• About Us
    • Mission & Vision
    • Impact
    • Eboo Patel
    • Team
    • Board of Directors
    • Careers
    • Reports & Financials
  • Sectors
    • Higher Education
    • Racial Equity
    • Emerging Leaders
    • Faith & Health
    • Religion in the Workplace
    • Religious Diversity & Bridgebuilding
    • Policy
    • Faith & Civic Life
    • Tech & Interfaith
  • What We Do
    • Courses, Curricula, and Tools
    • Events
    • Grants & Leadership Awards
    • Research
    • Consulting
    • Speaking
  • Magazine
    • Interfaith America Magazine
    • Interfaith America with Eboo Patel
  • Get Involved
    • Subscribe
    • Contact Us
    • Support Us
    • Our Supporters
Menu
  • About Us
    • Mission & Vision
    • Impact
    • Eboo Patel
    • Team
    • Board of Directors
    • Careers
    • Reports & Financials
  • Sectors
    • Higher Education
    • Racial Equity
    • Emerging Leaders
    • Faith & Health
    • Religion in the Workplace
    • Religious Diversity & Bridgebuilding
    • Policy
    • Faith & Civic Life
    • Tech & Interfaith
  • What We Do
    • Courses, Curricula, and Tools
    • Events
    • Grants & Leadership Awards
    • Research
    • Consulting
    • Speaking
  • Magazine
    • Interfaith America Magazine
    • Interfaith America with Eboo Patel
  • Get Involved
    • Subscribe
    • Contact Us
    • Support Us
    • Our Supporters
Subscribe
Support Us
Racial Equity

What I Want My Kids to Learn About American Racism

By
Eboo Patel

May 10, 2022

Girl with curly hair in field with American flag
(bbernard/Shutterstock)

I first heard the phrase “white supremacy” in my introductory sociology course at the University of Illinois in 1993.

The image of men wearing white sheets and burning crosses came to mind, and I figured my professor was referring to ancient history. But I remember her continuing: “White supremacy is the assumption that the cultural patterns associated with white people — from clothes to language to aesthetic preferences to family structure — are normal, and the patterns associated with people of color are inferior.”

Wait, didn’t that basically describe my entire life? Feeling strange about my Indian grandmother’s clothes, about my grandmother’s cooking, about the fact that my grandmother even lived with us.

Read more in The New York Times.

Eboo Patel is the founder and president of Interfaith America, a nonprofit organization in Chicago that promotes cooperation among people of different religions. He is the author of “We Need to Build,” from which this essay is adapted.

Share

Related Articles

  • Racial Equity

    Immigrant Faith Communities On Rooting Out Anti-Black Racism

  • American Civic Life

    Is This a Time for Bridgebuilding? 5 Leaders in Conversation

  • American Civic Life

    See No Stranger-Wisdom for a World We’re Building

Latest Articles

Pride in the Pews founder Don Abram (right). Photo courtesy of Abram
  • Racial Equity

Pride in the Pews: Reimagining What Inclusion Looks Like in Black Churches

Feb 07, 2023
Sabriya Dobbins. Courtesy image
  • Emerging Leaders

The Kaleidoscopes We Carry: An Interfaith Innovation Fellowship Project

Feb 07, 2023
Congregation members in church. (fitzcrittle/Shutterstock)
  • Racial Equity

A Brief History of the Black Church’s Diversity, and its Vital Role in American Political History

Feb 06, 2023
American novelist and activist James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) addresses an audience in a church, USA, October 1963. (Photo by Mario Jorrin/Pix/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
  • Racial Equity

Running Thread: Black History is Our History

Feb 06, 2023
End of content
No more articles to load
Interfaith America, 141 W. Jackson Blvd, Suite 3200, Chicago, IL 60604, US

© 2022 Interfaith America

Instagram Youtube Facebook Twitter
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use