The Beauty of Liberation: Decolonization as Talking in Poetry
By Oluwatomisin “Tomi” Oredein.
“It is a form of struggle and survival, an epistemic existence-based response and practice—most especially by colonial and racialized subjects—against the colonial matrix of power in all of its dimensions, and for the possibilities of an otherwise.”
– cultural theorist Catherine Walsh on decoloniality 1
Decolonization
Decolonization—the active and actual commitment to practicing decoloniality on a large, systematic scale—is also an active hope, a practice of ontological belief. It acts on the assertion that those once colonized deserve to live in the world without the burden of being controlled and over-determined. It challenges the limits assigned to peoples, places, and things, and instead creates avenues of freedom.
Decolonization ventures into the world of liberation. It wants not only a small segment of the world to be free, but the world in its entirety. It invokes liberation with a poetic forcefulness, weaving together what already is with what is possible. Invoking the decolonial in this way—in language infused with poetic possibility—invites total freedom.
Decolonialization refuses a Western rational center and sees the possibility of true human relationship. 2 But what most interests me about decolonization is the nature of a liberationist pursuit. It is imaginative, creative, past-correcting, and future-oriented.
By virtue of its aims, the pursuit of decolonization is a beautiful pursuit! In speaking with a liberationist accent, decolonization’s tongue is littered with love—first and foremost, for the self.
This should mean something for racially and ethnically minoritized wome/yn 3 teaching in religious studies: how struggling towards liberation requires us to shed unimportant language and instead let our tongues recognize and commit to the beauty of (our) liberation!
For Wome/yn
To be decolonial means to not only be open to the changing form of a structure, practice, or belief system, but to also be excited and curious about the beauty of liminal spaces—about the in-between parts of the invocation of change and change’s actual arrival.
Liberation is beautifully poetic.
As an American African scholar in Christian theology and ethics, I cannot not dabble in beauty. In all of who I am and what I do, I talk in poetry – uttering possibility-infused-phrasings that a colonial-affirmed prose cannot quite sound out on its own. Liberation is my work; decoloniality, my constant companion—and even in its struggling to take root in a predominantly white progressive institution—my decolonial instincts never forgo the beauty of seeking and speaking total freedom.
But not all wome/yn in my fields are interested in feeling the fullness of liberation’s fire, its intersectional embers. No one wants to get burned.
Many wome/yn know how to passionately nod to womanism, Black feminism, and postcolonial discourses while denying their own particular historical realities. They work incredibly hard to distance themselves from their ideological kin, acting as if racist, classist, and ethnocentric ideas do not historically and currently pump blood into the heart of their discourses, flood their bodies of work with self-righteous endorphins—those opiates of false progressivism.
They have not yet memorized or perhaps do not truly want to learn the complex language of liberation.
These wome/yn do not talk in poetry but are damn good at reciting it.
…
Christian theology and ethics deserve better.
If unmoved from whiteness’ grasp, these discourses confirm the colonial. And their “wayward children”—American indigenous, Latinx, Black feminist, Black liberationist, womanist, queer, postcolonial, Pacific, Asian, and Asian American theologies and ethics—are invariably sanctioned to the outer sanctums of “true Christian theology” or “real ethics.”
This does not feel free.
Decolonization would mean the erasure of whiteness’ stronghold, but whiteness’ beneficiaries are not ready, and perhaps not able, to articulate themselves otherwise. Minoritized wome/yn scholars cannot rely on those who rely on whiteness to abandon and undo themselves. We must find another way, or perhaps look amongst ourselves.
Sharing Solidarity and Collective Liberation
Decolonization in spaces where minoritized wome/yn can gather, learn from one another, and collaborate means actively using our tongues to speak our freedom and ourselves into existence.
I have wondered if we can transform guilds that already think themselves at their best or “complete.” I have realized I am too old to give others my time and energy; I now worry about myself, what I think and want to say. I continue to express the beauty of liberation, even as others find it unnecessary, over-particularized, and not white enough to be considered “rigorous.”
I have decided to continue telling myself to wome/yn, folx, and others interested in my liminality and complex beauty, to remind everyone that I, too, am a decolonial entity.
I wish other minoritized wome/yn and folx would take up this posture of prioritizing their tongues, too. In this we can find each other—and remember that in connecting through our free tongues and beautiful imaginations we get the opportunity to value each other.
It is difficult to shift a world that does not want to change; we can, however, appeal to our world-forms by recognizing each other, being honest when we face or are actively struggling with our colonial demons. It is OK to call out our places of ignorance and interest—as long as we are honest with each other, as long as we do not spend time and energy trying to appeal to the wrong world.
I wish for us to meet each other in the freedom of our full, uninhibited selves. But these goals may not always be fully available to us outside of us.
Therefore, I propose this: in every way possible, let’s be excited about and committed to—us. Let’s learn from each other—allow our ideas to evolve because we take another’s life, another’s experience and the ideas brought forth, seriously. Let’s engage and elevate each other’s voices within our institutions, in our talks, our writing, and growing of our ideas and beliefs. Let’s intentionally invite each other’s wisdom into the habits of spaces that need changing.
Let’s speak in beauty and prop up liberation as our primary goal. May we venture into every faculty meeting, guild opportunity, and classroom setting with beauty—with total freedom, with ourselves and our hopes—on our minds.
Oluwatomisin “Tomi” Oredein is an Assistant Professor in Black Religious Traditions and Constructive Theology and Ethics and the Director of Black Church Studies at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, TX. Anchored in her American African identity, her scholastic and creative work engages theopoetics, womanist theology and ethics, postcolonial and decolonial thought, and Black theology from an African diasporic perspective. Oredein is the author of The Theology of Mercy Amba Oduyoye: Ecumenism, Feminism, and Communal Practice and winner of the 2023 Notre Dame Press First Time Author Award.