We are living in a colonial world.
And I am a colonial scholar.
By Michael Barnes
What do I mean?
Our society perpetuates a myth of invention and achievement that is more accurately depicted as a habitual appropriation and theft.
Indigenous and non-White cultures have been exploited, the fruit of that exploitation -- including human labor itself -- has been colonized and commodified.
However, just as a copy of a copy of a copy degrades and a once sharp resolution becomes blurry, so too does the benefit of commodified, colonized fruit dip until we face a slow but certain death.
This death is both symbolic -- the death of community values and spirituality -- and literal -- such as death by alcohol abuse, and obesity as a consequence of a flood of low-nutrition calories.
While these consequences (symbolic and literal deaths) occur in tragically greater proportion among the same indigenous and non-White communities which have been stripped of material and cultural capital, they also visit the colonizers.
As such, Whiteness -- the call to colonize -- is an epidemic, and now global pandemic, that will end society except insofar as we resist its potent pull.
As a point of clarification, Whiteness is not defined just phenotypically, by skin color, but is the best way to describe the group, and the thinking behind the group, which is most responsible for the spread and perpetuation of colonialism. To be clear, a single human life, and our collective history operate along a continuum. To be born White and privileged is not a condemnation, but a point of origin. I believe we can transcend and overcome our place on the stage.
In fact, as a White, privileged male born into this society, I believed I flourished as a young student, only to look back much much later and realize I was blindly embracing incentives set in place to encourage a set of behaviors -- rooted in unspoken values (and epistemologies) -- that accelerate the global phenomenon that is colonialism.
Indeed, it was my second stage in life, between the years of 18 and 29, when I grappled with new values, and new directions. I spent four of those years in college struggling to reconcile my childhood notion of “achievement” -- essential to my identity -- with a much messier world. This catharsis took a toll. I spent seven years after college in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. I became a teacher, struggled mightily in an unfamiliar, non-White context, married the teacher across the hall, had two sons, and then faced divorce and an uncertain path forward. Quite a whirlwind.
At one point in January, 2012, I found myself “lacking motivation” and spent days in pensive reflection and solemn prayer, reflecting upon lucid dreams. That month I also found myself stretching a slim $20 bill to cover gas, groceries, and belated Christmas gifts for my boys. I can imagine many of my White, colonized colleagues snickering now at this expression of vulnerability.
But the truth is, as I realized then, even if I embraced my challenges and took a vow of poverty, this so-called poverty would be an elective choice. Yet the truly poor do not choose, and to claim to dwell earnestly in their space is to defraud and to mock those who suffer. While I can visit, listen, and seek to understand, I cannot “choose” to inhabit spaces others have arrived at by force, specifically “forces beyond their control.”
So in March of 2012 I found myself “wanting” again. I wanted to explore the (White) world I had left behind. I wanted to both be in that world, but not forget what I had learned in the Rio Grande Valley. I wanted to feel strong, and not simply assume the deep feelings of self-doubt that plagued many of my students. While this would mean, at least temporarily, leaving my sons, I reckoned that I was worth more to them on weekends as my full, unapologetic self, than a daily-present yet diminutive derivative.
I don’t know quite why I feel compelled to say all of this.
I do think now upon a passage I wrote into a book review for publication:
I don’t actually want to be an education researcher in Austin, not at least more than I want to spend every day with my two sons of biracial heritage in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas.
I would truly prefer to return to the Rio Grande Valley, to walk away again and for good from the temptations of Whiteness that surround me. However, I am also now prepared to engage the world from that home. To touch the soil and feel in its dry harshness, in its salt -- great tears, the pull of Whiteness in all things -- the colonial spirit.
I do not believe in colonialism and White oppression because it is a popular line for doctoral students to assume, or because I am bored with status quo narratives, but because this theoretical framework best explains the volumes of data that confound more polite explanations of the modern (and ancient) world.
While I may have been colonized, as a young student I sincerely and passionately sought the truth, be it revealed through art, science, or reason, and I still cannot shake the urge to elucidate through my experiences the true nature of the world.
I would love to be wrong; I would love to bask in the warm glow of privilege and comfort, and not to forsake that fire -- but I do not think earnest data can prove this posture wrong. Indeed, I think since most of us (Whites) were children, we’ve had to confront the sneaking suspicion that not all is as it seems.
“Something is amiss,” said a voice in a dream from that January, 2012 period.
Indeed, something is amiss. And I believe I can describe it simply. This does not mean that I own the idea, nor do I operate in isolation. I am simply proud to play a bit part in preserving and through my life passing on a powerful narrative of colonialism, as both a warning and glimpse of hope for those who walk by my side, and for the many more that will follow when my brief flame dies.
Michael Barnes is a doctoral student in Educational Policy and Planning (EPP) in the Department of Educational Administration (EDA) at UT. His research focus is on the intersection of equity and excellence, including an emphasis on culturally responsive pedagogy and “startup skills,” respectively.