ABOUT

Hi, I’m Weeze

My name is Louiza Doran (she/her) but everyone who knows me calls me Weeze- permission slip to do the same.  

I could give you a whole run down about who I am and share a lot of stories about all the many things I’ve done that position me as an expert but honestly, bios are really just here to “justify or prove” who I am and why I'm good at what I do….

So let's just get to brass tacks because I think what's more important is what my work and my ethos are.

Here we go!

Reimagine the future

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Build Community

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Lean into Liberation

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Become an Architect of Possibility

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Reimagine the future ・ Build Community ・ Lean into Liberation ・ Become an Architect of Possibility .

  • I'm a cis-het woman

  • First-gen American from Moroccan & Algerian ancestry

  • Polyglot

  • Racially ambiguous indigenous Amazigh woman (you can ask me more about this when we chat)

  • Born and raised in Oakland, CA.

My Social Identifiers are:

  • I'm a public intellectual working and teaching towards liberation through my educational and transformational programming and services.

  • I’m the founder and executive director of my nonprofit- The Asafa Collective- which provides mentorship and resources to support Oakland’s young people in their matriculation from secondary school to adulthood. 

  • The rest of the time I’m a gym bro and a dog mom to the love of my life, Lola.

What I Do:

My Background:

Personal + Professional


I’m not going to paint you a rags to riches story because I’m not special - a lot of us come from nothing and make something of ourselves.  Like a lot of folks from immigrant families, I had to get up out of the mud and build a path for myself without a lot of privileges or resources. I will say carving that path does take a certain level of resilience, determination, intelligence and passion. And I've got that. 

I did have the privilege of becoming highly educated- in academic spaces, healing and personal development spaces, and via lived-experience and community in social justice spaces. 

I have a deep love of education and how powerful a tool for liberation access to education is…but, and, also… am also highly critical of the world of academia.  

I was one of those ‘gifted and talented kids’ (see neurodivergent but high functioning and performing) - reading all the things, wanting to know all the things, questioning all the things- including the school leadership.  I was accepted to an ivy league university (an effort to spite my guidance counselor who didn’t think I could do it- Scorpio) but opted to attend a better fit in my own backyard- Cal Berkeley for Sociology. 

What the outside world may see as radical was just part of the culture I grew up in- both because of what Oakland is and because of the experience of coming from a family that was living under a violent colonial occupation. If you want to understand more about the context of my life and lens as it was shaped by my lineage, watch my TED Talk. 

If you’re from Oakland, you know growing up here you’re just built different… community, liberation, social justice movements are just part of the fabric of life when you’re from here.  I went to my first protest when I was 6 years old. One of my favorite mentors is a child of one of the most prolific leaders in the Black Liberation Movement.

Basically, liberation work is my home and the essence of who I am.

The Professional Run Down:

  • Sociologist

  • Educator + Public Intellectual whose work has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, and BuzzFeed News [see more about my press credits here].  I’m most proud that a term I coined- BBIMP- was added to Urban Dictionary- proudest moment of my career thus far.

  • Healer, Guide + Facilitator who has personally coached over 3000 people from all walks of life in personal liberation, anti-racism, and decolonization work

  • Activist and Community organizer

  • Fitness trainer - strength and conditioning coach & Boxing is my primary sport

  • TED Speaker where my talk Architect of Possibility currently has 336k Views + 35k Likes and counting [Check out more about my Speaker + Press stats]

  • Hosted successful podcasts since 2018 as well as guest starred on a variety of others.  Currently hosting my solo show, According to Weeze.

  • Built a social media following providing free education to an Instagram audience of 90k with a 40% engagement rate

  • Entrepreneur who has personally built 7 figure businesses from the ground up

  • Executive Coach, Social Impact Consultant + COO for businesses desiring decolonial models.  My business clients run businesses upwards of $50 million in revenue (like, I’m not here to play, you know what I mean?)  I take businesses that could be high earning that are not doing well and I help them get their shit together… And, I help them do it in a way that allows them to actually feel good about the money that they are making and then pour it back into communities. Yes, you can reach levels of conventional success and not be exploitative or oppressive…I promise!

  • My business clients include large entertainment + recreation companies; continuing education companies in the medical industry; property management companies; nonprofit executive directors managing endowments in the millions

  • Built nonprofit organizations from the ground up including The Asafa Collective;  served as a board member on others + consulted as a founding member for 3 additional non profits

  • Currently consulting for existing nonprofits + community oriented visionaries who are driven by purpose but need structural and operational support and guidance to bring a long term legacy to life

  • Prior to running my own business, I was in the corporate world serving in positions across the power structure from associate to Director across a wide array of industries - from pro music to sports, tech to beauty, schools to community orgs. 

Now, within the constructs of whiteness, you know what my resume is- 

I have now checked all the boxes to show I’m an expert through both my academic training and my years of experience in these respective spaces.

Now that you know that, let's get to the part that I think is important!

My Ethos

I believe in and operate on a few fundamental beliefs in my own life and work + in working with people: 

  1. Liberation for all, at the expense of none.™

  2. I believe liberation begins with individuals and through that individual’s transformation, ripples out to the greater collective.

  3. Liberation means honoring other’s humanity- that does not mean being nice to everyone, it means honoring their humanity even when you have to set boundaries, be firm, be straightforward, be bold, be passionate, feel feelings, be compassionate and be kind (because that’s different than being nice).

  4. I believe in a ‘love-based approach’ (shout out bell hooks) and hold people with grace and tenderness while stretching them, their minds and their lives, and disrupting patterns. 

  5. There is deep nuance in many things and we all hold multiplicities.  You will hear me often say- but, and, also- because there are few times where we don’t have to hold these layers OR we gotta figure out how to hold them all!

  6. Meeting people where they’re at is crucial for this work.

  7. Being an educator means to be deeply committed to a student’s transformation as a person. It means creating a space where the mind, spirit and whole person feel safe enough to follow guidance and thus grow.

In business and when working with businesses, my ethos includes:

  1. I believe the faster we can liberate our colonial capitalistic practice, the faster that we liberate the world.

  2. Money isn’t the root of all evil, but it is the root of our dehumanization.

  3. It is possible for people to make a lot of money with no guilt or shame while paying others and themselves well, giving back to their communities, and doing it without reproducing harm or shame.

  4. That scaling business ethically and decolonial practices are applicable across industries (and I’ve worked in many of them) 

Liberatory Learning

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Liberatory Lens

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Liberatory Life

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Liberatory Learning ・ Liberatory Lens ・ Liberatory Life ・

And lastly…what I’m teaching here:

About Liberation

Liberation is love; it is resistance; it is revolution.

It means we uphold our joy and our humanity in the face of oppressive systems- Systems meant to stymy these natural human needs and experiences in us.

We adopt and develop the tools, mindset, knowledge and skills to be able to achieve this through liberatory learning- the education, tools, and transformational process that pulls us ever closer to our own liberation. And by way of our own liberation, so too do we liberate others.

This process includes developing tools such as a liberatory lens to see things more clearly, think more critically, and have more awareness of ourselves and the world around us; and secondly, by using that lens to first dream and then build your own liberatory life.

A liberatory lens means we are able to think critically and view the world, its events, our own lives, impacts and place in the world with liberation at the center.

A liberatory life means everything we do- the way we move, interact with others, see community, make decisions, spend our money and our time, do our work, raise our children, act as partners and friends- has liberation at its core.  It is not a curated lifestyle but a way of living. 

It means:

  •  not adhering to oppressive systems

  • being cognizant of how one participates in systems

  • making decisions that minimize harm to self and others

  • advocating for oneself and others

  • maintaining a regulated nervous system in the face of oppression and chaos 

We do this work because developing the tools and knowledge develops this lens and life.

And as we liberate ourselves, those effects spread out to the collective.

The liberation starts with you.

Who I Work With

Whether you’ve been on a liberation journey for a while or you’re brand new….You don’t have to know anything about sociology or understand anything about oppression to work with me.

If you have a big heart and lots of compassion, are deeply empathetic (and probably have a lot of big feelings)….if you are kind in the way you interact with other people, animals, and the earth…if you have a curious mind…if you’ve looked around and ever thought, ‘This can’t be life. There HAS to be something better’…

Then you’re in the right place.

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F.W.

“Incredible. Weeze holds you accountable and doesn't let her students get away with any bullshit. I felt incredibly safe. They way she talked about the aim to create a space to support and protect the most marginalized and by doing that, you protect everyone on the full spectrum of those experiences was felt every class.”

K.C.

“Amazing. I can't imagine anyone else who can not only hold the space for all of us, but help us all equally, despite our varying socialization and lived experiences, at different places in our journey.”

Take a moment to listen.