The Aff frames decolonization as a metaphor and centers critical consciousness as a method of liberation which acts as a settler move to innocence and actively worsens colonialism.

Moves to innocence IV: Free your mind and the rest will follow Fanon told us in 1963 that decolonizing the mind is the first step, not the only step toward overthrowing colonial regimes. Yet we wonder whether another settler move to innocence is to focus on decolonizing the mind, or the cultivation of critical consciousness, as if it were the sole activity of decolonization; to allow conscientization to stand in for the more uncomfortable task of relinquishing stolen land. We agree that curricula, literature, and pedagogy can be crafted to aid people in learning to see settler colonialism, to articulate critiques of settler epistemology, and set aside settler histories and values in search of ethics that reject domination and exploitation; this is not unimportant work. However, the front-loading of critical consciousness building can waylay decolonization, even though the experience of teaching and learning to be critical of settler colonialism can be so powerful it can feel like it is indeed making change. Until stolen land is relinquished, critical consciousness does not translate into action that disrupts settler colonialism. So, we respectfully disagree with George Clinton and Funkadelic (1970) and En Vogue (1992) when they assert that if you “free your mind, the rest (your ass) will follow.” Paulo Freire, eminent education philosopher, popular educator, and liberation theologian, wrote his celebrated book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in no small part as a response to Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. Its influence upon critical pedagogy and on the practices of educators committed to social justice cannot be overstated. Therefore, it is important to point out significant differences between Freire and Fanon, especially with regard to de/colonization. Freire situates the work of liberation in the minds of the oppressed, an abstract category of dehumanized worker vis-a-vis a similarly abstract category of oppressor. This is a sharp right turn away from Fanon’s work, which always positioned the work of liberation in the particularities of colonization, in the specific structural and interpersonal categories of Native and settler. Under Freire’s paradigm, it is unclear who the oppressed are, even more ambiguous who the oppressors are, and it is inferred throughout that an innocent third category of enlightened human exists: “those who suffer with [the oppressed] and fight at their side” (Freire, 2000, p. 42). These words, taken from the opening dedication of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, invoke the same settler fantasy of mutuality based on sympathy and suffering. Fanon positions decolonization as chaotic, an unclean break from a colonial condition that is already over determined by the violence of the colonizer and unresolved in its possible futures. By contrast, Freire positions liberation as redemption, a freeing of both oppressor and oppressed through their humanity. Humans become ‘subjects’ who then proceed to work on the ‘objects’ of the world (animals, earth, water), and indeed read the word (critical consciousness) in order to write the world (exploit nature). For Freire, there are no Natives, no Settlers, and indeed no history, and the future is simply a rupture from the timeless present. Settler colonialism is absent from his discussion, implying either that it is an unimportant analytic or that it is an already completed project of the past (a past oppression perhaps). Freire’s theories of liberation resoundingly echo the allegory of Plato’s Cave, a continental philosophy of mental emancipation, whereby the thinking man individualistically emerges from the dark cave of ignorance into the light of critical consciousness. By contrast, black feminist thought roots freedom in the darkness of the cave, in that well of feeling and wisdom from which all knowledge is recreated. These places of possibility within ourselves are dark because they are ancient and hidden; they have survived and grown strong through darkness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman's place of power within each of us is neither white nor surface; it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep. (Lorde, 1984, pp. 36-37) Audre Lorde’s words provide a sharp contrast to Plato’s sight-centric image of liberation: “The white fathers told us, I think therefore I am; and the black mothers in each of us - the poet - whispers in our dreams, I feel therefore I can be free” (p. 38). For Lorde, writing is not action upon the world. Rather, poetry is giving a name to the nameless, “first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action” (p. 37). Importantly, freedom is a possibility that is not just mentally generated; it is particular and felt. Freire’s philosophies have encouraged educators to use “colonization” as a metaphor for oppression. In such a paradigm, “internal colonization” reduces to “mental colonization”, logically leading to the solution of decolonizing one’s mind and the rest will follow. Such philosophy conveniently sidesteps the most unsettling of questions: The essential thing is to see clearly, to think clearly - that is, dangerously and to answer clearly the innocent first question: what, fundamentally, is colonization? (Cesaire, 2000, p. 32) Because colonialism is comprised of global and historical relations, Cesaire’s question must be considered globally and historically. However, it cannot be reduced to a global answer, nor a historical answer. To do so is to use colonization metaphorically. “What is colonization?” must be answered specifically, with attention to the colonial apparatus that is assembled to order the relationships between particular peoples, lands, the ‘natural world’, and ‘civilization’. Colonialism is marked by its specializations. In North America and other settings, settler sovereignty imposes sexuality, legality, raciality, language, religion and property in specific ways. Decolonization likewise must be thought through in these particularities. To agree on what [decolonization] is not: neither evangelization, nor a philanthropic enterprise, nor a desire to push back the frontiers of ignorance, disease, and tyranny... (Cesaire, 2000, p. 32) We deliberately extend Cesaire’s words above to assert what decolonization is not. It is not converting Indigenous politics to a Western doctrine of liberation; it is not a philanthropic process of ‘helping’ the at-risk and alleviating suffering; it is not a generic term for struggle against oppressive conditions and outcomes. The broad umbrella of social justice may have room underneath for all of these efforts. By contrast, decolonization specifically requires the repatriation of Indigenous land and life. Decolonization is not a metonym for social justice. We don’t intend to discourage those who have dedicated careers and lives to teaching themselves and others to be critically conscious of racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, xenophobia, and settler colonialism. We are asking them/you to consider how the pursuit of critical consciousness, the pursuit of social justice through a critical enlightenment, can also be settler moves to innocence - diversions, distractions, which relieve the settler of feelings of guilt or responsibility, and conceal the need to give up land or power or privilege. Anna Jacobs’ 2009 Master’s thesis explores the possibilities for what she calls white harm reduction models. Harm reduction models attempt to reduce the harm or risk of specific practices. Jacobs identifies white supremacy as a public health issue that is at the root of most other public health issues. The goal of white harm reduction models, Jacobs says, is to reduce the harm that white supremacy has had on white people, and the deep harm it has caused non-white people over generations. Learning from Jacobs’ analysis, we understand the curricular pedagogical project of critical consciousness as settler harm reduction, crucial in the resuscitation of practices and intellectual life outside of settler ontologies. (Settler) harm reduction is intended only as a stopgap. As the environmental crisis escalates and peoples around the globe are exposed to greater concentrations of violence and poverty, the need for settler harm reduction is acute, profoundly so. At the same time we remember that, by definition, settler harm reduction, like conscientization, is not the same as decolonization and does not inherently offer any pathways that lead to decolonization.