What can these people teach me? Discourses of oppression
Today, I was supposed to write about forgiveness. But, to write as a black student is to write with a thousand voices behind you screaming in agony. To write as a black student is to know that you will be better rewarded for explaining the history of a country that no longer exists than why black lives matter. To write as a black student is to feel white-hot fury.
However, I learnt something important. I learnt that I do not study simply for knowledge or truth. I aspire to that higher, more moral truth that commands us to action. It is a truth that taught me what it means to be so close to knowledge that it is a part of your skin.
Today, I was supposed to write about Aristotle, who defended slavery. I was supposed to write about Hegel, who said Africa was a place that had made no contribution to history. Today, I was supposed to write about Kant, who said black people could perhaps learn enough to be servants.
These men, who built the home that I am expected to live in, hate me. If that is what excellence is, then I don’t want it. If that’s what it means to be intelligent, then what’s intelligence for? What can these people teach me that my grandmother cannot? What can Hegel’s Master-Slave dialectic say that those who worked in the field cannot? What can Kant teach me about ethics when I am not entitled to his?
I find it hard to choose one transformative moment when the university experience is one of translation, translating emotion into reason, translating reason into essays, translating essays into marks, translating marks into self-esteem. It’s hard to learn the answer to one question is the promise of six more. It’s hard to pretend to know the answer and pretend to be certain when, in truth, I know nothing about the world, translating fear into procrastination, translating procrastination into stress, translating stress into excuses.
I often have to make excuses for myself: I didn’t write much today but I came up with some ideas. I didn’t make any progress today but I did plan tomorrow which work I should do. I worked really hard on this and it’s still awful but at least I hate myself.
I feel like I have to defend myself even though no one seems to be attacking me. How do you apply for help when history is attacking you, when reality is your opponent, when your own language colonises you? How is knowledge supposed to empower you when it’s dealt in the currency of oppression?
Today, I was supposed to write about forgiveness. But, I won’t.
Because my education has healed me. It has given me the broken words to describe my broken spirits. It has taught me the higher truth. It has taught me that justice is a word with no translation. It is spelt through whatever means necessary. There is no lesson more rich in kindness nor poor patience.
