Decolonising Antiracism: A Collective Intervention in Race, Resistance, & Identity

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.64074/z39rse12

Keywords:

racelessness, antiracism, epistemicide, epistemic justice, cognitive imperialism, HARMONY, Sankofa, decolonization, philosophy, togetherness wayfinder, Justice AI, Ubuntu, identity

Abstract

This article argues that any antiracist initiative that continues to rely on upholding the colonial fiction and practices of human “races” merely repackages Eurocolonial domination. Drawing on decolonial theory, epistemic-justice scholarship, African and Africana philosophies of relation, and the togetherness Wayfinder framework, the HARMONY model, and Justice AI GPT, we demonstrate how contemporary antiracism frequently reproduces the very hierarchies it seeks to dismantle while presenting alternative pathways toward a future without racism. We synthesise perspectives from Sheena Michele Mason, Shayla Sima Dube, and Christian Ortiz to outline a paradigm that lends itself to the abolition of the belief in and practice of race, and thereby racism itself, without erasing culture, lineage, or collective struggle. Our contribution is fourfold: (1) a brief genealogy of “racelessness” in African and Africana thought, (2) a critique of epistemicide and “white-comfort engineering” that co-opts liberation discourses, (3) an exposition of “racelessness” as the logical endpoint of antiracism, and (4) a practical roadmap for reclaiming identity and creating a future without antiblack racism through land, language, and lineage.

Author Biographies

  • Sheena Mason, SUNY Oneonta

    Sheena Michele Mason is an assistant professor of English at SUNY Oneonta. Effective September 1, 2025, she will hold the rank of associate professor of English at SUNY Oneonta. She holds a PhD with distinction in English from Howard University in Washington, DC, USA, and specializes in Africana and American literary studies and philosophy of race. Her work has garnered recognition, including the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities (2025) and the inaugural Chancellor’s Horizon Award for Faculty Research and Scholarship (2025), Pillar Awards (2024 and 2025), Esther Hubbard Whitaker Award (2023), the Alden Scholar Lecture Series Award (2022), and the Outstanding Scholar of the Year Award (2022) at SUNY Oneonta. She is published with Oxford University Press, Palgrave MacMillan, Cambridge University Press, and the University of Warsaw among other presses. And she has forthcoming books with Yale University Press, Palgrave, and Broadview Press. She is the innovator of the togetherness wayfinder (formerly and alternatively called the theory of racelessness) and founder of Togetherness Wayfinder, an educational firm. Her book The Raceless Antiracist: Why Ending Race Is the Future of Antiracism shows how ending our belief in “race” and practice of racialization is required toward the goal of ending the causes and effects of racialized dehumanization.

  • Shayla S. Dube, MSW, RCSW, University of Calgary

    Shayla S. Dube is a sessional professor of Africentric Social Work at the University of Calgary and a guest lecturer at academic institutions and community spaces across Canada. With over 15 years as a liberatory social worker, and mental health practitioner, Shayla’s praxis centers equity-responsive, anti-oppressive, trauma‑informed, Ubuntu‑centered, and decolonial frameworks.

    She holds a Bachelor and Master of Social Work from York University and is founder of Wellness Empowered Inc., as well as co‑founder of the Alberta Black Therapist Network. Her scholarly work explores epistemic justice, Indigenous knowledge reclamation, and the decolonization of mental health practice.

    Shayla is co‑author, with Dr. Sandra Dixon, of the peer‑reviewed article “Beyond Mainstream Modalities: Introducing the Tree of Life Model,” published in COGNICA in Fall 2023. It advances narrative therapeutic tools tailored for racially marginalized communities by centering culturally grounded healing methods .

    A sought-after speaker, guest lecturer, and curriculum advisor, Shayla offers keynotes and training on Ubuntu-centered healing, cultural safety, youth trauma, racial trauma, and narrative decolonial praxis. Her work affirms that restoring collective well‑being requires unlearning colonial logics and returning to relational, ancestral, and land‑based ways of knowing.

  • Christian Ortiz, Justice AI GPT

    Christian Ortiz is an Afro-Indigenous, neurodivergent, Decolonial Social Scientist and Technologist. He is the CEO/Founder/Developer of Justice AI GPT, the world's first AI Framework that's solved the bias problem.

References

Abimbola, W. (1997). Ifá will mend our broken world: Thoughts on Yoruba religion and culture in Africa and the diaspora. Aim Books.

Battiste , M. (2005). Indigenous knowledge: Foundations for first nations. WINHEC: International Journal of Indigenous Education Scholarship, 1(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.18357/winhec11200512345

Cross, T. L. (1989). Towards a culturally competent system of care: A monograph on effective services for minority children who are severely emotionally disturbed. Georgetown University Child Development Center, CASSP Technical Assistance Center.

De Sousa Santos, B. ( 2014) Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Routledge.

Dei, G. J. S. (2012). Indigenous philosophies and critical education: A reader. Peter Lang.

Du Bois, W. E. B. (2007). The souls of Black folk (B. H. Edwards, Ed.). Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1903).

Dube, S. S. (2025). “The H.A.R.M.O.N.Y. Framework for Healing with Ubuntu” [Keynote presentation]. Rooted in Tradition, Healing with Ubuntu Mental Health Conference, TAIBU Community Health Centre, Edmonton, AB. Canada.

Fanon, F. (2021). The wretched of the Earth (R. Philcox, Trans.; Preface by J.-P. Sartre; Introduction by C. West; Foreword by H. K. Bhabha). Grove Press. (Original work published 1961).

Garvey, M. (1986). The philosophy and opinions of Marcus Garvey (A. Jacques-Garvey, Ed.). Routledge. (Original work published 1923).

Gilroy, P. (1993). The Black Atlantic: Modernity and double consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Glissant, É. (1997). Poetics of relation (B. Wing, Trans.). University of Michigan Press. (Original work published 1990).

Imafidon, E., Tshivhase, M., & Freter, B. (Eds.). (2023). Handbook of African philosophy (Handbooks in Philosophy). Springer.

Karenga, M. (1988). The African American holiday of Kwanzaa: A celebration of family, community, and culture. University of Sankore Press.

Lee, T. L. (2023). Papal Bulls: Doctrine of discovery, royalty and results. Independently published.

Locke, A. L. (1992). “Race contacts and interracial relations: Lectures on the theory and practice of race.” Moorland-Spingarn archives, Alain Locke Papers (ALP) 164 Box 125 Folder 4.

Lorde, A. (2007). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches (C. Clarke, Foreword). Crossing Press.

Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007). On the coloniality of being: Contributions to the development of a concept. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 240–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162548

Masolo, D. A. (1994). African philosophy in search of identity. Indiana University Press.

Mason, S. M. (2024). The raceless antiracist: Why ending race is the future of antiracism. Pitchstone Publishing.

Mbembe, A. (2019). Necropolitics (S. Corcoran, Trans.). Duke University Press. (Original work published 2016).

Mbiti, J. S. (1990). African religions and philosophy (2nd ed.). Heinemann.

Morrison, T. (2014). Paradise. Vintage International. (Original work published 1997)

Mudimbe, V. Y. (1994). The idea of Africa (African Systems of Thought). Indiana University Press.

Naylor, G. (1993). Bailey’s Cafe. Vintage Books.

Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2018). Epistemic freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and Decolonisation. Routledge.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, N. (2025). Decolonising language and other revolutionary ideas. The New Press.

Nobles, W. W. (2006). Seeking the Sakhu: Foundational writings for an African psychology. Third World Press.

Ortiz, C. Z. (2024). The DIA Framework™: A decolonial intelligence methodology for algorithmic justice. MOD ATLAS MEDIA.

Ortiz, C. Z. (2025). Solving the AI bias problem: A decolonial blueprint for algorithmic justice. Justice AI GPT.

Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from South, 1(3), 533–580.

Rupke, N. A., & Lauer, G. (Eds.). (2019). Johann Friedrich Blumenbach: Race and natural history, 1750–1850 (1st ed.). Routledge.

Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonising methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples (2nd ed.). Zed Books.

Walcott, D. (1992). Omeros. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Wiredu, K. (Ed.). (2004). A companion to African philosophy. Blackwell Publishing.

Wynter, S. (2003). Unsettling the coloniality of being/power/truth/freedom: Towards the human, after Man, its overrepresentation—An argument. The New Centennial Review, 3(3), 257–337. https://doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2004.0015

Downloads

Published

01-09-2025

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 5 (2025): Special Issue: Decolonial Scholarship

Section

Articles

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Mason, S., Dube, S., & Ortiz, C. (2025). Decolonising Antiracism: A Collective Intervention in Race, Resistance, & Identity. JORMA International Journal of Health and Social Sciences, 3(5), 35-43. https://doi.org/10.64074/z39rse12