I found this week’s reading from Lara’s Queer Freedom : Black Sovereignty to be very thought-provoking and illuminating. One aspect of this ethnography I resonated with was the incorporation of different modes of thinking in her analysis of current oppressive structures and ideas of decolonization. Something unique to this ethnography is the way Lara embraces breaking down socialized ways of thinking enforced by Christian Coloniality. Moreover, one of Lara’s main conflicts is with the ontological possibilities delimited by this structure and the capitalism that followed (6). As Lara elucidates, states uphold the racial, gender, and sexual standards enacted through Christian colonial ideologies and therefore posits a method of thinking about these ways of being far removed from the oppressive systems perpetuating them. I appreciate how Lara addresses the deeply institutionalized roots of colonization and even how movements for the liberation of black and queer people can fall victim to regarding the state as a site of freedom. This thought relates to a reading I have done from David Pellow’s What is Critical Environmental Justice, where he takes an aggressive stance toward the state as an actor for change versus a perpetrator of oppression. I agree with the ideas from both of these authors that looking to a system that has continually created inequity and suffering for marginalized people is not alone productive for meaningful efforts towards decolonization (and in Pellow’s case, Environmental Justice). Further, I agree that for decolonization to be fully realized, the process must take place in different realms, including spiritual-religious and theo-philosophical ideas of transformation. Lara in her ethnography, engages with an incomplete analogy, leaving the audience to question their desire for an articulated resolution. This was a method that both excites and frustrates me. As she discusses, individuals make their unique meanings in life, therefore placing the responsibility on them to delineate their understandings. I am excited by how engaging the idea of incompleteness is. I also enjoy the direct engagement Lara forces on the reader when understanding her work. As she mentions, her ethnography is a space where you must be present, and her intentional opacity highlights this. Although this provides a mode of conversation with the audience, I wonder if this dilutes the ethos that Lara has as the ethnographer. This question was appeased by reading the ways Lara engaged with her work, and the exhaustive nature of her research because it bolstered her authority to me as a reader.