Mahmoud El-Kati discusses "The Myth of Race, The Reality of Racism"

An Ashanti proverb says that “If you know the beginning well, the end won’t trouble you.”

In Mahmoud El-Kati’s The Myth of Race The Reality of Racism, El-Kati poses his thesis on the concept of “race” and the impact of racism. In this second edition, he adds several other key essays addressing ideas that are often confusing to the public such as “nationality,” “culture” and ways to address “Man’s most dangerous myth” and confront the reality of racism.

Mahmoud El-Kati, a historian who taught at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, lays down the fundamental construct and history of “race”. He eloquently sheds light on the perspectives of many great thinkers such as Thomas Jefferson who stated, “I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind.”

El-Kati does not mince words in his collection of essays. He states, “By racism, I mean ‘white supremacy’” and just as Neely Fuller has said time and time again that “if you don’t understand the doctrine of ‘white supremacy’ you are going to be confused about everything else in this society.”

----

Professor Emeritus of history at Macalester College, Mahmoud El-Kati is a lecturer, writer, and commentator on the African American experience. He specializes in African American history and advocates institution building within cultural communities. He is an advocate of building one’s humanity through the understanding of their culture, history and community. He currently lives in the Rondo neighborhood, St. Paul’s historic Black community.