RP4: Challenge all that is given...

The work does not end here. The process of decolonizing our thinking does not cease with the termination of a course, nor does it cease with the end of a school year. We have been conditioned to believe so, but we must look beyond the confines of the grade and search outside of our comfort levels to find true exaltation. This past week has left me to reflect on the class and where I have come as an intro to ethnic studies student. Here is what I have found.

Do not give up. Because so many times I wanted to in this course. I wanted to pull my hair out actually because I did not have the proper understanding of what it means to argue with the given in certain ways. I reside in a hegemonic understanding that what knowledge is given to me is right and to question it is questioning its authenticity and its validity. But what I have understood in this class it that in order to fully understand the knowledge of something, we must questions its authenticity and its validity in order to perfect our own work as scholars. In order to solidify our own knowledge we must challenge everything and think critically about what is believed to be self-evident and true.

Mignolo’s understanding of “Latin” America helped me grasp this and ground my understanding in the questioning of all that is given and believed true, obviously prior to me taking this course. I understand the implications that come out of labeling me as a “Latina.” And how simply changing the label, which are created arbitrarily by hegemonic colonial forces, is simply changing a name on a subject that is a product of a racial project, but its implications do not change. Just like changing multicultural to intercultural, as Mignolo states, does nothing so as much to change the name and label of the same work that is being done. This class has taught me to question why things are labeled as they are and why we believe them to be true. Question the authority that makes these labels powerful and who has the agency to shift a name and create racial projects that will be followed by imperial forces for years and years to come.

My frustration comes from an unwillingness to face that so much in my realm of knowledge has been given to me by colonial thinkers that now to decolonize my ways of thinking seems daunting, but it will happen. I have to make strides to make that happen, outside of academia and beyond the classroom. I am so very ready for this challenge. I only question where this will continue.