I generally choose not to answer because the premise of this inquiry irritates me greatly, but showing my irritation might discourage someone excited about learning from continued exploration. Please, by all means, research further! In case it’s not obvious from the hundreds of thousands of words that I’ve written for anyone who wishes to read them: I love research. I relish the expansion of my mind, even where it is itchy/ uncomfortable/ disheartening/ maddening. Growth, to me, is worth all that much— especially growth towards collective sovereignty.
I maintain that I do not like nor assign reading lists. For one: don’t nobody like homework. For two, the basic premise behind the question of ismatu, what did you read? assumes that radicalization in my life came from books. Radicalization in my life came from deviating from the systems in place in meaningful and tangible ways— because that’s where radicalism begins. A radical lifestyle is not one where you read all the selected, curated works, journal to yourself about how moved you are, then continue doing the exact same shit you was on before. Radicalism begins when you move differently. My life events are such that I do not wonder which came first, the reading or the work— I began taking reading seriously because I needed radical departure from the systems in front of me. Word to childhood ismatu reading to escape poverty + abusive households. Shoutout college ismatu reading to escape a life of plantation-style academia. Big ups to graduate school ismatu saying fuck these books. you know what’s gonna get me far in life? these tits and this ass. And libations post-grad ismatu being like, fuck, gotta stop drinking* because someone needs to teach the kids to read.
*kdding. :)
I radicalized in dawning mornings schlepping my sorry ass back from grinding on steel mill union men all night. I radicalized more in the training I had as a street medic than in my entire first year of undergrad. The process, for me, was cumulative and exponential, with long plateaus to rest, digest, and germinate. Reading is a great place to start if you want to move your mind towards new possibilities! Read! Watch! Listen! Explore! But this is not a reading list; I am only citing my sources. I don’t think you read to become radical; I think you become radical and then you read like your life depends on it (because it does).
Mix of short and long form resources below, all given organized here and provided free because I was deadass about information anarchy.
From The Age Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
from FBI Records | COINTELPRO Black Extremist Part 01; August 1967