How Not to be Colonizers in the Metaverse
The Black Next Story emerges as light in the darkness. Like a seed planted in soil, it moves and navigates chaos like a wise explorer. Understanding balance requires light and dark, stillness and action, sound and silence, triumph and trauma. The Story is written between these states, and those of us willing to explore do so with the mindset of, as Margaret Wheatly would say, companions, not competitors. Doing this requires us to loosen our grip on our current ways of being, which is easier said than done. This is often hard to do because how we operate and exist within the world can be limited by our own imaginations.
The Metaverse holds incredible potential to help us unleash our imaginations, but only if we are willing to leave some of our habits behind. The route to avoiding colonizing the Metaverse must be centered on exploration, imagination, and new ways of being. We teach colonization. It is an embedded assumption in the thought routines that create the conditions for mistreatment and oppression. The belief is silently woven into the fabric of our stories and myths that frame identity—our relationship to ourselves, our space, and others. Colonization of thought happens when there is a silent assumption that there is only one way of thinking, being, and doing, which is dictated by one group of people. The ability to self-determine is eclipsed. Fear, terror, and violence control another human’s flexibility, range of motion, and imagination.
These ways have created the current world, and while it seems like there is no relief in sight, that escaping is a viable option, the reality is that space travel is currently not a realistic escape route for most people. So, how do we create and design the world that we want? How might we use the technology we have not to escape the world, but to help us design the world that should be? As educators, holding this paradox is the stuff of the Black Next Story. With attention and intention, we can explore spaces and think without colonizing.
Hold Liminal Space: Practice Emergence
We have all been touched and changed by colonization and its progeny of body centered oppressions—those who have descended from the colonized, those who have descended from the colonizer, and those of us who have the blood of both coursing through our veins. When this is acknowledged, it stands to reason that the ways of the past are for the past. We all need new ways for a new future and we need space to practice. Educators especially have a tendency to solve old problems with old practices. But chaos is neither predictable nor forgiving. In moments of confusion, we must take the time to figure out what parts of our practice best fit the moment. What if we already have all the right pieces, but the moment is asking us to arrange them in a different order? Working, leading, and being this way requires the time and space for expertise to emerge from those closest to the work: students, teachers, and leaders, especially those with marginalized identities. There is an acknowledgment in thought and action that this space is entirely new, and we take equity pauses to ensure oppression and cultural habits that hurt others become relics in this new space. Sometimes best practices (the ways of the old world) can limit what we think we can do, and while research/evidence based methods are a great guide, we should also embrace the urgent need for new learning spaces, new ways of being, and a new practice.
What if we acknowledged the fact that no playbook exists for what we are experiencing right now? This liminal space—the emptiness between states of being—should not be numbed by innovations of the past but comforted with the hopes of the future.
We don’t have a robust cultural muscle to hold feelings that come with liminal space. We need to create virtual spaces to practice feeling all the things–frustration, anger, laughter, confusion, and grief that allow us to come together and design the practices we need. Too often, emotions and feelings become the end of the journey when feeling something is just the beginning.
Perhaps the solutions to our challenges and problems don't live within one school, teacher, or district. Thinking that there is only one answer is dangerous. This may have worked a few years ago, for a few people. It will not work now. What if the dilemmas and paradoxes we must dissolve are the work of many, not just a few? We need new spaces to come together, build community, and design the best practices for the moment. Using the Metaverse in this way could create responsive and timely innovations, and highlight the genius potential of the collective. We need new spaces.
Bring Your Highest and Most Healed Self
Imagine yourself more healed, more whole, and your most true self. Reflect on that image. How does that human walk, talk, and interact?
Healing is hard because the need to heal is often hard to see alone. It's layered inside of us and wreaks havoc in our relationships. The space between becomes more visible when we are together. When healing and coming back to ourselves means our designs for equity invite us to get closer to each other, we also have to do the more complex work of linking back to ourselves. When we remove this curtain and stand center stage, we see the personal and private habits, ways of thinking, myths, and knowledge systems that create our internal struggles. We also notice that the visibility of our assumptions and beliefs becomes more in focus when we are in a relationship with others and have a more connected relationship with ourselves.
The ability to observe ourselves and our habits is critical. Racism and oppression attack the heart. They are not just acts of powerful violence; they are silent, equally deadly ropes that bind our imagination and limit our flexibility and range of motion. It attacks our hearts and our minds.
When we commit to not bringing the worst parts of ourselves and our culture to this new space, and use the Metaverse as a liminal space that can approximate the experience in real life, we can dance, break old curses, and begin to emerge more whole. Abandoning the spirit of colonization requires that we all decide to be learners. We are both the subject and the object of learning.
The decision to practice being a new person liberates us from the old—we can do hard things, walk into ambiguity, experience struggle without defeat, and breathe joy through the hardest parts. It reminds us that sometimes the wired technologies that we have grown accustomed to for connection and relationship may fail, and that the social technologies of community building are still resilient and necessary. Both technologies are needed, and there is room for both. Finally, we remind ourselves that we can be in different relationships. We can talk to dragons. We can learn to walk, talk, and move differently. And we can fly. We need a new relationship with ourselves.
Design A New Social Contract Before Smart Contracts
While smart contracts—codes written into the blockchain that automatically execute a set of agreements—and their utility govern the discourse of many Web 3.0 conversations, reimagining a more healing social contract is required to resist the familiarity and comfort of colonization. Micheal Robbins of Learning Pathmakers agrees, “Without a new social contract, the Metaverse will look like WarCraft.”
We need a new social contract that allows the newly imagined world to reemerge. Our relationships maintain the design of the current social order. The current contract executes how we distribute resources, rationalize and tolerate suffering, and interact with ourselves and each other. It is efficient, effective, and scales seamlessly. And the current contract was founded in a knowledge system that justified and rationalized the colonization and oppression of others. Taught, assessed, and routinely celebrated, without visibility and intention, the current social contract will be reproduced effortlessly in spaces, ourselves, and our relationships.
The circles of belonging expand and contract so that experiences of marginalization are never static. We do things to make hearts smile and our ancestors giggle. While smart contracts and their utility govern the discourse of many Web 3.0 conversations, reimaging a more healing social contract is a worthwhile pursuit. Without a new social contract, anonymity creates less safety. Without a new social contract, boundless, immersive virtual learning environments quickly become constricting and asphyxiating. Without a new social contract, our grip on the current reality strengthens, bounding our imagination and capacity to dream, imagine, and design. We need a new relationship with each other.
If we were the only ones who have and offer ideas about this, we would act like colonizers! Other ideas deserve breath, light, and life, and we would like to hear and amplify them. We believe our movement to the Black Next Story needs a studio—a place intentionally practicing a new relationship with ourselves, our space, and each other. Will it solve all of our problems? Maybe not. But it could help remind us that we can learn new things about ourselves and each other. It can help us loosen our grip on the present so we can see beyond it to the future right around the corner. As explorers on this journey, we welcome insights and conversations. With these new ways, we collectively ensure that we create a more inclusive and loving social order in the Metaverse. Maybe we can have more courage to practice being better in real life.
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