ayandastood: reading list

ayandastood

hiii sunshine,
Thank you for being here! My name is Ayanda and I believe we
are living in the colonizers' imagination of reality. I seek to make
content that helps give language to the violent realities imposed
on us by white colonial imaginations. I also seek to provide
upliftment generally and vibe with you on the internet ;)

The most frequent question I get is: what do you read, listen to,
watch?! So here is my attempt to answer that. To be honest, I
struggled to create this. I couldn't quite pinpoint when it all
began. While I have included explicit texts, I feel that growing up
in South Africa was my earliest education into what it meant
for an entire society to be rooted in the violent myth of white
supremacy, apartheid, and white settler colonial rule.

This list is my attempt to capture content that has moved me,

some more recently than others. Don't view it as a list to be
completed (unless that serves you!) but as a resource to lean on
in whatever way feels useful.

I would love to hear back from YOU on what content, books,

essays have shifted paradigms in your life. We are in many dark
moments, but one bright spark is the access to information
many of us get to enjoy, that for many of our elders would have
been unfathomable.

Mostly I'm so excited that I now have a direct connection to you.

Thank you for being here. I'm excited about some of the things
to come, right to your inbox if you choose to stay.
I'm sending you all the love, today and always. You are precious.

Love,
Ayanda
P.S. If you would like to
financially support this work, my
Venmo is @ayandastood ❤️
 ayandastood

books
not a reader? search for
a YouTube video or
podcast on the book
and/or author :)

book will help you... quote

Pleasure Activism: The

Understand the power of
Politics of Feeling "Our radical imagination is a tool for decolonization, for
pleasure in liberation
Good by adrienne reclaiming our right to shape our lived reality.”
movements
maree brown

"“The lesson of ubuntu is best described in a proverb that

is found in almost every African language, whose
translation is, “A person is a person through other
Learn more about Ubuntu as a persons.” The fundamental meaning of the proverb is
Everyday Ubuntu by
philosophy and practice of that everything we learn and experience in the world is
Mungi Ngomane
interdependence through our relationships with other people. We are
therefore called to examine our actions and thoughts,
not just for what they will achieve for us, but for how they
impact on others with whom we are in contact.”

“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and

Learn more about how
Things Fall Apart by
colonialism unfolded in a
Chinua Achebe
fictional story
peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his
foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our
brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has
put a knife on the things that held us together and we
have fallen apart.”

Belly of the Beast:The Understand the intersections of "Black liberation is the end goal, and for it to happen, fat
Politics of Anti-fatness Blackness, fatness, desireability liberation must also be part of that goal. Not “body
as Anti-Blackness by politics, gender, "health", police positivity,” but freedom from the confinements of cages
Da'Shaun L. Harrison violence, and abolition —as Roxane Gay refers to the body—altogether."

"“In this book, I examine the history and legacy of the

Fearing the Black preference for slimness and aversion to fatness, with
Understand how race became a
Body: The Racial attention to their racial, gender, class, and medical
coherent ideology through anti-
Origins of Fatphobia contours. This book enters a decades-long conversation
fatness
by Sabrina Strings about the preference for slenderness and the phobia
about fatness in the United States.”

For those based in the US here is my fav Black-

and woman-owned Independent book store
rep.club and here is a list to more!
 ayandastood

books
book will help you... quote

Abolish the need for prisons in

"Rather than try to imagine one single alternative to
your imagination
the existing system of incarceration, we might

envision an array of alternatives that will require

Are Prisons Obsolete? by This book was my intro into US
radical transformations of many aspects of our
Angela Davis prison abolition about 5 years
society. Alternatives that fail to address racism, male

ago but there have since been so
dominance, homophobia, class bias, and other
Free pdf here many amazing books and essays
structures of domination will not, in the final
written on the topic. Find an
analysis, lead to decarceration and will not advance
abolitionist booklist here at
the goal of abolition.”
Abolitionist Futures

"The goal here is not to expel white women from

Against White Feminism: Understand the history, feminism, but to excise whiteness, with all its
Notes on Disruption by philosophy, and consequences assumptions of privilege and superiority, so as to
Rafia Zakaria of white feminism foster the freedom and empowerment of all
women."

"The fundamental category “woman” — which is

The Invention of Women:
foundational in Western gender discourses —
Making an African Sense Understand the history of gender
simply did not exist in Yorùbáland prior to its
of Western Gender as a colonial construct in Yoruba
sustained contact with the West. There was no such
Discourses society, Nigeria
preexisting group characterized by shared interests,
by Oyeronke Oyewumi desires, or social position."

“If you’re Native American and you pray to the

Born a Crime: Stories
Learn Trevor's story and wolves, you’re a savage. If you’re African and you
from a South African
reflections on growing up in pray to your ancestors, you’re a primitive. But when
Childhood by Trevor
apartheid South Africa white people pray to a guy who turns water into
Noah
wine, well, that’s just common sense.”

"All of the countries named as "underdeveloped" in

Unlearn the wild myth that
How Europe Under- the world are exploited by others; and the
European colonialism
developed Africa by underdevelopment with which the world is now
contributed to African
Walter Rodney preoccupied is a product of capitalist, imperialist
economies
and colonialist exploitation."
 ayandastood

books
book will help you... quote

Theorize race,
The Wreteched of the Earth
colonialism, “For a colonized people the most essential value, because
by Frantz Fanon
psychological trauma, the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land

and revolutionary which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.”
Free pdf here
struggle

Explore a fictional West

How Beautiful We Were by
Imbolo Mbue
“We might not live to see the day Kosawa or our country
African village's fight
comes out of its darkness into light, but we’ll forge
against colonialism and
forward believing, because there’s no other way to live.”
capitalism

“You were not just born to center your entire existence

Unlearn hustle culture, on work and labor. You were born to heal, to grow, to be
Rest is Resistance by Tricia
understand how rest and of service to yourself and community, to practice, to
Hersey
liberation are connected experiment, to create, to have space, to dream, and to
connect.”

"What if, instead, we reimagined virality as something we

might learn from? What if the virus is not something
simply to be feared and eliminated, but a microscopic
Viral Justice: How We Grow Learn a microvision for
model of what it could look like to spread justice and joy
the World We Want by social change that starts
in small but perceptible ways? Little by little, day by day,
Ruha Benjamin with each of us
starting in our own backyards, let’s identify our plots, get
to the root cause of what’s ailing us, accept our
interconnectedness, and finally grow the fuck up."

"It is essential to debate Eurocentrism within the

Understand how formation of Western knowledge and its claims for
Eurocentrism, Racism and
Eurocentrricism universal validity, since this provides a certain historical
Knowledge by various,
functions in universities mapping of the world that unambiguously establishes
edited by Marta Araújo &
and knowledge which events and processes are scientifically relevant and
Silvia Maeso
production how they are interpreted – simultaneouslydiscovering
and covering them."
 ayandastood

books
book will help you... quote

“As a woman, as a fat woman, I am not

Learn more about Roxane Gay's life, and
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) the intersections of anti-fatness, eating
Body by Roxane Gay disorders, anti-Blackness, and
homophobia
supposed to take up space. And yet, as a
feminist, I am encouraged to believe I can
take up space. I live in a contradictory
space where I should try to take up space
but not too much of it, and not in the
wrong way, where the wrong way is any
way where my body is concerned.”

The Seven Necessary Sins “Racism and bigotry are not polite, and I
for Women and Girls by Defy and disrupt the patriarchy refuse to be polite in my fight against
Mona Eltahawy them.”

“Profitable companies built in

Winners Take All: The Elite
Charade of Changing the
World by Anand
Giridharadas
Understand how the global elite's efforts
to "change the world" preserve the status
quo and obscure their role in causing the
problems they later seek to solve
questionable ways and employing reckless
means engage in corporate social
responsibility, and some rich people make
a splash by “giving back”—regardless of
the fact that they may have caused serious
societal problems as they built their
fortunes.”

"Imagination has people thinking they can

Emergent Strategy by
adrienne maree brown
Understand how we can change the
world, linking social change to nature
go from being poor to a millionaire as part
of a shared American dream. Imagination
turns Brown bombers into terrorists and
white bombers into mentally ill victims.
Imagination gives us borders, gives us
superiority, gives us race as an indicator of
ability. I often feel I am trapped inside
someone else's capability. I often feel I am
trapped inside someone' else's
imagination, and I must engage my own
imagination in order to break free.”
 ayandastood

Videos
i have recently gotten into YouTube &
these are some recent favs!!

Shanspere: Our Obsession With

Beauty is Dystopian

Andrewism: The Importance of

Imagination; The Myth of Human
History; Rethinking Family; UCT students: Science Must Fall
The Psychology of Colonialism

Real Talk: Decolonized Education

Explained in Simple Terms; Black Alok V Menon: Have the Courage
Lives are Not Valued in South Africa to Break Your Own Heart
 ayandastood

Videos

African Biographics: Steve Biko Mayowa's World: Are Dark Skin

People in the Future?

Joy James: The Architechts of Bobo's Void: How do you leave the
Abolitionism, Brown University matrix?

Khadija Mbowe: Decentering Dixon Chibanda: Why I train

romantic relationships grandmothers to treat depression
 ayandastood

Videos

Nelson Maldonado-Torres: Cornel West: Philosophy in Our

Coloniality of Power Time of Imperial Decay

Freedom in Thought: Become Who Fab Socialism: Eh pretty privilege isn’t

You're Afraid to Be substantial but desirability politics is

School of Pan-African Thought: Thich Nhat Hanh: How to Deal with

Understanding Pain-Africanist Strong Emotions
Philosophy, 3 part series
 ayandastood

Podcasts
Beauty Decolonize

Spotify | Apple Spotify | Apple

Spotify | Apple Spotify | Apple

Spotify | Apple Spotify | Apple

Spotify | Apple Spotify | Apple

Spotify | Apple Spotify | Apple

Racism, capitalism & misc.

Spotify | Apple Spotify | Apple

Spotify | Apple Spotify | Apple

Spotify | Apple Spotify | Apple

 ayandastood

Essays
Threadings Substack
by Ismatu Gwendolyn

The Transformation of Silence

into Language and Action
by Audre Lorde

Decolonizing the notion of

Citizenship
by Phumlani Majavu

Moving Toward the Ugly: A

Politic Beyond Desirability
by Mia Mingus

On the Coloniality of Being

by Nelson Maldonado-Torres

The Uses of the Erotic:

The Erotic as Power
by Audre Lorde
 ayandastood

i hope you enjoyed this resource! if you would like to

financially support me for this work, my venmo is:
@ayandastood