This article takes a deep dive into my doctoral journey and my lived experience as an emerging Black African scholar doing decolonial research in a South African colonial and Westernized university. I wrestle with the contradictions and tensions that emerged during this period that took place at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. I also look back with 'willful resistance' to the oppressive systems of knowledge productions and the limitations of doing decolonial work. I consider my own complicity with these oppressive systems of knowledge production as I attempt to work within institutional constraints to fulfil the requirements of a PhD degree. Using Black existential theory as a lens and autoethnography as method, the goal is to generate a discussion with other emerging scholars about their own lived experiences doing decolonial research in colonial universities.