As a 100% full blooded Ojibwe-Cree .... this whole thing is messed up.

It doesn't matter what the Piapot family says about the matter ... Wab Kinew did the same thing for Boyden during that controversy

As an indigenous person, the whole message I get out of all this is that ...

• As Indians, we have to fight to be anything - and most of the time we'll lose
• As whites, they can be whatever they want as long as they make money

I've spent my entire life surrounded by Native people who could only dream of being white and like the majority of Canada and live without stigma, or shame for who they are ... as a young person, I didn't like the fact I was a brown Indian who was looked down upon and thought that I would never live up to anything

It's completely sickening to watch a privileged white person who had everything going for them to make a decent career and take on the identity of a people that didn't want to be who they were and use that as a shortcut to make millions for herself and everyone that supported her.

She built her career on our misery ... she built her wealth on the image of our poverty ... the Piapot family don't mind the controversy and moral ambiguity because they probably stand to gain a bit of fame and fortune from it all, I'm sure Santamaria has some financial rewards to share with them .... as for the rest of us Indians, we're left with the bitter taste of knowing that white people can still say and do whatever they want to us and get away with it.

It's a pretty sick and disgusting situation. I was feeling good in my life as an Indigenous person until today ... now I feel like I did years ago as a teenager wondering why the hell I should keep identifying as an Indian when it hangs a like a curse for me and a blessing for a white person.