Racism and coloniality: when not all lives matter

“Racism is not an accident. It is a legacy carefully maintained by structures that hierarchize bodies, knowledge, and spiritualities.”

Introduction

In many faith-based spaces it is solemnly repeated that “all lives matter,” but that affirmation fades when we look at who is truly protected, heard, and represented. For many Indigenous, Black, mixed-race, and migrant women, that phrase does not resonate in their bodies wounded by contempt, nor in their communities marked by centuries of exclusion. Coloniality and racism are not wounds of the past: they are active structures that continue to organize the world, even within the church. And racialized women, who find themselves at the intersection of multiple systems of oppression, bear their weight most intensely.

Colonial legacies that remain in force

Colonization did not end with independence. Its logic continues to operate in our institutions, economies, and religions. The philosopher María Lugones invites us to understand the modern/colonial gender system, a global matrix that hierarchizes people according to race, gender, and class, and that defines who is a thinking subject and who is an object that must obey. “The coloniality of power produces ‘less human’ subjects, subordinate subjects, who are not recognized as thinking, spiritual, or moral” (1).

This logic is reflected in how women of color—Latinas, Black, Indigenous, mixed-race, and migrant women—are treated in hospitals, courts, at borders, and even in educational settings. Their credibility is questioned, their pain is minimized, and their humanity is denied. And what is most painful is that this denial comes not only from the state or the economic system, but also from religious communities that replicate structures of obedience, silence, and hierarchy.

The multiple marginalization of indigenous, black and migrant women:

Racialized women experience what theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw calls intersectionality: the overlapping of multiple forms of discrimination. It is not enough to speak of “gender violence” if we do not recognize the influence of race, social class, or immigration status. “Indigenous women have been erased from official history, theology, politics, and even hegemonic feminism” (2).

In many churches, racialized women are still expected to be confined to service roles: cooking, cleaning, childcare. Their knowledge is not recognized as theology but reduced to “intuitions.” Their languages ​​are corrected, their accents mocked, and their spiritualities ignored or exorcised in the name of a normative faith.

I recall a personal experience that illustrates this invisibility. Until recently, I served as interim director of a theological institute in Los Angeles. A dear friend—white, bright, and dedicated—told me admiringly, “You’re running the school very well, even though you’ve done it by intuition.” Her comment, though well-intentioned, deeply surprised me. It erased, in one fell swoop, my professional and academic background in multicultural education, and the years of experience that have equipped me to lead with sound judgment, analysis, and strategic vision. In a single sentence, all my knowledge was reduced to “instinct,” as if my ability stemmed from a natural sensitivity, and not from a lifetime of study and commitment.

Afro-feminist scholar Ochy Curiel denounces that even within white feminism a “universal subject” was constructed that does not include Black, Indigenous, or poor women (3). This model is replicated in the church: a hegemonic, white, masculine, and Eurocentric spirituality that excludes other experiences of God.

Institutional violence: forced sterilization and cultural genocide

Racialized bodies, especially women’s bodies, have historically been subject to control, abuse, and extermination. This is not merely discrimination, but systematic violence aimed at eliminating entire populations or altering their reproduction. Between 2006 and 2010, hundreds of migrant women were forcibly sterilized in detention centers in the United States, without their full consent or adequate translation (4). These practices are reminiscent of the mass sterilization campaigns carried out in Peru against Indigenous women during the Fujimori regime in the 1990s (5).

These policies are not “administrative errors”: they are the continuation of a colonial logic that defines which bodies should multiply and which should disappear. Gladys Tzul Tzul, an indigenous K’iche’ sociologist, points out that this type of violence is complemented by the denial of the right to govern themselves according to their communal systems, which amounts to a political and spiritual genocide (6).

The decolonization of gender and spirituality

Decolonizing is a difficult process because it involves questioning what we consider “normal,” “spiritual,” and “civilized.” Why do we think that liturgy can only have European forms? Why is the image of God still that of a white man? Why are dance, natural medicine, and communal singing devalued? As Ochy Curiel states, “The universal subject of the Christian faith has historically been a white, heterosexual, European male. Everything else has been ‘the other’” (3).

Decolonizing faith means opening space for other epistemologies: Black, Andean, Mayan, and Afro-Latin American theologies. It means ceasing to use the Bible as a tool of domestication and transforming it into a source of liberation. It means recognizing a God who does not resemble the oppressor, but rather is embodied in the most marginalized. To achieve this, we must create spaces where racialized women are not only heard, but also lead; where they can pray in their own language, interpret Scripture through their own history, and heal collectively through their spirituality.

Three dimensions of coloniality and spirituality

Conclusion

It is urgent that we open our eyes, not only to feel outrage, but to transform ourselves. Faith can no longer uphold racial and gender hierarchies. We cannot continue celebrating the resurrection while denying the humanity of so many sisters. Walking toward a decolonized spirituality is an act of justice, healing, and communion. It means relinquishing the privilege of speaking for others and humbly sitting down to learn from those who have resisted with their bodies, their voices, and their spirituality.

References:

1. María Lugones, Towards a Decolonial Feminism (Buenos Aires: Ediciones del Signo,

2. Aura Cumes, The nation from the perspective of indigenous women (Guatemala: Editorial Serviprensa, 2012), 44.

3. Ochy Curiel, The heterosexual nation: Analysis of legal discourse and the heterosexual regime from the anthropology of domination (Bogotá: National University of Colombia, 2007), 117.

4. Cynthia Greenlee, “A History of Forced Sterilizations in the U.S.,” The Nation, July 2020.

5. Giulia Tamayo León, Nothing personal: Report on forced sterilizations in Peru (Lima: CLADEM, 1999), 29.

6. Gladys Tzul Tzul, Indigenous communal government systems (Guatemala City: FLACSO, 2016), 63.