What Does It Mean to Be Thingified? Encountering Epidermalization as an International Student through the Lens of Critical African Phenomenology

This paper is a critical African phenomenological inquiry into my experiences of racism as an international student in Canada. Drawing on Husserl, Fanon, and Freire, I explore the embodied, historical schema of racism through vignettes of racial slurs, exposing systemic silence that fails to protect racialized bodies. The paper traces epidermalization—the marking of Black bodies through visible difference—and violence that 'thingifies' Black bodies. It introduces the 'telephonic curriculum,' the intergenerational wiring of racial ideologies. I connect these moments to global "geo-racism" during the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak, arguing that pathologization of Black bodies stems from a learned racial framework. This paper calls for international education to move beyond tolerance toward decolonial practices based on Freirean conscientization, positioning the classroom as a site for challenging racial constructs and enacting decolonial change.