Decolonizing the Music Room. Since our inception, that names has had a strong impression on those who hear it, whether their reactions are positive or negative. That word can sometimes draw a line in the sand, or can draw potential co-conspirators to check out our work. As many of you know, DTMR has been in existence for a little over a year. When I was brainstorming with friends/colleagues during the planning of our launch and that word came up, I wasn’t sure if it was the best choice for what I was trying to do. I took some time to look at what decolonizing has meant to others, how it has been used, and what it could mean to me. It is something that has required constant learning, and it would not be surprising to find myself with many different understandings about the work of decolonization as time goes on.

My own positionality: I am a Black woman. I identify primarily as a Black American descendant of enslaved people, and a southerner. For me, that says a whole lot about my history, my perceived place in this society, my culture, the way I am seen and heard as I move about. As I considered what the word “decolonizing” meant in terms of my own work, my positionality played a big part.

A big part of understanding decolonization is obvious: learn what colonization was, has done, is doing. Colonization, in the term’s most simplified use, is a system in which a central power dominates and controls another land, its people, and its resources - with land taken over being established as a colony. The form of colonization we see in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand - the form most connected to my own personal experience - is called settler colonialism.

Settler colonialism is a form in which, as scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang put it, “the colonizer comes to stay.” In this form, external and internal colonialism work together, as colonizers take over land and declare themselves native to it, through carrying out “a total appropriation of Indigenous life and land.” Some examples of how this is enacted over time: manifest destiny, boarding schools, chattel slavery, mining for resources on Indigenous land. Because the intention of colonizers is to make a new home, the nation they create is total and all-encompassing, and requires complete dominion of land, creatures, people. This happens structurally over time through many means.

Settlers are not like immigrants, because immigrants come to a new land and are subject to laws within it. Settlers “become the law, supplanting Indigenous laws and epistemologies (ways of knowing).” Settlers position themselves as the norm or default, and their identities and culture superior to all others. We see this play out in our society through the social racial construct of whiteness, and the rights, freedoms, and entitlement that have been built around it. Whiteness is a construct that has always not been ascribed to the same groups of people throughout history - some European ethnic groups that our society now considers white have not always been treated as such. Our society has seen people within these groups move (through actions like legal action or assimilation) in ways that allowed them to gain access to the rights that come with whiteness, becoming racialized as white. At the same time, there has been a distancing from being associated with or categorized as Black people, the group broadly rendered subhuman when stolen from Africa and brought to the land, often through overtly anti Black behavior (anti blackness is a key component of settler colonialism). 

We constantly swim in the effects of colonization. As Black French author, Aimé Césaire, describes in his “Discourse on Colonialism”:

“I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out...millions of men torn from their gods, their land, their habits, their life - from life...in whom fear has been cunningly instilled, who have been taught to have an inferiority complex…”

The population of these lands are predominantly descendants of colonial powers. Those Indigenous to the land are still present, but in much smaller numbers than before the arrival of colonizers. In the U.S., this is a result of genocide, coordinated and sanctioned by the government, and committed privately over time. This happens physically with the destruction of bodies, but also involves the destruction of cultural practices, language, family structures, and erasure from space, places, stories, and histories. The U.S. also uses forms of colonizations on other nations.

I’ve discussed two components of settler colonization: Indigenous people and colonizers, but  another component “involves the subjugation and forced labor of chattel slaves, whose bodies and lives become the property, and who are kept landless (Tuck and Yang, 2014).” This created a triad of settler-Indigenous people-enslaved people. While the triad isn’t absolute, due to times of overlap between its parts and identities that don’t fit neatly within it, it can be useful to demonstrate the dynamics of settler colonialism.

As a Black woman, I have spent time pondering the place of my people, who functioned as property within this system, in decolonization. A recent read of Tapji Garba and Sara-Maria Sorentino’s “Slavery is a Metaphor: A Critical Commentary on Eve Tuck and Wayne Yang’s ‘Decolonization is Not a Metaphor’,” helped me to name part of what I was grappling with: the position of enslaved Africans within Tuck and Yang’s triad was named, but the people themselves were not being assigned a full identity- they were primarily being ascribed a function. This mirrors something I have experienced in my life and read about: enslaved Africans had many (not all) cultural ties severed when brought to this land. Much of our culture is appropriated and/or exoticized by our society, and often what is acknowledged as being produced by Black people is conveyed through negative stereotypes that convey we don’t have the type of cultural production that is worthy of high significance. I don’t speak for all Black people, but this is something I grew up seeing and feeling, without having the language to name it. The impressions I received that my Black culture didn’t represent something as important and valid as dominant US white culture were palpable. This did not by any means encapsulate my entire experience growing up Black, but certainly had salience. Over time, I was fortunate to encounter many great educators, peers, and friends who helped me to understand those feelings and process them in order to really internalize how robust and significant my culture was.

Decolonization, in my work, means learning about the effects of colonization on people, land, systems, ideas, education, etc. and listening to the voices of those victimized by it in order to disrupt and attempt to repair it. Colonization severs ties to land, violently strips personhood and identity, indoctrinates, erases, steals, kills, commodifies, reprograms, assimilates, divides. This understanding of how colonization functions and what it has done and is doing is why song lists aren't enough. It is why pulling out and plugging in multicultural choices in existing educational frameworks is not enough. You cannot go around saying you are "decolonizing" without understanding what responsibility goes along with it. It's co-opting language and it is irresponsible.

When I speak of these ideas I am careful to use the word “decolonizing” as an action or process, but not "decolonized," which denotes an ending point - one which does not exist. There is no “decolonized” classroom, but there should be a teacher who is engaging in the ever-present process of analyzing and working to undo that which is the impact of colonization. 

I am going to speak very plainly: if we are taking a serious look at the meaning of decolonization-and the sometimes overlapping, but distinctive concepts of antiracism and social justice- the world of music ed would be upended, and rightfully so. When our actions do not strip our systems and practices down to their core, we must be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that we are supplementing, being additive, maybe reframing - but certainly not fully undoing. This is something I ponder frequently. I do work that calls for revolutionary behavior, but I got here through the traditional public school system. I have formal university music training. I have trained in Kodaly, Orff, Music Learning Theory. When I speak to you I include academic language and write in English that is considered “standard.” So, as I attempt to shine a light on the foundations of music education, I must also hold a constant mirror up to myself and my work, and be willing to name when I am functioning in a way that validates and perpetuates colonial, hierarchical, exclusionary, and racist structures. 

I am a work in progress. So is my philosophy. And so is Decolonizing the Music Room.

Something I hear again and again is that decolonization is UNSETTLING. And it’s true - decolonization leaves us with lots of questions that cannot be neatly answered. 

 What is Settler-Colonialism. 2019. Amanda Morris. Teaching Tolerance 

Decolonization is Not A Metaphor. 2012. Eve Tuck and K Wayne Yang. Decolonization, Indigeneity, Education, & Society. Volume 1, No. 1. 

Slavery is a Metaphor: A Critical Commentary on Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor”. 2020. Tapji Garba and Sara-Maria Sorentino. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography. Vol 52. No. 3.

Discourse on Colonialism. 1950. Aimé Césaire.