Many of us agree that mainstream schools and dominant institutions are worth resisting.

Top-down "education" is exactly what produces an exploitable working class that sustains billionaire greed.

These institutions flatten and extract from us (people of the Global Majority), while working perfectly for those in power.

When we see this, we push back. We seek out alternatives to the systems that colonized and harmed us.

True education shouldn't erase ancestral knowledge. It should build upon the rich legacies passed down from our peoples.

When we can't find our roots in dominant learning spaces, we seek belonging elsewhere.

In our radicalization journey, we're often drawn to esoteric and spiritual spaces, subconsciously seeking connection to knowledge the way our ancestors knew.

The pattern often goes:

Speak out against patriarchy & capitalism → Engage in "radical" and "activist" spaces → Venture deeper into counter-culture & esoteric spaces.

What we're really longing for is connection to our ancestors themselves. To their ways of knowing, being, doing, and resisting.

But here's the pitfall in that path:

Many of the spaces we end up in lack the time-tested scholarship needed to liberate us from oppressive conditions.

We end up with aesthetic substitutes that don't bring us any closer to our ancestors or liberation.

So much of what's on offer (dominated by whiteness) is spiritual or cultural learning sold as weekend workshops, certification programs, short-term consumable offerings.

They use terms that feel culturally grounded or outside the western mainstream. But the way they engage us, consumption for instant gratification, is soundly colonial & capitalistic.

These offerings bypass necessary aspects of truly decolonizing paradigms:

• Invitation, not entitlement.
• Deep relationship, not transactional exchange.
• Interdependence, not individual enlightenment.
• Critical thinking, not emotional bypass.
• Direct action & resistance, not self-help.
• Apprenticeship to elders, not DIY spirituality.

We can't afford to eliminate critical thinking, rigor, and apprenticeship in our liberatory learning spaces. Without these, we can't build the worlds our ancestors stewarded.

Our ancestors understood the power of devoted scholarship:

• Rigorous observation of land, water, seasons, and ecosystems.
• Collective decision-making that valued multiple perspectives.
• Sustained experimentation and critical analysis - refining what worked over generations.
• Complex synthesis across material, spiritual, and collective knowledges.

With these critical skills, our forbears built powerful systems that fed, watered, sheltered, educated, and spiritually sustained us.

Our ancestors were scientists, engineers, theorists, and organizers. Their knowledge was rigorous, empirical, and intergenerational - not ornamental.

Hawaiʻi's ahupuaʻa system sustained communities for 500-600 years. Every person had access to resources from mountain to sea. 360 fishponds produced 2 million pounds of fish annually through advanced aquaculture. Labor was only six days per month - the rest was culture, ceremony, art, science.

Vietnam's communal landholding system reallocated rice fields every six years based on family size and need. No household was landless. Villages paid taxes collectively. This ensured basic subsistence and created social safety nets that lasted over 15 generations.

Ancestral ways of knowing were dialogical, interdependent, and in service to the whole. This kind of scholarship views learning as sacred collective responsibility.

Confucian education cultivates virtue through rigorous study of classics, history, and governance. The scholar-official exists as a servant of the people.

Buddhist study engages in dialectical reasoning. Tests teachings through direct experience. The sangha (community of practitioners) is essential to learning.

Indigenous paradigms - learners apprentice to elders, in sustained relationship. Earning knowledge through demonstrated responsibility and service.

Revolutionary scholarship builds on ancient frameworks of knowledge.

Decolonizing theorists (Fanon, Thiong'o, Césaire) critically analyze power systems, explain how colonization operates, and build new knowledge systems that center the colonized NOT the colonizer.

Black Power scholars (Angela Davis, Kwame Ture, C.L.R. James) understand that liberation requires both theoretical analysis and organized action. Remind us that intellectual work belongs to the people and calls for the building of independent institutions.

This kind of scholarship is dangerous to systems of power because it creates people who can think critically and analyze systems. It builds communities of mutual accountability and shared knowledge. It produces moral leaders who resist greed and serve collective liberation.

When the revolution is carried out by scholars - people who've done sustained study in decolonizing, ancestral, and critical frameworks - we don't just tear down oppressive systems.

We build what comes next.

We don't just critique capitalism. We design economies based on reciprocity and redistribution.

We don't just talk about collective care. We build the infrastructure that makes it sustainable.

We don't just dream of liberation. We master the technical skills to construct it.

What does radical scholarship rooted in ancestral knowledge look like for us?

• Building community land trusts using Indigenous land stewardship principles and modern legal frameworks.
• Creating worker-owned cooperatives informed by historical examples of collective wealth.
• Designing educational systems that honor multiple knowledge traditions while teaching critical analysis.
• Establishing healthcare models that integrate ancestral healing practices with scientific medicine.
• Developing food systems based on traditional agriculture AND current ecological science.

This is NOT hypothetical. It's already happening.

So here's the question you must answer with your communities:

Where are your scholars?

Are you the scholar for your people? What traditions are you apprenticing in? What elders are holding you accountable? What peers are you engaging in rigorous inquiry with?

Because when you're serious about paradigm change, you need to make critical choices about your ongoing education.

The revolution needs scholars. People who can think critically, build strategically, and lead with integrity.

Our ancestors revered, sustained, and generated scholars who shaped the worlds they lived in and passed down to us.

Now it's our turn.

Rigorous scholarship is what Simone Seol and I are devoted to as we build our liberatory learning spaces.

We know that a critical mass of scholars, builders, and innovators is what it takes to catalyze paradigm shifts.

​Building Post-Capitalist Wealth is the free course where you examine: What your ancestors built at scale, what they proved possible, and what they're calling you to recover.

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Workbook 2 walks you through 6 historical case studies with the actual numbers, the real systems, the wealth that sustained generations: Ancient Hawaiʻi. Vietnam. The Mughal Empire. Black Wall Street. Mansa Musa. Madam C.J. Walker.

This is the evidence that your people already did what you're being called to do now—build wealth that funds collective liberation.

As you sit with what they've proven possible, ask yourself:

📐 What education do I need to cultivate my greatest potential?
📐 Where are my scholars?
📐 What am I apprenticing in?

This is how you become the ancestor your descendants will study.

Join the free course. For People of the Global Majority only.