Friday was my last day in Tarragona before starting my long trip back to Brazil. I spent a little bit more than 2 weeks talking about Decolonial Knowledge. The name is impressive, but it can be summarized to an attempt to change our parameters of what is fair, honest and wise to think and do. This think and do is not only, but also related to what and how we teach in the classroom. For me, this was one of the most important aspects learned/shared here. But there are more.
I was lucky for being placed in an apartment with extraordinary people. All my roommates (Mark, Robert, Pablo, Juan Jose, Atman, Francisco and Adrian) helped me in a way or another. They have wonderful stories and great intelligence, which they’ve shared without asking anything in exchange.
Adding to them, I must confess that the women present in this summer school were amazing. I’m not referring to their beauty, but to their character, their ability to learn through moments of pain and anger and transform it into something beautiful, something inspiring to us, men, that eager to have women by our side, not behind us. Thank you Rosalee, Citlali, Sandrine, Cynthia, Ana Lúcia, Allison, Francesca, Marlou, … They were so many (from the 50 participants, I think 40 were women). I’d have to name them all to be fair with all of them, but I lack time (flight is about to depart). But I cannot forget to mention that, yes, they were also very good-looking, which made the discussions pleasant to the mind and to the eye.
Also I can’t forget the excellent lectures we had, that in a way or another made me think more about the world we live in: Prof. Grosfoguel, Prof. Patterson, Prof. Sandoval, Prof. Sayyid and Prof. Nimako. To all of you, to the extra lecturers and to Roberto (who worked so much to make it all as smooth as possible), thank you!
I have to thank my school, for funding me too, right? But I must say that the most important people I should thank are my students. It was because of them that I decided to come, it is because of them that I sacrifice myself sometimes, it is because of them that I don’t give up from the struggle.
(…)
On Friday night, the two last men standing in the fort, Adrian and me were invited to a small get-together at the next-door undergrats apartment. Two girls invited us to go. And suddenly, all the discussions, all the ideas, all the disturbance caused during this course came out in our minds. As we used to do every afternoon in the 5B, we sat and discussed about what we had experienced.
Funny… now I remember what we just did. We were witnessing to each other how the brown folks were trying to fit in with the white folks in that get-together.
And we witnessed for 2 hours.
And we cried.
There is a lot of work to do. And I won’t give up. I won’t be left behind. I won’t be another corpse left in the battlefield. I decided to fight. I decided to look up high in the sky, to be proud, to feel the pain and anger of my comadres and compadres, hermanos in color and history. I decided to be beside the strongest women and the ones that feel weakened. To the other forms of sexuality. To the other forms of oppression. Side to side of the racial struggle. Incorporate myself in the others, the otherness.I am the other in me.
And I need to decolonize the time and the space too. Thinking beyond the borders of clock-controlled time and meter-measured space. Rethink the sciences, the methodology of education. Rethink goals and objectives. Rethink evaluation processes, grades, and standards. Rethink everything.
And if one, just one of my students learns that… I’ll be realized as an educator.
Now I go back to my world. I won’t have this wonderful people everyday to help me to think what is going on. I’ll have to do it by myself. But I’m a grown up – I guess I can do that. It’s my battle against me and the ones I need to make see. I can do it.
And then my Tarragona buddies come back again to see me, in my mind… to help me to stay decolonized and to decolonize another person. You all come here anytime I need you.
Thank you for coming back.
