Decolonizing Colón(iality)
Decolonizing Colón(iality)
A Grand Decolonizing Finale if there ever was one
This is a part of the “Decolonizing” series. See here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for previous takes.
All good things come to an end, even the “Decolonizing” series. It started with rigor, continued with learning, then with the spirit, and finally, in the last talk, we were ready to go out with a bang and decolonize coloniality itself.
And boy, out with a bang we went.
As always, we thank McGoohan, our special reporter and spy in residence.
As usual, they started late and had a lot of glitches but we know that punctuality is white supremacy, as is learning how to operate zoom (we decolonized competence a few months ago). They started to record and threw everyone out of the zoom…
Not THAT red button, Comrade! (luckily none of them is the President or we’d all be nuked).
There’s still hope: They were able to come back and even learn the concept of screen sharing about midway through the panel. Too bad it’s the last talk, but better late than never! The sound sucked, but they learned how to turn the recording off and on again! We’re so proud of them!
Some talking points:
Colón(iality): Did you know that Christopher Columbus’ Spanish name is Cristóbal Colón, which is, like, the same as colonialism?! Wow! Mind blowing! We should engage in de-Columbusing (their words, not ours).
But it’s only logical: Robin DiAngelo is an angel, Ibram Kendi is sweet, Ta-Nehisi Coates is … a cat? Don’t get me started on Fuckault Foucault.
All the usual suspects in the first five minutes: Decolonial Praxis! Freire! Gramsci! Intersecting systems of oppression! Awful poetry! Modernity is a disaster and coloniality and we have to undo capitalism and all intersecting systems of oppression, said the speaker while living on indigenous land, using modern technology and enjoying all the sweet things modern life has to offer. Is he going to actually give up modernity or is he just going to keep talking about it? What do y’all think?
Great Satan, Little Satan: Throughout the entire series we had a nagging feeling that something was missing. The Great Satan (AKA Turtle Island) was mentioned all the time, but what about the Little Satan? A whole series of talks without badmouthing the one source of all evil, the true root of ALL bad things in the world that is (the settler-colonial genocidal nation state of) “Israel” even once!? What are you, Zionist spies? you fucking amateurs! But then, as if reading our minds, one of the panelists was a Palestinian of color and he let it all out! Yes! FINALLY! We got our fix of olive trees, true connection to the land, turmeric, indigeneity, more awful poetry about trees and connection to the indigenous land (written in English and in the indigenous language of Palestine the Arabian peninsula), and a healthy dose of noble savagery. We can finally go home and sleep well tonight.
As always, the truly interesting things happen in the chat, where the cool kids are, failing the Turing test. (messages are shortened for clarity and anonymized. Our comments in italics. Otherwise, we didn’t touch):
So good to have such transdisciplinary and diverse lived and learned experiences in the room.
I’m a new assistant professor. I’m looking forward to receiving support about how to better integrate JEDI into my teaching/pedagogy (don’t you know that JEDI is PROBLEMATIC!)
I’m committed to learning and doing more to decolonize my own being - especially in education. The transnational lens historically and currently advantages settlers (me) in the US at the cost of many forms of violence against Indigenous and enslaved Africans. I’m hoping to learn/unlearn, identify small steps of action and resistance, and work with you all towards reparative Justice.
My transnational network includes scholars, activists, and community (even family) members who live in decolonial ways and who tell me about their work. When I contact or visit them, I am armed with more examples of the decolonial possibilities of the little decisions in our lives. From the syllabi and speeches they write and share to the re-planting of native species (by Indigenous individuals) and the sharing of native foods (CULTURAL APPROPRIATION!), I realize there is a resistance and a survivance (WTF is survivance?!) in these little acts... They live in so many different places in the world. They inspire me to live in decolonial ways and teach about their *everyday decolonialities* just by being themselves. We have heard of random acts of kindness... I learn from these interlocutors' pointed acts of sharing...
Maybe we start next year’s sessions by centering “everyday decolonialities” along with the family resistance of joy and doors (Yay! There’s another one next year! We’re already counting down!)
We ask: If you are so worried about your brutal acts of coloniality you can do one of two things: give back the land or STFU. Oh, y’all are still here just talking about it? Go on. You give the Flickering Beacon so much to work with.
That’s the end of the Decolonizing series. What a run. Gotta admit, we’re tearing up a bit here.
So, we thought, how do we sum it all up?
Good news! A picture is better than a thousand words, and indeed one of the speakers saved the best for last. He wanted to paint a series of pictures that symbolize the true beauty and power of decoloniality but his cat accidentally ran all over the canvas… Oh, wait, these are the actual paintings?
Oh well, we failed to decolonize ourselves. Our cis-hetero-patriarchal-colonial eye must not capture what someone in the chat described as “amazing range of humanizing engagement. The art is beautiful”.
Maybe this is true for the entire series.