After visiting the Belkin Gallery and participating in the Walk for Reconciliation, I started to think about the importance of decolonization– that is, undoing elitist, damaging colonial ways of thinking in my life. I had intended to write a post about it at the time, but I pushed it aside and eventually got distracted by other things (…midterms…). It wasn’t until I read bell hooks’ “Feminism is for Everybody” for our political science class that I was reminded of its significance.

As bell hooks observes, “[m]ost American women, particularly white women, have not decolonized their thinking either in relation to the racism, sexism, and class elitism they hold toward less powerful groups of women in this society or the masses of women globally. When unenlightened individual feminist thinkers addressed global issues of gender exploitation and oppression they did and do so from a perspective of neocolonialism” (pages 45-46). I think this critique is relevant beyond examining modern feminist movements– many of us in Western culture often embody colonialist/imperialist values or ideas even as we try to undo and correct injustice. This “perspective of neocolonialism” has created and strengthened systems of oppression world-wide. It is easy, as a privileged person, to unthinkingly fall into the outdated colonial arrogance that has for centuries driven Western countries to conclude that they know what is best for other people. As highly educated students, we must be mindful of how these ideas are still present in the society we live in, and often subconsciously in ourselves.

Hearing about the atrocities of the Residential Schools, and, more recently, reading life narratives documenting the brutality of the United States invasion of Iraq (in Salaam-Pax and Baghdad Burning) made me want to commit to ways of thinking that will seek to prevent these kinds of imperialist horrors from happening again. I don’t think that it is enough to condemn these as the actions of others: I also need to examine how I might embody in my own life the same kinds of colonial values that make tragedies like this possible, and even commonplace. This unlearning will be a continual process of critically examining my thoughts and assumptions, of seeking out points of view that go against dominant Western thought, of interrogating the systems I contribute to and asking how I can change them.

One of the systems with the most impact on my life right now is UBC, fundamentally an academic institution focused on research. This is where I would like to start focusing on decolonizing. Academia is often an insular community, difficult for many to access; the research we produce is probably hard for the general population (and often myself!) to understand fully. I want to go to school (and live, like I do) in a place where all voices are heard and valued. Where the barriers many people face to join the conversation are talked about transparently, and serious efforts are made to tear them down. Where lived experience is valued, and diversity is respected as an essential component of any liberated space.