Decolonizing the Mind and Then the Classroom

By Vivian Phillips **Author's Note: This was written February 11th, but for some reason I published it privately, not publicly, I apologize!!**  This blogpost will commentary on the first half of Dreams in a Time of War and the "A Quest of Relevance" chapter of Decolonizing the Mind. The presence of stories coming from one's community as seen in  Dreams illustrates how important it is to a child's development and sense of self. One wonders if Ngũgĩ would have connected to King David so strongly if he didn't have the stories of his half-brother who fought in WWII. Ngũgĩ also recognizes how it can be used to benefit the colonizer as he states in  Decolonizing, "African children who encountered literature in colonial schools and universities were thus experiencing the world as defined and reflected in the European experience of history. Their entire way of looking at the world, even the world of-the immediate environment, was Eurocentric. The images c...

By: Vivian Phillips There are two lines spoken in The Trial of Dedan Kimathi that made me a little uneasy when I first read it. It's in the scene between Kimathi and the Priest.  PRIEST: Wrong Again. We are Africanizing the Church.  We want to see Christ reflected in our culture. Drums in the church. African Bishops. African Moderators. African Cardinals.  KIMATHI: Slave! Slave! When will you throw off your ill-fitting borrowed gown and create something you can truly call your own ? Pastor, tell me the difference between a padre and a settler. Go on.  I believe I understand what Ngũgĩ is trying to say here, that even with the "Africanizing" of the Christian ministry, it still doesn't cover up the fact that it is a tool used by the colonizer to pacify and control the African population. Then of course, I applied it to African Americans. For the enslaved Africans, when they were brought to America it was illegal for them to worship the religion of t...