Calls for the decolonisation of higher education in South Africa have been punctuated by comments on black pain. This is not surprising if it is acknowledged that violence inordinately marks so much of South African life. What is rarely discussed though is the idea that pain has also come to be fetishised. Pain, for example, is valued as a pedagogical means. While invoking notions of the decolonisation of education that cohere with humanisation, the authors critically reflect on the ways in which pain remains a dehumanising feature of higher education in South Africa. In doing so, they hope to start a discussion around issues seldom addressed more than in deeply felt sentiments that are rarely clarified and defined in terms of their importance for the transformation and decolonisation of higher education.