Freirean Liberatory Practice

My decolonizing work, research, and practice has been undoubtedly and deeply impacted by Paulo Freire’s work. Back in 2016, when I first checked out Pedagogy of the Oppressed from my school’s library, I was exhausted from the compounding effects of racism, discrimination, and White supremacy at the conservative university institution I attended in Atlantic Canada. I was searching for answers, a language, and a framework to articulate my experiences that I have felt for my entire life but lacked the ability to describe. Freire provided this lexicon. 

In Education for Critical Consciousness, he describes the moment in Brazil’s liberation movement when the oppressed were on their way to toppling their oppressors and rising to power. But this sectarian uprising was missing a key ingredient. Compassion and empathy. The soon-to-be formerly oppressed, rose to power by way of a coup where they began to oppress the former oppressors thus becoming the same ugly force that was done upon them. 

This is the tragic flaw of the Decolonization movement. We are tired. We are angry. And deep inside, we want to do unto our oppressors what they have done to us. But this is not the answer. How do we practice radical acceptance, humility, and compassion while still holding those who have wronged us accountable? How do we transform the academy in a way that nurtures our creativity and collective diversity instead of instituting mechanisms used to divide us? 

The oppressors of today have a deep and vested interest in the privileges that are awarded to them through colonization and White supremacy and they are conditioned to defend its perpetuation and continuance. Peggy McIntosh (1989) asserts that these are unearned privileges. Any activist involved in the Decolonization movement would find their greatest strength in being able to name, articulate, and dismantle the unjust systems that govern our world today. The more you can precisely and unapologetically name, reflect, and take action upon these injustices, the weaker the oppressors become. They rely on our false conditioning that nothing is wrong and that the status quo is the natural world order. Let’s surprise them.