it actually was. It is phrased as though they are trying to "sugarcoat" what actually occurred.

Specificity is important in this podcast because the people in the podcast that are having this discussion are highlighting key things from the apology and backing up their opinions with what they think of it. This is important in writing alone because being able to back things up and referring back to the text and explaining how it relates is all key to writing a concise paper.

The structure of this interview is talking about the apology issued and then bringing up their viewpoint and how they perceived the apology as a whole and why. From this interview, I will incorporate how they tied things from the source back to their view and backed it up with their own sources and backgrounds.